A Great Fantasy Author: Guest Post Susan Ruff

Good morning out there, fantasy fans!

I’m so excited about today’s guest post, as it is about an author I had never heard of, but after reading this post I went to see if our library system had any of her books and they did so it’s currently in-transit to my library where I should be able to pick up the whole trilogy in a day or two. (our interlibrary loan system here in WI is seriously the best)

Anyway, I won’t take up your time, let me hand the mic over to my guest!


A Few Words About a Great Fantasy Author

by Susan Ruff

When readers of fantasy books say they’ve never heard of Patricia McKillip, I am always surprised. Prior to her death two years ago, she was the award-winning author of many outstanding fantasy novels. She’s been one of my favorite writers for more than forty years. It would be wonderful to see her legacy carry on to the next generation of fantasy fans.

If you have never read her novels, this is a great time to start. Her writing style is eloquent, her characters are memorable, and her stories are enchanting. Most of her books fit in the “high fantasy” subgenre, meaning that they are set entirely in a fantasy universe with no direct connection to our world. McKillip had an amazing imagination, and her worlds are rich and vibrant.

The books are also clean and family friendly. Although the concept of “cozy fantasy” is fairly recent, many of her stories are gentle and upbeat enough to fit under that classification. In the past, her books were sometimes labeled by the publisher as children’s stories, but I think that label did a disservice to McKillip’s beautiful prose and complex characters.

By far, her masterpiece is the trilogy which starts with The Riddle-Master of Hed, continues in Heir of Sea and Fire, and concludes in Harpist in the Wind. Any reader who is new to her writing should definitely start with those books. I’ve seen different names given to the trilogy itself, so rather than trying to search for the full set on Amazon, the easiest way to find them is to look for the first book: The Riddle-Master of Hed.

I’m not great with book reviews, so I won’t try one here, and the story is too beautiful and intricate for me to sum up in one or two sentences. But I can say with certainty that the silver-haired harpist in the Riddle-Master trilogy is one of the most memorable characters in any fantasy work that I have ever read. 

The Riddle-Master trilogy is one continuous story (like the Lord of the Rings), not a series of standalone books, so you need to start with the first book when you read them. When the Riddle-Master trilogy was first published, the first and second books came out before the third. That left many of us hanging on the edge of our chairs wondering what would happen next. A friend and I spent many enjoyable hours speculating about the mysteries in the first two books and how the story might end. 

Other excellent books by McKillip include The Book of Atrix Wolfe and The Forgotten Beasts of Eld

But whatever McKillip books you read, you can be sure that you will find magic within them, both in the universes she created and within the writing itself.

My thanks to Jenelle for giving me an opportunity to write this guest post! -Susan Ruff

About the Author

Susan Ruff is the co-author, along with her husband John, of three high fantasy novels with the fourth due to be published in March 2024. Her works include The Keyhole Wizard, the first book of the Doorway to Magic trilogy, and 60th Hour, a standalone fantasy novel. She writes a monthly blog called “Travels, Walks, and Tales.”

You can find out more about Susan and John’s books at their website susanandjohnruff.com