The Caraval Series in Order

The order within Caraval is straightforward. The order between Garber's two series is the thing people get wrong, and it costs them a major reveal.

The Caraval books in order

1. Caraval (2017) — Scarlett Dragna and her sister Tella arrive on an island for a game that promises a wish to whoever finds Tella first. A magic-trick of a novel where the unreliability is the point.
2. Legendary (2018) — Tella takes over as narrator, and the series shifts from carnival puzzle to Fates-and-bargains mythology. Introduces Jacks, the Prince of Hearts.
3. Finale (2019) — Both sisters, the Fates loose in the world, and the resolution of the trilogy.
4. Spectacular (2024) — A holiday novella set after the trilogy. Read it last; it assumes you know everything.

One data note worth having: some listings show Caraval as a 2016 book. That is an advance-edition artefact — it was published in January 2017. It matters only if you are trying to work out whether a listing is describing an edition you already own.

Read Caraval before Once Upon a Broken Heart

Garber's second series, beginning with Once Upon a Broken Heart, shares a world and a character — Jacks, the Prince of Hearts, who is introduced in Legendary. It is marketed as a fresh start, and technically you can begin there.

You should not. The second series proceeds from things the Caraval trilogy spends three books concealing, and starting with it hands you several endings for free. The correct route is: Caraval trilogy, then Spectacular or the second series, in either order.

The reverse question — whether Caraval readers must go on to the second series — has a much easier answer. No. Finale closes the Dragna sisters' story properly. The second series is an expansion for people who wanted more of one particular character, and it is entirely optional.

What kind of series it actually is

Caraval is romantasy at the fairy-tale end rather than the epic-fantasy end. There are no armies and very little worldbuilding of the map-and-timeline kind; there are bargains, curses, a great deal of red velvet and a narrator you cannot trust. The romance is central but often deliberately withheld.

That makes it a poor fit for readers who came from war-college fantasy and a very good fit for readers who like The Cruel Prince's brand of glittering menace. If the first fifty pages of book one feel like a trick being played on you, that is the intended experience.

It is also, by current romantasy standards, remarkably restrained on the page — closer to young adult in heat level than to the series it now sits beside on shop tables. That surprises readers arriving from ACOTAR in both directions: some are relieved, some feel short-changed. Either way it is better to know before book one than after.

Where to go afterwards

Straight into Once Upon a Broken Heart, which is the same world with a different appetite. Beyond Garber, Serpent & Dove and Kingdom of the Wicked are the usual next stops.