Below is the complete list of Alisha Klapheke’s Starry Kingdoms of the Fae books in order. For this series, the chronological reading order is the same as the order of publication.
Publication Order of Starry Kingdoms of the Fae Books
About Starry Kingdoms of the Fae
Starry Kingdoms of the Fae is not a conventional Alisha Klapheke series but a 2023 multi-author fantasy-romance collection to which she contributed Bound by Dragons. Created as a coordinated group of standalone stories, the collection brought together authors including Klapheke, Eliza Tilton, Jessica M. Butler, Stephanie BwaBwa, Angela J. Ford, Nicole Zoltack, Jesikah Sundin, Nicki Chapelway, Megan Charlie, Jes Drew, and Jamie Dalton. Each writer created an independent Fae-centered romance rather than contributing chapters to one shared narrative, so the books are united by concept and presentation more than by characters or chronology.
The collection revolves around magical kingdoms, Fae courts, supernatural beings, romance, and characters whose relationships are complicated by duty, curses, political conflict, or dangerous forms of magic. Titles share the “Bound by” naming pattern, but their worlds are separate. One story may involve dragon royalty and murder within a court, while another centers on angels, magical bargains, cursed princes, floating kingdoms, pirates, or forbidden relationships. Readers therefore encounter considerable variation in mythology and tone despite the deliberately coordinated branding.
Klapheke’s contribution, Bound by Dragons, introduces Tahlia and Marius within her own Realm of Dragons and Fae. Tahlia is a half-Fae woman determined to earn a place among the Mist Knights, an elite order whose members ride dragons while protecting their kingdom. Marius is an accomplished Fae knight whose disciplined existence is disrupted by her arrival. Their contrasting personalities and growing attraction give the story its romantic core, while dragon riding, magical ability, social status, and the demanding culture surrounding the Mist Knights supply the fantasy conflict.
Unlike most contributions to the broader collection, however, Bound by Dragons became the beginning of something larger. Klapheke continued Tahlia and Marius’s story in additional novels, developing Bound by Dragons into its own series. Their adventures expand beyond the original competition and romantic setup into new magical dangers, threats to the dragon riders, powerful artifacts, and increasingly consequential responsibilities. This makes Klapheke’s contribution unusual within Starry Kingdoms of the Fae: it functions independently as promised by the collection, but it also serves as an entry point into a continuing storyline for readers who want more of its characters.
The other Starry Kingdoms books do not need to be read before that continuation. There is no overarching plot requiring knowledge of the different authors’ kingdoms, and characters from one contributor’s story are not part of a carefully sequenced shared-universe narrative. The numbered or publication arrangement attached to the collection is consequently more useful as a record of release than as a required reading path.
This structure also explains why Starry Kingdoms of the Fae can appear under several participating authors even though none of them individually wrote the entire series. It is best understood as a collaborative collection of romantic-fantasy standalones assembled around a common theme. Klapheke occupies one part of that project through Bound by Dragons, while the subsequent Bound by Dragons books belong specifically to her own expanding fantasy world.
For readers of Klapheke in particular, the collection is significant because it supplied the starting point for Tahlia, Marius, and the Mist Knights. What began as one contribution to a multi-author Fae-romance event ultimately developed into a distinct strand of her Realm of Dragons and Fae bibliography.