Adultery book series in reading order

by Sherryl Woods

Tess Stimson writes about marriage and its failures, with subjects covering adultery, love triangles, motherhood, nannies and sisters. Hard News (1993) opens her catalogue, followed by Soft Focus (1995) and Pole Position (1996), and the later run takes in The Adultery Club (2007), The Infidelity Chain (2008), Who Loves You Best (2010) and The Wife Who Ran Away (2011). Stimson has 18 books, reaching The Perfect Accident in 2026.

John Updike

83 books• 8 series

John Updike, born March 18, 1932, was an American novelist, short-story writer, poet and critic of art and literature who died on January 27, 2009. Updike won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction twice, one of only four writers to do so, and the output spans over twenty novels and more than twelve short-story collections, plus poetry, children's books and criticism of art and literature. The New Yorker printed hundreds of Updike stories, reviews and poems from 1954 on, and Updike wrote regularly for The New York Review of Books. The catalogue lists 83 books from The Poorhouse Fair (1958) to Hoping for a Hoopoe (2020), including Rabbit, Run (1960) and The Centaur (1963). Series include Harry "Rabbit" Angstrom, Henry Bech, Maples Stories and Eastwick.

Carole Mortimer, born in England in 1960, is a British romance novelist who has written more than 150 novels since 1978 and was one of the youngest authors at Mills & Boon. The catalogue lists 291 books, starting in 1979 with The Passionate Winter, Only Lover, Savage Interlude and Tempted By Desire, and reaching Linus (2026), with Amanda and the Lord scheduled for 2027. Series include Regency Unlaced, Regency Sinners, Regency Scandal, Regency Lovers, Dangerous Dukes, Ruthless Regency Dukes, Scandalous St. Claires, Knight Security, Steele Protectors, Dragon Hearts and Wynter Hearts. Subjects cover contemporary and Regency romance, nobility, marriage and businessmen.

Niobia Bryant is an African-American novelist, born November 24 in Newark, New Jersey, who writes romance and mainstream fiction. Bryant has also written urban and crime fiction as Meesha Mink and young adult fiction as Simone Bryant. The 41 catalogued books begin with Admission Of Love (2000) and reach Breaking Their One Rule (2024). Series include Mistress, Strong Family, Cress Brothers, Hot In Holtsville, Friends & Sins, Dutton Sisters, Pace Academy and Passion Grove, with female friendship, adultery and South Carolina among the subjects.

Sherryl Woods is an American writer of romance and mystery, born July 23, 1944, in Arlington, Virginia, who has also used the pen names Alexandra Kirk and Suzanne Sherrill. The Chesapeake Shores novels became a six-season Hallmark Channel series, and Netflix's Sweet Magnolias is based on Woods' books, with Woods as an executive producer. The catalogue lists 157 titles from Restoring Love (1982) to Starlit Secrets (2024). Other named series include Calamity Janes, Devaney Brothers and the Amanda Roberts and Molly DeWitt mysteries.

D.H. Lawrence

146 books• 3 series

David Herbert Lawrence, 11 September 1885 to 2 March 1930, was an English novelist, poet, playwright, essayist, travel writer, literary critic and painter. Lawrence's modernist writing examines modernity, social alienation and industrialisation while arguing for sexuality, vitality and instinct. Four novels went through censorship trials over their treatment of sex and their explicit language: The Rainbow (1915), Sons and Lovers (1913), Women in Love (1920) and Lady Chatterley's Lover (1928). The catalogue lists 146 entries, among them The White Peacock (1911), The Trespasser (1912) and the story collection The Prussian Officer (1914), and groups some of them under Sons and Lovers and the Brangwen Family.

Susan Lewis writes family drama and suspense, often about mothers and daughters, marriages and buried secrets. Sixty-seven books are catalogued from Dance While You Can (1983) onward, across the Andee Lawrence novels, the Cristy Ward thrillers, the Laurie Forbes and Elliott Russell books, the No Child of Mine titles, standalone novels and non-fiction. Missing persons, journalists and investigation recur as subjects, and the median book runs 512 pages. Who Can You Trust? appeared in 2026, and I Dare You is scheduled for 2027.

Keisha Ervin writes urban fiction and African American romance. Thirty-eight books carry her name, published between Me & My Boyfriend in 2000 and The Untold Stories Vol. 2 in 2021. Chyna Black, Material Girl, Mina's Joint, India Black, Cam & Gray, McKinley's Journey, Cranes In The Sky and First Wives Club are among the series. Relationships, adultery and street life supply the material, and the 2010s were the busiest decade.

Jane Fallon is an English author and television producer. Her 14 catalogued novels run from Getting Rid Of Matthew (2007) to Welcome to the Neighbourhood (2026), taking in Got You Back (2008), Foursome (2010), Skeletons (2014), My Sweet Revenge (2017), Faking Friends (2018) and Queen Bee (2020). Subjects cover marriage, adultery, revenge, friendship and family secrets, handled with humour.

Jessica Brody

37 books• 5 series

Jessica Brody is an American author and writing educator, working mainly in young adult fiction. The catalogue lists 37 titles from The Fidelity Files (2008) to How to Write a Murder (2026), with The Karma Club (2010), 52 Reasons to Hate My Father (2012) and Unremembered (2013) among them. Series include Unremembered and System Divine, plus the Disney Descendants: School of Secrets and LEGO Disney Princess lines. The Complete Guide to Getting Published (2014) sits in the same listing. Subjects name preparatory schools, friendship, women private investigators, adultery, science fiction and dating.

Karen Kingsbury is an American Christian novelist, born in Fairfax, Virginia, on June 8, 1963. Kingsbury worked as a sports writer for the Los Angeles Times and later wrote for the Los Angeles Daily News. Missy's Murder (1991), Kingsbury's first book, grew out of a murder story covered as a reporter in Los Angeles. Kingsbury is a #1 New York Times and USA Today bestselling novelist. The catalogue holds 115 titles, running to The Christmas Ring (2025), and the series include Firstborn, Sunrise, Above the Line, Bailey Flanigan, Red Gloves and Forever Faithful. Christian fiction and family life recur among the subjects.

Karen Robards has written historical romance, contemporary romance and romantic suspense across 56 catalogued books. Island Flame (1981) opens the list, followed by Sea Fire (1982), Forbidden Love (1983), Amanda Rose (1984), Dark Torment (1985) and To Love a Man (1985). Dr. Charlotte Stone, the Banning Sisters and Jessica Ford head series inside a catalogue otherwise made of standalone novels. The Moonlight Runner is the newest title, and Robards remains actively publishing.

Kimberla Lawson Roby writes about African American families, marriage and the church. The Reverend Curtis Black series, opening with Casting the First Stone (2000), is the long-running sequence, and Behind Closed Doors (1996) came before it. Clergy, spouses of clergy and life in Illinois are recurring subjects. Twenty-nine books run to Sister Friends Forever in 2022, and nothing new has appeared since.

Georges Simenon

187 books• 5 series

Inspector Maigret, a policeman in Paris, is the centre of Georges Simenon's crime fiction. The catalogue holds 187 books, beginning in 1931 with Pietr the Latvian. Short novels are the form, at a median 169 pages, and the 1950s were the densest decade. Standalone novels, short stories and non-fiction sit beside the Maigret run, most of it translated from the French.

Joyce Carol Oates

180 books• 8 series

Joyce Carol Oates, born June 16, 1938, is an American writer of novels, short stories, poetry, plays and nonfiction. The catalogue holds 180 books, beginning with By the North Gate (1963) and reaching The Frenzy: Stories (2026). Oates took the National Book Award for the novel Them (1969), and later honours include two O. Henry Awards, the National Humanities Medal and the Jerusalem Prize in 2019. Black Water, What I Lived For, Blonde and the collection Lovely, Dark, Deep were each finalists for the Pulitzer Prize. Oates taught at Princeton University from 1978 to 2014.

Thomas Hardy

20 books• 1 series

Wessex (England) appears in the subject headings for Thomas Hardy, alongside adultery, love triangles and rural social customs. Hardy was an English novelist, poet and architect, born 2 June 1840 and died 11 January 1928. Hardy wrote as a Victorian realist in the line of George Eliot, drew on Romanticism including Wordsworth, and was sharply critical of Victorian society, above all the falling status of rural people in South West England. Poetry mattered most to Hardy, though the first collection came only in 1898. The catalogue lists 20 books, beginning with Desperate Remedies (1871), Under the Greenwood Tree (1872) and Far From the Madding Crowd (1874), with The Mayor of Casterbridge (1886) among the later titles.

Graham Greene

80 books• 3 series

Graham Greene (Henry Graham Greene, 2 October 1904 to 3 April 1991) was an English novelist and journalist. Greene gained an early reputation for two kinds of book: serious Catholic novels and thrillers, which Greene called entertainments. Across 67 years of writing, including more than 25 novels, the work examined the conflicting moral and political questions of the modern world. The catalogue begins with Babbling April (1925), then The Man Within (1929), Stamboul Train (1932), It's a Battlefield (1934) and A Gun for Sale (1936). Greene was shortlisted for the Nobel Prize in Literature several times. Subjects include travel, drama, England and Catholics.

Subjects attached to Kiki Swinson's books include urban and street lit, African American women, drug dealers, criminals, revenge and suspense. The catalogue holds 59 books from Wifey (2004) to Where There's Smoke (2024), including I'm Still Wifey, The Candy Shop and A Sticky Situation. Series listed for Swinson include Wifey, Cheaper to Keep Her, Notorious / Playing Dirty, New York's Finest, Black Market and Schemes. The status is listed as ongoing.

Joy Fielding

48 books• 1 series

Joy Fielding is a Canadian novelist and actress who writes psychological suspense. Her 48 catalogued books begin with The Transformation (1967) and reach Jenny Cooper Has a Secret (2025), with See Jane Run (1991) and Tell Me No Secrets (1993) among the earlier titles. Recurring subjects include mothers and daughters, deception, adultery and women sleuths. Fielding lives in Toronto and is actively publishing.

Mary B. Morrison writes romance and erotica, and subjects include African American women, love triangles and Atlanta. The catalogue lists 28 books published between 1999 and 2020. Soulmates Dissipate (2000), Who's Making Love (2001), Never Again Once More (2002) and Sweeter Than Honey (2007) are among them. Morrison's series are Soulmates Dissipate and If I Can't Have You, and the catalogue also links Honey Diaries. Careful What You Click For (2020) is the newest, and the run is listed as likely complete.

Jonathan Franzen

23 books• 2 series

Jonathan Franzen, born August 17, 1959, is an American novelist and essayist who has written for The New Yorker since 1994. The Corrections (2001) won the National Book Award and the James Tait Black Memorial Prize, was a Pulitzer Prize for Fiction finalist and made the International Dublin Literary Award shortlist. Freedom (2010) put Franzen on the cover of Time under the headline "Great American Novelist". Crossroads (2021) is the first novel of a projected trilogy. Earlier books include The Twenty-Seventh City (1988), Strong Motion (1992), How to Be Alone (2002) and The Discomfort Zone (2006).

Nathaniel Hawthorne

93 books• 1 series

Nathaniel Hawthorne (born Hathorne, July 4, 1804 to May 19, 1864) was an American novelist and short story writer from Salem, Massachusetts, where the family had deep roots. History, morality and religion are frequent concerns. Hawthorne graduated from Bowdoin College in 1825 and published the novel Fanshawe (1828), later trying to suppress it. Magazine stories were gathered as Twice-Told Tales (1837). The catalogue lists 93 titles, including Young Goodman Brown (1835) and The Minister's Black Veil (1836), and subjects include Puritans and the supernatural.

Penelope Lively

65 books• 3 series

Penelope Lively, born in 1933, is a British writer of fiction for children and for adults, and holds the title Dame. Moon Tiger took the Booker Prize in 1987, and The Ghost of Thomas Kempe (1973) won the Carnegie Medal for British children's books. Her catalogue runs to 65 titles published between 1970 and 2021, from Astercote (1970) to Metamorphosis (2021), taking in The Whispering Knights (1971), The Driftway (1972), The House in Norham Gardens (1974) and A Stitch in Time (1976). Ghost stories, English social life, the Second World War, and space and time recur as subjects.

Penny Vincenzi wrote long sagas of wealth, publishing and London society. The British novelist, born in 1939 and died in 2018, has 22 catalogued titles published between 1977 and 2017, from The Compleat Liar (1977) to At the Heart of It (2017). Spoils Of Time is her one catalogued series, and the Lytton family, rich people, married life and adultery run through the subject headings. Her novels are long, at a median of about 640 pages, and sales had passed seven million copies by 2014.