Megan Shepherd Books in Order (Updated March 10, 2026)

Megan Shepherd writes across YA, middle grade, adult horror, and franchise fiction. Her bibliography has several clean series, a few standalones, and one licensed branch tied to The Nightmare Before Christmas, so the best reading order depends on what kind of book you actually want.

There is no single author-wide sequence you have to follow. Read each series in publication order, keep the standalones separate, and treat the Disney books as their own lane.

If you like this, start with this

If you like gothic horror, start with: Malice House
If you like classic-inspired YA horror, start with: The Madman’s Daughter
If you like sci-fi survival, start with: The Cage
If you like dark fairy-tale fantasy, start with: Grim Lovelies
If you like magical middle grade, start with: The Secret Horses of Briar Hill
If you like The Nightmare Before Christmas, start with: Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas: The Official Novelisation

The best overall reading paths

If you want Megan Shepherd’s core original fiction

1. The Madman’s Daughter
2. Her Dark Curiosity
3. A Cold Legacy
4. The Cage
5. The Hunt
6. The Gauntlet
7. Grim Lovelies
8. Midnight Beauties
9. Malice House
10. Midnight Showing

If you want the broadest publication-order route through the novels

1. The Madman’s Daughter
2. Her Dark Curiosity
3. A Cold Legacy
4. The Cage
5. The Hunt
6. The Secret Horses of Briar Hill
7. The Gauntlet
8. Grim Lovelies
9. Midnight Beauties
10. Dog Star
11. Malice House
12. Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas: The Official Novelisation
13. Midnight Showing
14. Hour of the Pumpkin Queen

Series and books in order

The Madman’s Daughter trilogy

1. The Madman’s Daughter (2013): A YA gothic reimagining of The Island of Dr. Moreau, following Juliet Moreau into a world of family secrets, scientific horror, and moral collapse.
2. Her Dark Curiosity (2014): Back in London, Juliet faces murder, scandal, and the possibility that her father’s monstrous legacy did not stay buried on the island.
3. A Cold Legacy (2015): The trilogy closes on the Scottish moors with a Frankenstein-shaped finale about experimentation, identity, and what Juliet is willing to become.

Best order: Read in publication order. This trilogy is one continuous arc.

The Cage trilogy

1. The Cage (2015): Cora Mason wakes inside an impossible environment and slowly realizes she and four other teens have been taken for an extraterrestrial human zoo.
2. The Hunt (2016): After a failed escape, the captives are separated into even more dangerous settings, and survival starts to depend on who they can still trust.
3. The Gauntlet (2017): The series expands into a larger interspecies conflict as Cora and the others try to win freedom in a universe that has no reason to value them.

Best order: Read in order. This is a direct trilogy, not a loose same-world sequence.

Grim Lovelies duology

1. Grim Lovelies (2018): In Paris, Anouk and other enchanted Beasties have only days to solve a murder before the spell keeping them human runs out.
2. Midnight Beauties (2019): The sequel widens the magical world and pushes the consequences of the first book into a more dangerous, more politically charged struggle.

Best order: Publication order. The second book assumes you already know the world and its rules.

The Malice Compendium

1. Malice House (2022): Haven Marbury inherits her late father’s remote house and finds a secret manuscript filled with monsters that do not want to stay fictional.
2. Midnight Showing (2023): Haven’s search for the truth about her family curse pulls the story toward old Hollywood horror, new murders, and an even stranger collision between story and reality.

Best order: Read Malice House first. Midnight Showing is a true continuation, not a side story.

Middle grade novels

1. The Secret Horses of Briar Hill (2016): During World War II, a hospitalized boy discovers winged horses hidden in the chalk drawings on the ward walls, turning illness and fear into a story of fragile magic.
2. Dog Star (2022): Based on the story of Laika, this middle grade novel follows a lonely Soviet girl and a stray dog whose bond grows as the space race turns both their lives toward danger.

These are standalones and can be read in either order.

Disney / franchise books

This part of Shepherd’s bibliography should be read separately from her original series.

1. Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas: The Official Novelisation (2023): A prose adaptation of the film, written for the movie’s 30th anniversary and best treated as a standalone tie-in.
2. Hour of the Pumpkin Queen (2025): A YA sequel in the Pumpkin Queen line that follows Sally after the events of the earlier Nightmare Before Christmas novels.

Important boundary: these are not part of Shepherd’s own original shared universe work. They belong in franchise reading order, not mixed into her YA fantasy or horror series.

Shorter works and optional extras

These are not part of the main novel sequence, but they are worth separating clearly.

• “Hide-and-Seek” (2015, in Slasher Girls & Monster Boys): A horror short story later republished as The Lore of Crow Cullom, and best treated as optional extra reading.
• “Lady Firebrand” (2018, in The Radical Element): A historical-fiction anthology contribution, separate from Shepherd’s main series continuity.
• The Lore of Crow Cullom: A standalone paranormal novella version of “Hide-and-Seek,” about a murdered girl challenged by Death to win back her life.
• Tricks and Whispers: A companion novella set in the Grim Lovelies world, best read after Grim Lovelies or after the duology.
• Beastie Tales (2019): A Grim Lovelies-world project collecting reader-created stories from that setting, interesting for fans but not required reading.

Recommended orders by reader type

For gothic readers

1. The Madman’s Daughter
2. Her Dark Curiosity
3. A Cold Legacy
4. Malice House
5. Midnight Showing

This route shows two different versions of Shepherd’s darker side: YA gothic first, adult horror second.

For fantasy readers

1. Grim Lovelies
2. Midnight Beauties
3. The Secret Horses of Briar Hill

That gives you the lush Parisian fantasy first, then a quieter magical standalone.

For science fiction and survival readers

1. The Cage
2. The Hunt
3. The Gauntlet
4. Dog Star

This path keeps the speculative tension high, then shifts into a more historical space story.

For readers who only want standalones

1. The Secret Horses of Briar Hill
2. Dog Star
3. Tim Burton’s The Nightmare Before Christmas: The Official Novelisation

That is the cleanest standalone-only route through her books.

Where to start with Megan Shepherd

Start with The Madman’s Daughter if you want the series most closely tied to her early reputation.

Start with Malice House if you want her adult work first.

Start with Grim Lovelies if you want fantasy over horror.

Start with The Secret Horses of Briar Hill if you want the most self-contained and age-flexible place to begin.

Latest release status

The most recent published Megan Shepherd novel on her official bibliography is Hour of the Pumpkin Queen. Her official bio also says she was tapped to complete the Pumpkin Queen series with books in 2025 and 2026, which supports a further 2026 installment, but her official site does not currently give that next book’s title on the main bibliography pages, so it is safer to label it as an upcoming continuation rather than state a title as fully confirmed.

Final recommendation

For most readers, the best first Megan Shepherd book depends on tone. The Madman’s Daughter is the right start for gothic YA, Malice House is the right start for adult horror, and Grim Lovelies is the right start for dark fantasy. Once you pick the lane, stay in publication order inside that series.