6 Reasons We Love the Green Rider Books (and You Will Too)

Firebrand, the sixth book in Kristen Britain’s Green Rider series, drops next week, which means now is the time to convince y’all to dive into the world of Karigan G’ladheon, magical messenger to the high king of Sacordia. When we met her in the first book, 1998’s Green Rider, she had been expelled from school for scrapping with a well-connected aristocrat. Heading home to her prosperous burgher parents—and dreading the chewing out she’s going to receive—she runs into a dying Green Rider, one of the king’s elite messengers. With his final breaths, he asks her to deliver a message to the king, and another, more personal one to his lady love. Karigan dons the insignia of the Green Riders, swings up onto the dead Rider’s horse (who she amusingly calls Horse, until she learns his real name), and sets out to complete the Rider’s Task.
These are only her first steps on a long journey. Karigan soon finds herself battling monsters and befriending ghosts, embroiled in court politics and tracing the roads of her rough country. As a wealthy merchant’s daughter, she never imagined living a vagabond existence, invested with magics and a purpose that often runs contrary to her own desires. Being chosen as a Green Rider is not something you can shrug off like your morning classes. If you’ve yet to ride with her, here are six reasons you should step out onto that road, and into all the adventure that awaits.

The Green Riders
I absolutely love the Green Riders. They may seem a little like a magical post office—their purpose is, after all, largely about delivering messages—but they’re more like badass intelligence officers than letter carriers. Their leader, Captain Lauren Mapstone, is a winning mix of competence and compassion. Even if her actions often run counter to Karigan’s desires, Lauren’s commands are always understandable. Because the call to become a Rider is not something bestowed capriciously, despite Karigan’s seemingly haphazard beginnings with the messengers, Karigan’s colleagues are competent, likable people. In the second book, First Rider’s Call, we’re treated to the long history of the Green Riders, back to the very first, and it is complex and cool, wound up with the very founding of their country. (And honestly, the idea of a magical post office is charming all by itself.)

The D’Yer Wall
If you’ve been jonesing for a big ole wall to read about while waiting for George R.R. Martin’s Winds of Winter to blow, let me introduce you to the D’Yer wall, built in antiquity to hold back the evil of Blackveil Forest from the rest of Sacordia. The wall is slowly failing, leaking strangeness into the borderlands. That, and a whole bunch of creatures with uncanny magic are actively working to break the wall. The work of the Green Riders (and others) to learn the wall’s history, understand its magic, and shore up its defenses is, in many ways, the driving force of the series. The D’Yer wall ends up being the fulcrum in a nation’s history, and Karigan is drawn there again and again.

Blackveil
I admit I like reading about creepy, evil lands, and Blackveil is the creepiest. Alongside her life as writer, Kristen Britain was previously a ranger with the National Parks Service, and her descriptions of the land—the play of the seasons upon it, and the moods of its creatures—has the feel of lived experience. She knows her stuff. The old saw is that you can tell a fantasy novel because it’ll open with a map, which the Green Rider series certainly does, but you don’t always get boots on the ground in the same tactile way. The strange creatures (groundmites, shudder) and creeping mist of the Blackveil provide top-notch atmospherics. When Karigan and her company strike out into Blackveil in the eponymous novel, they find more than they bargained for.

The History of Sacordia
Despite taking place in a continuous present, one novel right after another, the series range far across the history of Sacordia. From the ghostly visions of Lil Ambriodhe in First Rider’s Call, to the millennia-old events found in Hadriax el Fex’s journals of the Long War, to the machinations of Grandmother and her Second Empire remnant in The High King’s Tomb, these books cover some serious ground. And that’s not even getting into the events of Mirror Sight, when Karigan is thrown 200 years into a dark future after an absolutely brutal cliffhanger. (But don’t worry, we get back to “now” in Firebrand!)

King Zachary
I don’t think the love triangle as a concept is particularly beloved among readers, so pointing one out may not make my case. Nonetheless, the Green Rider series details a love triangle that will absolutely break your heart. Karigan, after committing fully to the Green Riders, gets to know the young King Zachary, and they knock sparks off one another. But for political reasons, Zachary ends up betrothed to the beautiful Lady Estora. Estora is a lovely person, a friend to Karigan despite Karigan’s occasional nasty jealousy. The most painful love triangles are ones where everyone involved is a decent person, and they are all committed to their duties despite their wayward hearts. There are no good choices here, only correct ones.
Just…Everything
The Green Rider series books offer just about everything a fan of high fantasy could hope for: court intrigue (but not too much of it); hardtack questing out into the hinterlands without your handkerchief; requited and unrequited love; hideous monsters; the long, skeletal arm of history; the all too present demands of duty and honor. Though Karigan G’ladheon is our heroine, she is just one in a growing cast of characters who people the nation of Sacordia, both past and present. You’ll want to meet them all.
Firebrand is available February 28.