[1] Staveley's debut trilogy, The Chronicles of the Unhewn Throne (2014–2016), follows the three children of an assassinated emperor – the monk Kaden, the special forces soldier Valyn and the politician Adare – as they attempt to unravel the conspiracy gripping their continent-spanning empire.
[5] He considered the final volume a substantial improvement "in the pace and the ultimate punch of its complex plot; and in the quality, on the lexical level, of the author’s already-polished prose".
Reviewing Skullsworn at Tor.com, Laura M. Hughes described its setting, the swampy river delta city of Dombâng, as the novel's "show-stealer" antagonist, and appreciated Staveley's "more confident, assured" narrative voice.
[8] Kirkus Reviews described it as "a pleasantly grim and emotionally complex divertissement",[9] and Publishers Weekly noted the "remarkably intimate" novel's "visceral action scenes and memorable characters".
[10] Set several years after the events of the first trilogy by the author, Ashes of the Unhewn Throne is a series expected to consist of three or more volumes, the first of which is titled The Empire's Ruin and was published in July 2021.