The Red Wyvern
Book One of The Dragon Mage
A new chapter of the history of the kingdom of Deverry – an ideal
starting point for newcomers to Katherine Kerr's gorgeous epic, and a
satisfying continuation of the saga for those readers who have followed
the series through its previous incarnations.
In Cengarn, Rhodry of the silver daggers – half-elven,
half-human – is beset by strange dreams. A dark-haired enchantress,
the Raven Woman, is haunting his sleep, and he can find no release,
even in the arms of Dallandra, his lover.
Little does he know that his feud with the Raven Woman
goes back over three hundred years, to a time when the throne of
Deverry stood under threat of civil war. In those days, the young
king's cousin, Lilli, was forced by her scheming mother to scry for
omens, and she saw terrible visions: great red wyverns sweeping down
from the mountains to plunge like hawks upon a herd of feeding swine...
The fancies of an idle mind? Or omens foretelling bloodshed and disaster for the clan of the Boar?
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Katharine Kerr
In the realm of epic fantasy, few names echo with the same fierce clarity as Katharine Kerr. Best known for her immersive Deverry Cycle, Kerr didn’t just create a world—she wove a tapestry of time, memory, and reincarnation that spanned centuries, yet remained achingly intimate. Her stories pulse with Celtic inspiration, layered timelines, and flawed, deeply human characters who evolve across lives and generations.
But Kerr’s journey to fantasy legend wasn’t charted from childhood. Born in Cleveland, Ohio, she was more interested in jazz and science fiction than medieval swords and sorcery. It wasn’t until she moved to the San Francisco Bay Area—where myth and counterculture have long danced together—that her path bent toward high fantasy. A longtime fan of roleplaying games, she began designing complex worlds for tabletop campaigns before ever writing a novel. That attention to internal logic and continuity became a hallmark of her fiction. Unlike many traditional fantasy epics, the Deverry books don’t rely on prophecy or fate. They depend on choices—some noble, many terrible—and the way consequences echo through lifetimes.
Deverry Series
Deverry Series consists of fifteen primary books, and includes one additional book that complement the series but is not considered mandatory reads. The current recommended reading order for the series is provided below.
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