The Ballad of Perilous Graves
#8083.55 adjusted 3.65 for sample size in the official ranking · full ranking
Books 1 book Status Complete 2022 Reading commitment Low Alex Jennings Last reviewed 2026-09-02
Overview
The Ballad of Perilous Graves is a standalone urban fantasy by Alex Jennings, published in 2022 and set in a magical alternate New Orleans nicknamed Nola, where songs are literally alive and the city's music-based magic keeps its streets, weather, and spirits in balance. When a cache of the city's most powerful songs escapes their vessel and scatters through the streets, a group of children, including a girl who can speak to a sentient version of the city's ghosts and machines, must track them down before Nola's magic collapses entirely and the city itself starts to unravel. The novel folds real New Orleans musical history and Mardi Gras Indian culture into its premise, treating jazz, brass-band tradition, and hoodoo as living, contested forces rather than background color. It was a finalist for the Mythopoeic Fantasy Award for Adult Literature.
Urban fantasy · For Adult
Core Canon: Reading Order (1 work) counts toward ranking
The Ballad of Perilous Graves (2022) core · 3.55 (3,245 ratings); Standalone novel; no sequel published or announced.
Quick answers
- How many books are in The Ballad of Perilous Graves? The Ballad of Perilous Graves's Core Canon is 1 book.
- Is The Ballad of Perilous Graves finished? Complete (2022).
- How much reading does The Ballad of Perilous Graves take? Low reading commitment (estimated from 1 Core Canon book · ~450 pages).
- How is The Ballad of Perilous Graves ranked? #808 in this site's official ranking, based on 3,245 reader ratings across 1 Core Canon book. See the full ranking for how this is calculated.
Why is it ranked #808?
Ranked #808 in the official ranking.
- Average reader rating of 3.55 across 1 core book.
- A smaller readership (3,245 ratings), so the score carries less weight of numbers.
- 0.05 behind #807, Tender Morsels.
- Below the top-10 average of 4.45.
- A single standalone novel: ranked on that one book alone.
Why explore this universe?
Modestly rated · 1 book · Complete · 3k ratings · Ranks #808 overall
Good choice if you want a quick, low-commitment urban fantasy universe that's already finished, so there's no wait for the next book.
Reading order
A single Core Canon work: no sequencing question to resolve.
Awards (verified)
- Mythopoeic Award (Adult Literature), 2023: nominated: The Ballad of Perilous Graves; Finalist, did not win. Sourced via File 770's report of the Mythopoeic Society's own May 17, 2023 announcement; the Society's live finalists page itself could not be directly fetched (robots.txt), so this is a well-corroborated secondary source, not a first-party fetch.
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Suggestions computed from what The Ballad of Perilous Graves and each of these worlds have in common on record (subgenre, audience, shape, reading commitment and score), not a documented narrative connection.
- The Lighthouse at the Edge of the World Urban fantasy · Complete · Low commitment · 3.66
- Magic for Liars Urban fantasy · Complete · Low commitment · 3.61
- David Mogo, Godhunter Urban fantasy / Mythic fantasy · Complete · Low commitment · 3.60
- All the Birds in the Sky Urban fantasy · Complete · Low commitment · 3.59
Official resources
Research details
Ranking metrics: weighted average 3.55 across 3,245 ratings on 1 Core Canon book. See Why is it ranked here? above for the full breakdown, or the full ranking.
How do we know this?
Admission: Admit The Ballad of Perilous Graves (Alex Jennings) accepted 2026-09-02
Sources: (see source tier definitions)
- https://www.hachettebookgroup.com/titles/alex-jennings/the-ballad-of-perilous-graves/9780759557215/
- https://file770.com/2023-mythopoeic-award-finalists/
- https://www.mythsoc.org/awards.htm
Last reviewed: 2026-09-02
Rule: New universe, Alex Jennings' The Ballad of Perilous Graves. Core = the standalone novel (2022). A 2023 Mythopoeic Award for Adult Literature finalist (did not win); sourced via a genre-press report of the Mythopoeic Society's own announcement, corroborated by the Society's own news-archive index. No sequel published or announced as of this admission.