The Priory of the Orange Tree

Samantha Shannon's standalone fantasy novel The Priory of the Orange Tree was published by Bloomsbury on 26 February 2019. Shannon has called the book a feminist retelling of the legend of Saint George and the Dragon, and it is a complete story in one volume rather than the opening of a series, which is unusual for a book of its length.

The House of Berethnet has ruled the kingdom of Inys for a thousand years, and the arrangement depends on Queen Sabran producing a daughter. She is still unmarried, the assassins are getting closer, and the truce that keeps the world intact is thinner than the court admits to anyone but itself. Ead Duryan is a lady-in-waiting whose real loyalty belongs to a hidden order of mages, and she has been quietly using forbidden magic to keep the queen alive, against the rules of both her order and the court.

Far across the sea, Tané has trained her entire life to ride a dragon and is one decision away from losing that future. The dragon riders of the east, the mages of the Priory and the knights of Inys all believe they know what the danger is, and each of them is working from a different history. The east and the west have stopped talking to each other, and the thing both were built to guard against is beginning to wake.

A standalone prequel, A Day of Fallen Night, followed in 2023, and a shorter prequel was published in 2025. The novel itself is complete, it is an epic fantasy with a large cast and several viewpoint characters, and it establishes Inys, the Priory, the dragons of the east and the divisions between them.