Where to Start With Jasper Stone: A Reading Order Guide

New to Jasper Stone's dark epic fantasy? Here's the reading order for The Weeping Spire Trilogy, where The Mark of Oblivion fits, and which format to pick.

Jasper Stone

10/20/20262 min read

worm's-eye view photography of concrete building
worm's-eye view photography of concrete building

People ask two versions of the same question: "Where do I start?" and "Do I have to read them in order?" Here's the whole answer in one place.

The short version

  • The Mark of Oblivion: a standalone. Read it anytime. Free when you join my reader list.

  • Shadow of the Weeping Spire: Book 1 of The Weeping Spire Trilogy.

  • Hollow Beneath the Spire: Book 2.

  • Last Song of the Spire: Book 3.

The Mark of Oblivion: start here if you're unsure

Petra Voss has spent five years failing the Cartographers' Guild because her maps show things the Empire refuses to acknowledge. When she's sent to Survey Gap Eleven to prove a stretch of border is empty, she finds a valley the law has already erased, and a map that will decide who is allowed to exist.

It's set in Valdris, not the Dominion, and it shares no characters with the trilogy. What it shares is the question underneath everything I write: what happens to people when an institution decides they were never there. If you finish it and want more, you'll know exactly what the trilogy will ask of you.

The Weeping Spire Trilogy: read in order

This one is not optional. The trilogy is a single arc following Inquisitor Cora Veylan from loyal servant of the Church to hunted rebel, and each book builds directly on the last.

Shadow of the Weeping Spire opens with a magical blight spreading through the Dominion and an Inquisitor who has never questioned her orders, until she finds a man who shouldn't exist.

Hollow Beneath the Spire picks up after the Spire has fallen. Cora is a traitor now, rebuilding Ashfall Reach and protecting a girl named Miri, when an archivist sends her three words: "I found something." It is the longest of the three at 849 pages, and it earns them.

Last Song of the Spire is the ending: the fight for the Dominion's memories, magic, and freedom, and for Cora's own identity.

Which format?

Paperbacks are available direct from the Jove Publishing shop, individually or as a three-book bundle, which is the cheapest way to get the whole story. Ebooks are listed on my eBooks page.

Whichever door you walk through, start with the first page and don't skip ahead. The Spire is watching.