RAGNARSSON WRITES
Magic, monsters and mystery in a Britain that never was.
Reading Order
Agent of the Crown
Adult - Action - Thriller
Piety
Piety's Fury
Piety's Legacy
Piety's Depths
(Coming soon!)
Blackhurst
Young Adult - Magic Academy - Mystery
When The Willow Wept
A Black Rose Through Dark Glass
The Noise Within The Signal
(Coming soon!)
Piety
Agent of the Crown
Book 1
Adult - Action - Thriller
A distant island with occult secrets.
An old flame serving a dangerous master.
A plot to start a nuclear war.
In 1961, with Kennedy in the White House and the Cold War in full swing, William Fitzwilliam is sent to the remote Shetland Islands to chase down dubious reports of arcane agriculture. All in a day’s work for a junior operative in Britain’s most secret service.
Fitz expects a couple of provincial warlocks dancing under the northern lights. Instead, he lands in the middle of bloody firefights between cultists and his fellow agents, with terrifying magic being wielded by both sides.
And waiting for him in the gunsmoke is Piety.
The girl who broke his heart, when she left to serve under Magnus: the infamous, ruthless senior agent leading this off-the-books investigation.
Every answer Piety gives pulls Fitz deeper into the conspiracy that brought her and Magnus to Shetland, and the private war raging across the islands.
The only thing Fitz knows for sure is that something far more sinister than occult wheat has been growing, and unless he uncovers the truth, the Cold War may be about to turn hot.
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When The Willow Wept
Blackhurst
Book 1
In September of 1967, Lissy Vaughn leaves her sleepy country home for Blackhurst College.
Hidden deep in the English countryside, Blackhurst trains young men and women to investigate the occult: strange rituals, impossible creatures, and the dangerous things that hide in the dark corners of this green and pleasant land.
Most students seem like perfect candidates for Blackhurst, polished by public schools and crafted by cadet corps. Lissy was not. She was just a girl who saw for herself that the occult was real. A girl it left without a mother.
Now, for the first time in her life, she finds herself among people who understand what she has seen.
At Blackhurst, Lissy is drawn into a world of secret lore, rain-soaked expeditions, ancient magic, and growing danger. As she struggles to earn her place among the future agents, she finds friendship, the first uncertain stirrings of romance, and finally, the feeling that she belongs.
But the occult is not an adventure story. Magic always asks for something in return. And when a presence lurking beneath the willows on the edge of the lake begins to stir, Lissy will have to decide whether she truly has the courage to follow in the footsteps of the agents who once rescued her.
Even when those footsteps lead her into the darkness.
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Young Adult - Magic Academy - Mystery
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Piety's Fury
Agent of the Crown
Book 2
Adult - Action - Thriller
A missing girl with a deadly gift.
A family with a dark secret.
A threat that brings Piety home.
It’s December, 1961. Newly promoted, and sent on her first independent assignment, Piety is ordered back to rural Antrim, to the orphanage where she grew up.
A twelve-year-old girl has vanished from the convent. Her name is Lissy Vaughn, and she is no ordinary child: born with magic in her blood and a voice that can kill. But Piety soon discovers that someone else has been using older, darker magic to control her.
Ancient stones taken from the grave of a murdered king are found hidden in Lissy’s room, exerting malign influence while she sleeps. As Piety digs deeper, she uncovers a pattern stretching back decades. Girls who were taken, but never truly vanished. Girls who joined a new family.
Finding Lissy is only the beginning.
Because whatever has hunted these girls for generations has now followed Piety back to her home. Suddenly, the mission is no longer just one missing girl. It’s ending the terror that’s coming for her family.
A Black Rose Through Dark Glass
Blackhurst
Book 2
In the summer of 1968, Lissy Vaughn comes to Oxford to run a simple, scholarly errand.
After a year at Blackhurst College, she has found her place among the young men and women training to investigate the occult. Now, with Bridget and Mick at her side, Lissy is sent to a city of ancient colleges where secret libraries are hidden behind walls of honey-coloured stone. A city where every cobble has a thousand years of history.
The task should be simple. An old professor’s will leaves his collection of rare books to the Bodleian, and all Lissy has to do is help examine them for any possible signs of magic. A boring and thankless job for three students, just before they leave for the summer holidays.
But someone else wants those books.
When a thief strikes with brutal force, what began as an errand becomes a chase through Oxford’s streets, through a city that does not easily give up its secrets.
Traces of alchemy lead to unnatural black roses, growing under the light of an impossible sun that only shines through shards of cursed glass. All the work of a man willing to kill for forbidden lore that should have been buried with its owner.
To stop him, Lissy must unlock the ancient mysteries of Oxford, and the terrifying truths of this city of gold. Her friends are bleeding. A madman is hellbent on completing his great work.
Before the sun rises again, Lissy must decide what she is willing to pay to learn what truly lies on the far side of the dark glass, beneath an infinite, golden sun.
Young Adult - Magic Academy - Mystery
Piety's Legacy
Agent of the Crown
Book 3
Adult - Action - Thriller
A mentor with a shadowy past.
An underworld gang wielding the power of a fallen empire.
A deadly struggle for an apocalyptic treasure.
It’s early 1962, and promotion is not sitting well on Piety. Beset by paperwork, she has taken to hunting down magical misdemeanours just to keep her edge.
When she follows an insignificant artefact dealer into the disused tunnels beneath London, she expects a routine arrest. Instead, she finds him brokering impossible relics: an enchanted stethoscope, and a flashbulb that can see through bank vaults.
The hand-off turns into a midnight gun battle under Blackfriars bridge, leaving the seller shot in the back, one henchman dead, and a buyer with glowing cat’s eyes vanishing into the Thames.
Pursuing the investigation leads Piety through London’s occult underworld, and towards a gang reputed for savagery building a criminal empire with plundered Aztec secrets. But they aren’t interested in banks or gold.
They are hunting a safe, buried somewhere under the city. A safe hidden by Piety’s former mentor, presently on trial for treason. A safe said to contain the essence of a moon goddess, and pursued by one of Piety’s fellow agents for more than a decade.
Enemies are swirling. Even friends are not above suspicion.
Whatever is truly in the safe, it contains Piety’s inheritance. Hers by right, but only if she can take it.
The Noise Within The Signal
Blackhurst
Book 3
The summer of 1968 is almost over.
Oxford was eight weeks ago, but it left it’s mark on Lissy Vaughn. She has spent the holidays alone at Blackhurst, struggling to say a word as she works with the teachers to get her voice back. But at Blackhurst, the teachers aren’t just professors. They are agents of the crown, who can be called into the field on a moment’s notice.
As September draws near, Danby, freshly promoted, has been given his first case. A man has been arrested trying to tamper with a BBC broadcast van, setting up to go live from a rock festival. A man with no name, no identification and an alarming series of scars that only occult activity can explain.
Danby takes Lissy with him to interview the prisoner. Some valuable experience for his star pupil, he says. But before they can ask a single question, something reaches the suspect through the air.
A radio signal tuned to an antenna implanted in his chest.
A burst of mind-blowing music. Literally.
The prisoner is left catatonic, as someone makes very sure he will never talk.
Danby and Lissy make for the festival, calling Bridget and her brother for backup, and the investigation moves backstage, trying to track down the source of the impossible, occult music before it can go out live on the John Peel show.
The BBC will not pull the show without a non-magical explanation.
So, the show must go on.
Will Lissy find her voice before it’s too late?
Young Adult - Magic Academy - Mystery
Launching for Halloween 2026
Piety's Depths
Agent of the Crown
Book 4
Adult - Action - Thriller
A coal town with too many accidents.
A fist-sized diamond with an unexpected owner.
An impossible threat, born from the darkness.
It’s spring 1962, and Piety is off the grid, letting the dust settle after she earned the wrath of a fellow agent by keeping a powerful artefact out of their hands. London is far behind, and Piety is in south Wales, hunting for any problem serious enough to justify ignoring orders from headquarters.
Industrial unrest has been spreading through the Aber Valley, with coal miners out on strike. The unions claim it is safety concerns and miserly owners. But behind the picket-line slogans, dark rumours are swirling amongst the miners.
Supposedly, the colliery at Senghenydd has been reopened, a mine that was sealed fifty years ago after a massive explosion killed hundreds of miners. The old owners are long bankrupt. The lifts have long been removed, and the shaft filled with concrete. But someone has been down there, bringing something much more valuable than coal back with them.
Gold has been mined in Wales for centuries. But hundred-carat diamonds can’t have been created by natural means.
Something is lurking in the old mine. Something that survived the explosion that took four hundred lives. Something ancient and impossible, with breath that can fuse coal into diamond.
Piety must track down the thieves, who went to plunder the miners’ graves, follow them back to the mine to find whatever was sealed in the darkness a thousand feet below Senghenydd.
And confront what lies beneath.