Megan Whalen Turner

1 universe Last reviewed 2026-08-26

Megan Whalen Turner is an American author of young-adult fantasy fiction, born November 21, 1965, in Fort Sill, Oklahoma. She earned a BA with honors in English language and literature from the University of Chicago in 1987 and worked as a children's book buyer in Chicago and Washington, D.C., before beginning to write a collection of short fantasy stories after moving to California in 1989, which became her first book, Instead of Three Wishes: Magical Short Stories (1995). She is best known for The Queen's Thief series, beginning with The Thief (1996), which earned a Newbery Honor in 1997, and continuing through The Queen of Attolia (2000), The King of Attolia (2006), A Conspiracy of Kings (2010), Thick as Thieves (2017), and Return of the Thief (2020), a sequence acclaimed for its intricate political intrigue, unreliable narration, and richly imagined Mediterranean-inspired setting. In 2022 she published Moira's Pen, a collection of previously uncollected stories and new material set within the same world. Turner has been married to cognitive scientist Mark Turner since 1987 and has three sons. Her Queen's Thief novels remain widely regarded as some of the most sophisticated and influential works of young-adult epic fantasy of their era.

Universe(s)

Books

• The Thief (1996) · The Queen's Thief Core Canon
• The Queen of Attolia (2000) · The Queen's Thief Core Canon
• The King of Attolia (2006) · The Queen's Thief Core Canon
• A Conspiracy of Kings (2010) · The Queen's Thief Core Canon
• Thick as Thieves (2017) · The Queen's Thief Core Canon
• Return of the Thief (2020) · The Queen's Thief Core Canon

Aggregate across all universes

• Total Core Canon books across all universes: 6 books
• Award recognitions across all universes: 0 (None recorded)

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