Elizabeth Wein Books in Order
Explore Elizabeth Wein books in order, with short summaries, series guides, and easy where-to-start tips for her wartime, aviation, and Arthurian fiction.
Last updated: July 11, 2026
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Elizabeth Wein books in publication order
17 books
The Winter Prince
by Elizabeth Wein
1993
Medraut, the eldest son of Artos, cannot forgive the choice of his fragile half brother as heir. His jealousy and hunger for recognition drive this dark, intimate retelling of the Mordred story.
A Coalition of Lions
by Elizabeth Wein
2003
Goewin flees Britain for Aksum, where family rivalry turns into royal politics and dangerous choices. This sequel widens Wein's Arthurian world into a story of exile, diplomacy, and divided loyalties.
The Sunbird
by Elizabeth Wein
2004
With plague closing the borders of Aksum, young Telemakos is sent to uncover treachery in the salt mines. His mission becomes a brutal test of stealth, endurance, and judgment.
The Lion Hunter
by Elizabeth Wein
2007
After a mauling by one of the emperor's lions, Telemakos is sent away from home while old enemies still hunt him. In a foreign court, he must balance survival, spying, and a growing attachment to the people around him.
The Empty Kingdom
by Elizabeth Wein
2008
Held close by a powerful ruler who may also be his enemy, Telemakos tries to protect his home with coded messages and careful silence. His loyalties are tested in a tense finale built on politics, espionage, and trust.
Code Name Verity
by Elizabeth Wein
2012
Captured in occupied France, a British secret agent is forced to write a confession for the Gestapo. As her story unfolds, so does the bond between her and pilot Maddie, and the full cost of wartime loyalty.
Rose Under Fire
by Elizabeth Wein
2013
Air Transport Auxiliary pilot Rose Justice is captured by the Germans and sent to Ravensbruck concentration camp. Her survival depends on the women around her in a brutal, deeply human story about witness, friendship, and endurance.
Black Dove White Raven
by Elizabeth Wein
2015
Raised by aviators, Em and Teo grow up between the United States and Ethiopia, carrying their mothers' dreams of a freer life. When Italy moves toward invasion, flying becomes both their greatest gift and their greatest danger.
Cobalt Squadron
by Elizabeth Wein
2017
Rose and Paige Tico serve with the Resistance bomber unit Cobalt Squadron when a mission puts them in the path of the First Order and people begging for help. It is a fast-moving Star Wars adventure with a strong sisterly heart.
The Pearl Thief
by Elizabeth Wein
2017
Just before World War II, Julie Beaufort-Stuart returns to her family's Perthshire estate for a last summer and finds a disappearance, missing pearls, and ugly local suspicion waiting for her. It is a sharp historical mystery with real emotional stakes.
Firebird
by Elizabeth Wein
2018
As war approaches the Soviet Union, gifted pilot Nastia is certain of her loyalty to her country and her family's ideals. Then long-buried secrets crack that certainty open and turn patriotism into a painful personal test.
A Thousand Sisters
by Elizabeth Wein
2019
This nonfiction account follows Marina Raskova and the Soviet women's air regiments who flew combat missions in World War II. Wein turns a huge story into a vivid portrait of courage, loss, and hard-won sisterhood.
White Eagles
by Elizabeth Wein
2019
In 1939 Poland, teenage pilot Kristina Tomiak escapes the Nazi advance in a small plane, only to discover a stowaway on board. Her flight to safety becomes a tense airborne struggle through the first chaos of war.
The Enigma Game
by Elizabeth Wein
2020
At a remote Scottish airfield in 1940, Louisa, Jamie, and Ellen stumble into a secret that could change the course of the war. As enemy forces close in, they must decide how much risk they are willing to take.
The Last Hawk
by Elizabeth Wein
2021
In Nazi Germany, Ingrid feels most free in the air, until a propaganda tour with famed pilot Hanna Reitsch exposes what the regime is hiding. She must choose between safety, admiration, and conscience.
Stateless
by Elizabeth Wein
2023
In 1937, young pilot Stella North enters an international air race meant to celebrate peace, then witnesses sabotage and murder in the sky. As suspicion turns toward her, she must solve the mystery before she becomes the next target.
American Wings
by Elizabeth Wein
2024
This nonfiction history follows Black aviators in Chicago who built clubs, airfields, and schools while segregation tried to keep them grounded. Wein shows how skill, persistence, and community helped change American aviation.
Where to start with Elizabeth Wein
For her signature World War II novels: Code Name Verity → Rose Under Fire
For the wider linked wartime cycle: The Enigma Game → Code Name Verity → Rose Under Fire → The Pearl Thief
For mythic historical adventure: The Winter Prince → A Coalition of Lions → The Sunbird
For aviation-heavy suspense: Stateless → Black Dove White Raven
For nonfiction about flyers and history: A Thousand Sisters → American Wings
Elizabeth Wein sub-series and character series
Code Name Verity books in order
Explore this seriesLion Hunter: Arthurian books in order
Explore this seriesLion Hunters: Mark of Solomon books in order
Explore this seriesStar Wars: The Last Jedi books in order
Explore this seriesElizabeth Wein collections, short stories, and related book types
Standalone Elizabeth Wein books
Author bio
Elizabeth Wein was born in New York City in 1964, but she did not stay in one place for long. She moved to England when she was three, went to school near Alderley Edge, and later spent three childhood years in Jamaica. That early mix of places shows up all through her work, where settings matter, travel changes people, and home is rarely a simple idea.
Jamaica was especially important for her. It was there that she began reading on her own and started writing stories with a friend while still very young. After her parents separated, she returned to the United States and lived in Pennsylvania with her mother, brother, and sister. When her mother died in a car accident in 1978, Wein and her siblings were raised by their grandparents, and books became a lifeline as much as a pleasure.
She kept going back to stories.
Wein studied at Yale University, spent a work-study year in England, and then earned a PhD in folklore at the University of Pennsylvania. While living in Philadelphia, she learned English-style change ringing and met her future husband, Tim, at a bell ringers' dinner-dance. In 1995 she moved back to England with him, and in 2000 they settled in Scotland, where she has lived ever since.
Then flying changed everything.
Her husband loved small planes, and that interest drew her in too. Wein earned her private pilot's license ten years after Tim got his, and she has said that learning to fly shifted the focus of her fiction from Arthurian legend to aviation. That helps explain the strong feeling of motion in her books. Even when her characters are on the ground, they often think like pilots, alert, practical, and aware that one decision can change everything.
Her early novels, beginning with The Winter Prince, rework Arthurian material through the politics and family tensions of sixth-century Britain and Aksum. Readers who start there usually notice how interested she is in loyalty, inheritance, and the damage families can do to one another. Later, she found a much wider audience with Code Name Verity, her World War II novel about friendship, espionage, and survival. That book became a Number 1 New York Times bestseller and a Printz Honor title, and it led many readers to Rose Under Fire, The Pearl Thief, and The Enigma Game, which build a larger historical world around pilots, spies, codes, and the people caught in war's path.
She writes a lot about young people under pressure.
That is true whether she is writing fiction or nonfiction. Black Dove, White Raven follows two young aviators in Ethiopia on the edge of invasion. Stateless turns a 1930s air race into a murder mystery in the sky. In nonfiction, A Thousand Sisters and American Wings show the same deep interest in real pilots, especially women and Black aviators whose stories were often pushed aside. Across all of these books, she comes back to courage, friendship, moral compromise, and the gap between romantic ideas of flying and the hard work it actually takes.
These days Wein lives in Scotland, is a dual American and British citizen, and still rings church bells at Dunkeld Cathedral on the River Tay. She and her husband have two grown children. Her books are full of research, but they never feel far from lived experience, which may be why her stories about history, flight, and survival feel so immediate.
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