Royal Ranger

About the Royal Ranger series

The Royal Ranger picks up several years after the end of the main Ranger's Apprentice series: Will Treaty, now a senior Ranger grieving the loss of his wife, is given an unlikely new apprentice -- Princess Madelyn (Maddie), heir to the throne of Araluen, sent to him after one royal misadventure too many. Across seven books, Maddie trains into a Ranger in her own right while the series widens Araluen's world further, introducing new threats and letting familiar characters from the original series -- Halt, Horace, Cassandra -- take on more senior, supporting roles around the new generation.

The first book was originally published in 2013 as Ranger's Apprentice's twelfth and final installment; once further sequels were commissioned, Penguin reclassified it in 2018 as the opening book of this sub-series, under the title The Royal Ranger: A New Beginning, and released six further books through 2024. It was the last active series John Flanagan was writing at the time of his death in February 2026.