Below is the complete list of Rina Kent’s Thorns Duet books in order. For this series, the chronological reading order is the same as the order of publication.
Publication Order of Thorns Duet Books
- Yellow Thorns (2021)
Yellow Thorns was published in 2021 and is listed as book #1 in the Thorns Duet series. 
About Thorns Duet
Rina Kent’s Thorns Duet is a dark new-adult romance about Sebastian Weaver and Naomi Chester, two college students whose public identities conceal appetites, fears, and family histories far more dangerous than anyone around them realizes. Sebastian is the celebrated star quarterback who appears to possess wealth, popularity, and effortless control. Naomi is a cheerleader who remains socially isolated despite belonging to one of the campus’s most visible groups. Their relationship begins through a cruel bet, but neither is prepared for the obsession it releases.
Red Thorns establishes Sebastian as the kind of man accustomed to attention and obedience. Naomi’s refusal to react like his usual admirers makes her both a challenge and a target. She recognizes his arrogance and distrusts his sudden pursuit, yet he awakens desires she has kept hidden even from herself. Their attraction develops through provocation, secrecy, psychological games, and encounters built around pursuit and surrender rather than conventional tenderness.
Naomi’s apparent invisibility is central to her character. She participates in college life without feeling that she belongs to it, using sarcasm and withdrawal to protect herself from judgment. Sebastian occupies the opposite social position, surrounded by admirers but equally skilled at concealing what lies beneath his carefully managed image. Their connection works because each recognizes the performance in the other. He sees the intensity behind Naomi’s restraint, while she gradually discovers that his charm is only the most acceptable surface of a far more complicated personality.
The bet provides the initial betrayal, but the duet expands beyond a campus conflict once the couple’s family histories begin pressing into the present. Secrets surrounding Naomi’s upbringing and Sebastian’s powerful background alter the meaning of their relationship, exposing pressures neither can solve through attraction alone. What first appears to be an enemies-to-lovers sports romance gradually moves toward family danger, criminal influence, inherited violence, and the question of whether two people can choose each other when others have already attempted to determine their futures.
Black Thorns continues directly from the rupture created in the opening book. It is not a second romance or a companion story following another couple. Sebastian and Naomi remain at the center as separation, resentment, possessiveness, and concealed truths transform the bond established in Red Thorns. The continuation moves beyond the immediacy of their college attraction to examine what remains when obsession has been mixed with betrayal and neither character has genuinely learned how to let go.
The free short work Yellow Thorns is numbered as the series prequel. It offers an additional glimpse into Sebastian and Naomi’s early dynamic but is not a third full-length installment. Readers can begin with it for extra context or proceed directly to Red Thorns, where the principal narrative is fully established. The main duet must then be completed with Black Thorns, since both full novels are explicitly structured as parts of one unresolved story.
The Thorns books belong to Kent’s wider Rinaverse, with overlapping characters and family connections that become relevant elsewhere. Her suggested chronology places the duet after the Lies and Truths and Throne stories and before the Empire novels, although each series can be read independently. That wider context adds recognition without changing the duet’s claustrophobic focus.
Sebastian and Naomi’s story is ultimately built around the danger of being accurately seen. Both have survived by presenting versions of themselves that other people can understand. Their attraction becomes powerful because it strips those disguises away—and destructive because neither knows how to offer honesty without also using vulnerability as a weapon.