Australia book series in reading order

by Kerry Greenwood

by Kerry Greenwood

Kerry Greenwood

60 books• 11 series

Kerry Greenwood (17 June 1954 - 26 March 2025) was an Australian author and lawyer. Greenwood's historical detective novels about Phryne Fisher were adapted as the television series Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries. Greenwood also wrote science fiction, historical fiction, children's stories and plays, and won the 2002 Davitt Award for the young adult novel The Three-Pronged Dagger. The catalogue holds 60 books, from Feral (1988) to Murder in the Cathedral (2025). Other series are Corinna Chapman, Delphic Women and Three Days.

Arthur Upfield

42 books• 1 series

Arthur William Upfield (1 September 1890 - 12 February 1964) wrote detective fiction set in Australia. Born in England, Upfield moved to Australia in 1911, fought with the Australian military in the First World War, and afterwards travelled widely across the country, gathering the knowledge of Aboriginal Australian culture that runs through the novels. Detective Inspector Napoleon 'Bony' Bonaparte of the Queensland Police Force, a mixed-race Indigenous Australian, leads the series, and the character reached screens in the 1970s Australian series Boney, a 1990 telemovie and a 1992 spin-off. The House of Cain (1928) opens a catalogue of 42 titles.

Garry Disher, born 15 August 1949 in Burra, South Australia, is an Australian author of crime fiction and children's books and a three-time winner of the Ned Kelly Award for Best Novel. The Wyatt thrillers follow a master thief in Melbourne. Police officers Hal Challis and Ellen Destry work the Mornington Peninsula in the Peninsula Crimes procedurals. Constable Paul Hirschhausen polices rural South Australia, north of Adelaide, in the Hirsch books. The catalogue lists 57 books from Approaches (1981) to Mischance Creek (2025).

Anna Jacobs writes historical sagas and romance set in England and Australia. Persons of Rank (1992) opens a catalogue of 114 books that reaches Hope Comes to Eastby End (2026), with Salem Street (1994), Ridge Hill (1996) and Our Lizzie (1999) among the early run. Family sagas name most of the series: the Gibson Family, the Kershaw Sisters, the Preston Family, the Michaels Family, the Blake Sisters and Swan River Saga, the Traders, Peppercorn Street, Rivenshaw, the Ellindale Saga, Larch Tree Lane and the Wiltshire Girls. Widows, inheritance and family life recur as subjects.

Peter Carey, born in 1943, is an Australian novelist who has lived in New York City for over three decades. He is one of only five writers to have won the Booker Prize twice, taking it in 1988 for Oscar and Lucinda and in 2001 for True History of the Kelly Gang, and he was nominated for the Best of the Booker Prize in May 2008. Carey has won the Miles Franklin Award three times and is named often as Australia's next contender for the Nobel Prize in Literature. Twenty titles are catalogued from The Fat Man In History (1974) to A Long Way From Home (2017), including War Crimes (1979), Bliss (1981), Illywhacker (1985), The Tax Inspector (1991), The Unusual Life of Tristan Smith (1994) and Jack Maggs (1997).

Thomas Keneally

66 books• 4 series

Thomas Keneally, born 7 October 1935, is an Australian novelist, playwright, essayist and actor. Schindler's Ark, a historical novel about Oskar Schindler's rescue of Jews during the Holocaust, won the 1982 Booker Prize and became the basis for Steven Spielberg's 1993 film Schindler's List. The catalogue holds 66 titles, including Bring Larks And Heroes (1967), The Chant of Jimmie Blacksmith (1972) and Gossip from the Forest (1975), plus the Monsarrat Mystery series. Subjects include Australia, Aboriginal Australians, penal colonies and both world wars.

Ellie Dean is a pen name of Tamara McKinley, an Australian-born author based in the south of England. The Cliffehaven books, also listed as Beach View Boarding House, carry the Dean name and have sold more than a million copies. The earlier Australian novels appeared as Tamara McKinley, from Matilda's Last Waltz (1999) through Jacaranda Vines (2001) and Undercurrents (2004) to Ocean Child (2010), alongside the Oceana Trilogy. The catalogue holds 36 titles reaching The Long Road Home (2026), with subjects covering the Second World War, England, Australia and family sagas.

Monica McInerney is an Australian-born novelist based in Dublin, published worldwide and in more than a dozen languages. Families, sisters and the traffic between Australia and Ireland supply the material, with food and wine recurring. A Taste For It (2001) opens the catalogue, and The Alphabet Sisters (2004), Family Baggage (2005), The Faraday Girls (2007) and Lola's Secret (2011) follow. Sixteen books are catalogued through When Sullivan Met Lola (2026), at a median length of 463 pages.

James Patterson

510 books• 73 series

James Patterson, born on March 22, 1947, is an American writer whose catalogue here holds 514 books published from 1976 to 2027. The run opens with The Thomas Berryman Number (1976), and Along Came a Spider (1992) and Kiss the Girls (1995) follow later. Alex Cross, Michael Bennett, Maximum Ride, Daniel X, Witch & Wizard, NYPD Red, Private, Middle School and the Women's Murder Club are among the Patterson series, alongside standalone thrillers, non-fiction and romance. Marshall Karp shares the credit on 5 of the books. Patterson's sales exceed 425 million copies, and Patterson was the first person to sell one million e-books. Forbes ranked Patterson the highest-paid author in 2016, for a third year running, and the National Book Foundation gave Patterson the Literarian Award in November 2015. 27 Stars is scheduled for 2027.

Bryce Courtenay

22 books• 5 series

Bryce Courtenay was a South African-Australian novelist and advertising director, and one of Australia's best-selling authors. The Power of One (1989) opened a catalogue of 22 titles that closed with The Silver Moon in 2014, taking in Tandia (1992), April Fool's Day (1993), the Potato Factory novels begun in 1995 and the Persimmon Tree books. Apartheid, boxing, prisons, the Second World War and the histories of Australia and South Africa run through the fiction.

Morris Gleitzman

52 books• 8 series

Morris Gleitzman is an Australian children's and young adult novelist. Two Weeks with the Queen (1990) drew attention to AIDS in children's fiction. Gleitzman co-wrote several series with Paul Jennings, among them Wicked!, which became an animated series in 2000, and he has collected three volumes of his newspaper columns for The Age and the Sydney Morning Herald as books for adults. Earlier still, Gleitzman wrote for the Norman Gunston Show. The subject tags name the Second World War, Jews, stepfamilies and humorous stories, and the catalogue holds 52 titles ending with Always (2021).

Di Morrissey, born Grace Diane Cairns in 1948, is an Australian novelist. Australia is the constant setting, and family secrets, friendship and pioneer life are the recurring subjects. Thirty books are catalogued between 1992 and 2025, from The Last Rose of Summer to The Endless Sky, most of them standalone and long at around 480 pages. Queenie and TR, and Lily Barton, are the two series among them.

Liane Moriarty is an Australian novelist, born in November 1966, who worked in advertising and marketing before her first novel, Three Wishes, came out in 2003. The catalogue holds 15 of her books through Big Little Truths (2026), including The Husband's Secret (2013), Big Little Lies (2014) and Truly Madly Guilty (2016). Big Little Lies, Nine Perfect Strangers, The Last Anniversary and Apples Never Fall have all become television series. Moriarty was the first Australian author to debut at number one on The New York Times Best Seller list. The Nicola Berry books sit alongside her standalone novels.

Sally Hepworth

12 books• 3 series

Sally Hepworth is an Australian novelist. The Secrets of Midwives (2015), the first title in the catalogue, is also Hepworth's best-known book, and The Good Sister (2021) won the Davitt Award for Adult Novel that year. The catalogue lists 12 books from 2015 to 2026, among them The Family Next Door (2018), The Mother-in-Law (2019) and The Soulmate (2023). Subjects include family secrets, midwives, Alzheimer's disease and suspense. Mad Mabel (2026) is the newest.

Cowboys, ranchers and ranch life run through Linda Lael Miller's 134 catalogued books, in historical, contemporary and western romance alike. Miller's families and places include the McKettricks, the Montana Creeds, Stone Creek, Springwater Seasons, Painted Pony Creek and the Brides of Bliss County, with a Tremayne vampire sequence off to one side. Desire and Destiny (1983) is the earliest title and The Silver Hills Boarding House the newest.

Candice Fox writes crime fiction, much of it Australian. The catalogue opens with Hades and Eden (2014) and Fall (2015), and the named series are Archer & Bennett, Crimson Lake and Jessica Sanchez, with Crimson Lake (2017), Redemption Point (2018) and Gone by Midnight (2019) among the titles. Police work, missing persons and undercover operations recur as subjects. Fourteen books are catalogued, reaching Redbelly Crossing in 2026.

Anita Stansfield writes Christian romance and family sagas, much of it with Mormon characters and settings. First Love and Forever (1994) opens a catalogue of 90 books built largely from sagas, Byrnehouse-Davies & Hamilton, the Trevor Family, the Buchanans, the Barringtons, the Keane-Morrisons and Shadows of Brierley. The Scoundrel's Widow (2022) is the newest catalogued title.

Keri Arthur

68 books• 16 series

Vampires and werewolves fill Keri Arthur's paranormal fantasy and romance, with serial murder and horror in the mix. Riley Jenson heads the Guardian series, and Dark Angels, Lizzie Grace, Souls of Fire, the Damask Circle, Nikki & Michael, Spook Squad and the Kingdoms of Earth & Air stand beside it. Sixty-eight catalogued books run from Hearts in Darkness (2000) to Geitha's Tears in 2026.

Paige Toon writes romance, along with the Jessie Jefferson young adult series. Toon grew up in Australia, the United States and England, and worked as a magazine reviews editor before writing full time. The catalogue holds 26 books published between 2007 and 2026, opening with Lucy in the Sky (2007) and including the Johnny Be Good and One Perfect series. First loves, holidays, and fathers and daughters recur as subjects.

Tim Winton

33 books• 4 series

Tim Winton, born in 1960, is an Australian writer and environmental activist who works in novels, short fiction, non-fiction and children's books. Cloudstreet (1991) launched his career and remains the best known of them, alongside Dirt Music (2001), Breath (2009) and the story collection The Turning (2004); Lockie Leonard, Human Torpedo heads the young adult side. Juice (2024) is his most recent novel, written as climate fiction. Winton's work has been adapted for stage and screen and translated widely. Thirty-two titles span 1982 to 2024, from An Open Swimmer onward.

Elizabeth Lowell is one of the names used by American writer Ann Maxwell, born April 5, 1944, who also writes as A.E. Maxwell. Alone and with co-author and husband Evan, Maxwell has produced more than 50 novels and one non-fiction book, spanning science fiction, historical fiction, romance, mystery and suspense. The Elizabeth Lowell catalogue lists 52 books from 1983 to 2015, from To the Ends of the Earth / The Danvers Touch (1983) to Perfect Touch (2015). Series include St. Kilda, Rarities Unlimited, Donovans and MacKenzie-Blackthorn.

Eleven catalogued books by Chris Hammer run from The River (2010) to Full Circle (2026). Hammer writes Australian crime fiction across two series: Martin Scarsden, named for its recurring character, and Ivan Lucic & Nell Buchanan. Rivers, environmental conditions and journalism recur as subjects. Hammer, an Australian journalist born in 1960, remains actively publishing.

Chris Ryan

76 books• 16 series

Chris Ryan is the pen name of Colin Armstrong, a British author, television presenter and security consultant born in 1961 who served as a sergeant in the Special Air Service. After fellow patrol member Andy McNab published Bravo Two Zero in 1993, Ryan told the story of that mission in The One That Got Away (1995). Strike Back became a Sky 1 television series, and Ryan co-created the ITV action series Ultimate Force. The catalogue lists 76 Ryan books up to Traitor (2024), including Stand By, Stand by (1996) and The Kremlin Device (1998). Series include Danny Black, Agent 21, Geordie Sharp, Matt Browning and Special Forces Cadets.

Jacquelyn Frank writes paranormal romance. Rapture, catalogued at 2009, reached number 8 on The New York Times paperback fiction chart. Vampires, spirits, the supernatural and blessing and cursing appear among the recorded subjects. The listing holds 43 books between 2006 and 2020, opening with Jacob (2006) and closing on Seduce Me in Shadows (2020), and the run is marked likely complete. Nightwalkers and Immortal Brothers are the recorded character groupings, with World of Nightwalkers, Shadowdwellers, Energy Vampires and Gatherers among the series.