Australia book series in reading order

by Jon Cleary

by Kerry Greenwood

by Peter Corris

by Kerry Greenwood

by Claire McNab

by Peter Watt

by Fleur McDonald

by Katherine Howell

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.

Jon Cleary, who lived from 1917 to 2010, was an Australian novelist. His detective series follows Sydney police inspector Scobie Malone and begins with The High Commissioner in 1966. Cleary also wrote The Sundowners, a portrait of a rural family moving from one job to the next in the 1920s, and several of his books were adapted for film and television. The catalogue holds 54 titles from You Can't See Around Corners in 1947 onward, mixing police procedurals with wartime and adventure novels.

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).

Cliff Hardy is a Sydney private investigator and the character Peter Corris is known for, beginning with The Dying Trade (1980). Corris (1942-2018) worked as an academic, historian and journalist in Australia, and was described as the Godfather of contemporary Australian crime-writing. Ray Crawley, Richard Browning and Luke Dunlop head further series. The listing holds 77 titles dated 1973 to 2017, opening with a history of Solomon Islands labour migration and closing with Win, Lose or Draw (2017).

Claire McNab writes lesbian crime fiction set largely in Australia. Detective Inspector Carol Ashton heads the longest series, opening with Lessons in Murder in 1988, and the Denise Cleever thrillers and Kylie Kendall mysteries follow with an intelligence officer and a private investigator. Policewomen, women detectives and lesbian relationships run through 33 books, reaching Aspects of the Heart in 2020 at a median of 201 pages.

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.

John Marsden

41 books• 5 series

John Marsden (27 September 1950 to 18 December 2024) was an Australian writer and teacher who wrote more than 40 books. Marsden started writing for children while teaching, and So Much to Tell You (1987) was the first published book. The young adult novel Tomorrow, When the War Began (1993) started a series of seven books. In 2006 Marsden founded Candlebark School, an alternative school, and cut back on writing; the arts-focused Alice Miller School followed in 2016, both in Victoria's Macedon Ranges. Other titles include Letters from the Inside (1991) and The Dead of Night (1994), and the Ellie Chronicles also appear in the catalogue.

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.

Nicola Marsh is a romance author with 109 books catalogued between 2004 and 2025. The Wedding Contract (2004) is listed as the first title, alongside The Tycoon's Dating Deal from the same year. Subjects include contemporary romance, erotic romance, businessmen, marriage and Australia. Series include Hot Sydney Nights, Bollywood Billionaires, Outer Banks Secrets, Love on Ceto Island, Bombshells and Redeeming a Bad Boy. Our Perfect Family (2025) is the newest title.

Miranda Lee (née Maureen Mary) was an Australian romance writer, born in 1945 in Port Macquarie, New South Wales, who died on 13 November 2021. Mills & Boon published her novels from 1990, and she wrote more than 75 of them. The catalogue lists 95 books from After the Affair (1990) to The Billionaire's Cinderella Housekeeper (2021). Series include Hearts of Fire, Affairs to Remember, Australian Playboys, Three Rich Men, Three Rich Husbands, Wives Wanted!, Marrying a Tycoon and Housekeeper Brides for Billionaires. Subjects include billionaires, Australia, passion, revenge and inheritance.

Peter Watt writes Australian historical fiction built around frontier and pioneer life, family and war. Cry of the Curlew (2000) is the first of 24 books, followed by Shadow of the Osprey the same year and Flight of the Eagle (2002). The Colonial and Papua Trilogy series sit in the catalogue, and both World Wars appear in the subjects. Watt has kept a pace of about one novel a year, at a median of 392 pages, and The Ghosts of August (2024) is the latest. Peter Watt's books are also linked to the Frontier listing.

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.