Gail Bowen Books in Order
Gail Bowen has written 34 books, published between 1987 and 2025. The first book is 1919, The Love Letters Of George & Adelaide (1987) and the newest is The Solitary Friend (2025). Publication order is the reading order below.
- Books
- 34
- Published
- 1987–2025
- Confirmed
- 34 of 34 titles
- Pages on record
- 6,395 in 23 of 34 books
- Reading time
- 107–160 hours
Reading time is an estimate, not a recorded figure: 6,395 pages at 300 words a page, read at 200–300 words a minute, covering the 23 of 34 titles with a page count on record.
Gail Bowen was a Canadian novelist, playwright and educator who died in 2026. The Joanne Kilbourn mysteries are her principal sequence, featuring a woman college teacher as sleuth and catalogued under Saskatchewan. Bowen's 34 books span 1987 to 2025, from 1919, The Love Letters Of George & Adelaide to The Solitary Friend, and take in the Charlie D books, stage plays and non-fiction.
How many Gail Bowen books are there?
Gail Bowen has 34 books, released between 1987 and 2025. They include 3 separate series.
Gail Bowen Books in Publication Order
The table lists all 34 Gail Bowen books in the order they were published, with the release year, the page count where one is on record, and how many independent book listings confirm each title. Catalogue data as of September 2026.
- 11919, The Love Letters Of George & AdelaideGail Bowen Standalone Novels #11987 · 166 pages · confirmed 3/419871663/4
- 21990–3/4
- 31991–3/4
- 419922323/4
- 519942173/4
- 61996–3/4
- 71998–3/4
- 820002543/4
- 92002803/4
- 1020022563/4
- 1120047083/4
- 1220043443/4
- 1320067383/4
- 1420064133/4
- 152008–3/4
- 162010943/4
- 172010933/4
- 182010–3/4
- 192011873/4
- 2020123363/4
- 212013–3/4
- 222013853/4
- 2320132663/4
- 242014–3/4
- 2520153203/4
- 2620163203/4
- 272017–3/4
- 2820181483/4
- 2920182883/4
- 3020203503/4
- 3120213503/4
- 322022–3/4
- 332023–3/4
- 3420252503/4
Gail Bowen characters in order
The character linked below has its own reading-order page.
- Joanne Kilbourn books in order 23 books
Gail Bowen books grouped by series
Each title below is a row in the publication-order table above. None of these groups has a reading-order page of its own on this site.
Joanne Kilbourn Mystery in order
23 books- 1. Deadly Appearances
- 2. Murder at the Mendel / Love and Murder
- 3. The Wandering Soul Murders
- 4. A Colder Kind of Death
- 5. A Killing Spring
- 6. Verdict in Blood
- 7. Burying Ariel
- 8. The Glass Coffin
- 9. The Last Good Day
- 10. The Endless Knot
- 11. The Brutal Heart
- 12. The Nesting Dolls
- and 11 more in the table above
Gail Bowen Omnibus
4 books4 titles published under this heading without a numbered place in a series.
Charlie D in order
4 booksGail Bowen Standalone Novels
1 book1 title published under this heading without a numbered place in a series.
Gail Bowen Plays in order
1 bookGail Bowen Non-Fiction
1 book1 title published under this heading without a numbered place in a series.
Do you have to read Gail Bowen books in order?
You only need to read Gail Bowen books in order within each series: the books listed here span 3 separate series, and each series has its own publication order.
Where to start with Gail Bowen
Start with Deadly Appearances (1990), the first Joanne Kilbourn book. The earliest catalogued title overall is 1919, The Love Letters Of George & Adelaide (1987).
What is the newest Gail Bowen book?
The Solitary Friend (2025) is the newest Gail Bowen book released so far.
Is there a new Gail Bowen book coming?
No next Gail Bowen book is announced in the catalogue, which is a gap in the listings it merges rather than a sign that the run has ended.
Gail Bowen at a glance
- Died
- Gail Bowen died in 2026, according to Wikidata.
- Last book
- The newest book credited to Gail Bowen on record dates from 2025.
- Release pace
- Gail Bowen books have appeared about one a year on average.
- Length
- 6,395 pages across the 23 of 34 books with a recorded length, a median of 256 pages each.
- Busiest decade
- Most Gail Bowen books, 14 of 34, were published in the 2010s.
What the Gail Bowen books are about
27 of the 34 Gail Bowen books carry subject tags in Open Library's catalogue. The subjects below are the ones that recur across them, most frequent first: joanne kilbourn (fictitious character) is tagged on 13 of 27. The subjects are cataloguers’ headings, not a plot summary.
- Joanne Kilbourn (Fictitious character) 13 of 27 books
- Kilbourn, joanne (fictitious character) 11 of 27 books
- Mystery & detective, women sleuths 10 of 27 books
- Mystery & detective 8 of 27 books
- American literature 7 of 27 books
- Women college teachers 7 of 27 books
- College teachers 6 of 27 books
- Saskatchewan 5 of 27 books
- Murder 3 of 27 books
- Radio talk shows 3 of 27 books
- Canada 2 of 27 books