Reading order
| # | Title | Published | Author | Buy on Amazon |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | The Tiger’s Wife | 2011 | Tea Obreht | Buy |
| 2 | Inland | 2019 | Tea Obreht | Buy |
| 3 | The Morningside | 2024 | Tea Obreht | Buy |
Tea Obreht’s three novels are all standalones that can be read in any order, though they share a common interest in how people carry their histories with them. Each book has a different setting and cast, but all three blend realistic storytelling with elements of myth and the supernatural.
The Tiger’s Wife (2011) is set in the Balkans and weaves together folklore, family memory, and modern-day grief. It won the Orange Prize for Fiction and made Obreht, then just 25, one of the most acclaimed debut novelists of her generation. Inland (2019) moved to a completely different world: the Arizona Territory of the 1890s, where a frontier woman awaiting her husband’s return and a haunted outlaw traveling with a camel corps each narrate chapters that slowly reveal their connection.
The Morningside (2024) is Obreht’s most recent novel, set in a near-future city where climate change has redrawn the map. A young immigrant girl and her mother work as caretakers in a decaying luxury tower, and the girl becomes fascinated by a mysterious woman on the penthouse floor. All three books reward patient readers who enjoy literary fiction that doesn’t stay strictly within the boundaries of realism.