Kinsmen

About the Kinsmen series

A change of pace from Ilona Andrews' usual urban fantasy, the Kinsmen novellas are science fiction romance set among warring noble houses on a distant, sword-and-honor culture planet called Rada. Silent Blade introduces the Kinsmen -- elite bodyguard-assassins bound to serve specific noble families -- through a story of loyalty and forbidden attraction across enemy lines. Silver Shark jumps forward a decade to a new pairing with a cameo from the first novella's leads, and A Mere Formality (available only in the collected Kinsmen Universe edition) adds a third short story to the same world. A decade later, Fated Blades returns to Rada as a longer, standalone novella following an uneasy alliance between members of two feuding houses.

These are shorter, tightly focused romances rather than the sprawling series Ilona Andrews is best known for -- self-contained love stories bound by a shared planet, culture, and code of honor rather than a continuing plot or cast.

How to read this series

Read Silent Blade and Silver Shark in order -- Silver Shark is set a decade after Silent Blade and references its leads. A Mere Formality is a bonus third story only available in the collected Kinsmen Universe edition (which bundles all three); it can be read any time after the first two. Fated Blades, published a decade later in 2021, is a longer standalone entry in the same world and doesn't require having read the earlier three first, though fans of the setting will get more out of reading them together.