Clergy book series in reading order

by G.K. Chesterton

by James Runcie

by Jan Karon

by Marilynne Robinson

Ralph McInerny (February 24, 1929 to January 29, 2010) was an American novelist and a professor of philosophy at the University of Notre Dame. Father Dowling is the priest at the centre of the most popular McInerny mysteries, which were adapted as the Father Dowling Mysteries television series from 1987 to 1991. The catalogue holds 110 books from Jolly Rogerson (1967) to A Student's Guide to Philosophy (2014), including philosophy titles such as Thomism in an Age of Renewal (1968). Other series include Sister Mary Teresa, Andrew Broom and Notre Dame. McInerny also used the pen names Monica Quill, Harry Austin, Matthew FitzRalph, Ernan Mackey and Edward Mackin.

The Mitford novels are the core of Jan Karon's work: New York Times bestsellers set in the fictional village of Mitford and featuring Father Timothy Kavanagh, an Episcopal priest. Karon, an American novelist born March 14, 1937, writes for adults and young readers. My Beloved, the most recent Mitford novel, came out in October 2025. Karon was named a lay Canon for the Arts in the Episcopal Diocese of Quincy, Illinois, and in May 2000 received an honorary Doctor of Humane Letters from Nashotah House, a seminary in Wisconsin. The catalogue records 30 books from Miss Fannie's Hat (1993) onward, with At Home in Mitford (1994) as the second.

Andrew M. Greeley's catalogue spans fiction, non-fiction and poetry, and runs to 82 books published between 1967 and 2010. Subjects settle on the Catholic Church, its clergy, Irish Americans and Chicago. Blackie Ryan and Nuala Anne McGrail are the recurring detectives; other groupings include the O'Malley's family saga, Time Between The Stars, Passover and the World Of Maggie Ward. The listing opens with Letters to Nancy (1967) and ends with Chicago Catholics and the Struggles Within Their Church (2010).

Phil Rickman wrote supernatural and mystery novels, publishing under the pen names Will Kingdom and Thom Madley as well as his own. Merrily Watkins, a woman priest in England, is the recurring figure, and exorcism, ghosts and the occult run through those books. 30 catalogued titles span Candlenight (1991) to The Echo of Crows (2026), among them The Wine of Angels (1998), Midwinter of the Spirit (1999) and A Crown of Lights (2001). The John Dee Papers and the Grayle Underhill and Bobby Maiden novels sit alongside. Rickman, born in 1950, died in 2024.

Margaret Coel's series include Wind River Reservation, Arapaho Ten Commandments and Catherine McLeod, alongside non-fiction and short stories. Subjects name Vicky Holden and John O'Malley as characters and cover Arapaho Indians, women lawyers, clergy and Wyoming. The 34 catalogued books run from Chief Left Hand (1981) to Man Found Dead in Park (2017). The Eagle Catcher (1995), The Ghost Walker (1996) and The Dream Stalker (1997) are among the titles. The catalogue is listed as likely complete.

Philip Gulley writes about Quaker life in Indiana, in essays and in fiction. Front Porch Tales (1997) opens a catalogue of 24 books, and the Harmony novels, Home to Harmony (2000), Just Shy of Harmony (2001), Christmas in Harmony (2002), build a small town around a Quaker congregation. Christian life, clergy and universalism run through the subjects, and nothing later than 2018 is catalogued.

Paul Doherty writes historical mysteries set largely in England, with 127 books catalogued from The Death of a King (1985) to The Meadows of Murder (2026). Recurring detectives include Hugh Corbett, Brother Athelstan, Kathryn Swinbrooke and Amerotke. Other series cover the Canterbury Tales Mysteries, Ancient Rome, Egyptian Mysteries, Nicholas Segalla, Mathilde of Westminster, Margaret Beaufort and Vlad Drakulya. Satan in St Mary's (1986) and Spy in Chancery (1988) are among the early titles.

G.K. Chesterton

114 books• 6 series

G.K. Chesterton (Gilbert Keith Chesterton, 29 May 1874 to 14 June 1936) was an English writer of Christian apologetics, noted for wit, paradox and a defence of tradition. Chesterton created the priest-detective Father Brown and wrote the apologetic works Orthodoxy and The Everlasting Man. Chesterton converted from Anglicanism to Catholicism. The catalogue lists 114 books, opening with The Defendant (1901) and Robert Louis Stevenson and Thomas Carlyle (1902), and including The Napoleon of Notting Hill (1904), Heretics (1905) and The Club of Queer Trades (1905). Biographers place Chesterton as a successor to Matthew Arnold, Thomas Carlyle, John Henry Newman and John Ruskin.

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.

James Runcie, born 7 May 1959, is a British novelist, documentary filmmaker, television producer and playwright, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature and a visiting professor at Bath Spa University. From 2016 to 2020 Runcie served as Commissioning Editor for Arts on BBC Radio 4. The catalogue holds 14 books, from The Colour of Heaven (2000) and The Discovery of Chocolate (2001) through Canvey Island (2006) and East Fortune (2009) to The Great Passion (2022). Sidney Chambers titles run from Sidney Chambers and the Shadow of Death (2012) to Sidney Chambers and the Persistence of Love (2017), and Grantchester Mysteries is the listed series. Clergy, murder, England and the 1950s appear in the subjects.

Family sagas are Susan Howatch's signature: novels that trace related characters across long stretches of time. The British author published 20 books between 1965 and 2003, from The Dark Shore (1965) to The Heartbreaker (2003). Religious and philosophical themes mark the later work, and clergy, cathedrals and the Church of England recur across the catalogue. Three sequences divide it, the Starbridge novels, St. Benet's and Van Zale, and nothing has been added since 2003.

Between 1950 and 1961 Barbara Pym published a run of English social comedies, of which Excellent Women (1952) and A Glass of Blessings (1958) are the best known. Publishers then rejected her for years, until in 1977 the critic David Cecil and the poet Philip Larkin named her the most underrated writer of the previous 75 years. Quartet in Autumn (1977) went on to a Booker Prize nomination, and Pym was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of Literature. She lived from 1913 to 1980, and her 14 catalogued titles close with Civil to Strangers and Other Writings (1988).

Tiffany Reisz is an American author of erotica and romance, best known for the Original Sinners series published by the Harlequin imprint Mira Books. Reisz has won a RITA Award and a Lambda Literary Award. NPR called the work "smart smut", and the books combine witty depictions of sex with heavy religious imagery and themes; Nora Sutherlin and clergy are among the recorded subjects. The catalogue counts 66 titles between 2010 and 2022, opening with The Auction / Daniel Part Two (2010) and ending with A Wolfe in Winter (2022). Reisz attended Asbury Theological Seminary and Centre College and lives in Louisville, Kentucky.

Robert Barnard wrote traditional English detective fiction, and lectured and reviewed alongside it. The catalogue holds 64 titles published between 1974 and 2016, opening with Death of an Old Goat (1974). Charlie Peace and Perry Trethowan head two of the series; Idwal Meredith, John Sutcliffe and a sequence about Amadeus Mozart follow. Barnard also wrote criticism, including a study of Dickens (1974) and an appreciation of Agatha Christie (1980), and published four books as Bernard Bastable. Barnard lived from 1936 to 2013.

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.

Anthony Trollope

81 books• 6 series

Anthony Trollope was an English novelist of the Victorian era who also served as a civil servant. The catalogue holds 81 Trollope titles, opening with The Macdermots of Ballycloran (1847) and closing at Malachi's Cove and Other Stories and Essays (1985). Trollope grouped much of the fiction into the Chronicles of Barsetshire and the Palliser novels, and wrote travel books, essays and short stories alongside them. English social life and customs, inheritance and succession, and manners recur across the subjects.

Amish settings run through Vannetta Chapman's catalogue: the recorded subjects name the Amish, Amish and Mennonite life, clergy, Christian romance, Christian suspense and mystery and detective fiction. 69 books are listed, from A Simple Amish Christmas (2010) to The Reimagined Life of Jade Morrow (2026). Indiana Amish Brides, Pebble Creek Amish, Shipshewana Amish Mystery, Amish Village Mystery and the Amish Bishop Mysteries are among the series under the Chapman name, and Chapman is still publishing.

Joanna Trollope

40 books• 3 series

Joanna Trollope (9 December 1943 to 11 December 2025) was an English writer who also published as Caroline Harvey. Parson Harding's Daughter, a Caroline Harvey novel, won the Romantic Novelists' Association's 1980 Romantic Novel of the Year Award. The catalogue lists 40 books from Eliza Stanhope (1978) to Mum & Dad (2020), including The Choir (1988). Subjects include history, romance, domestic fiction, family life, clergy and England. The Legacy Saga is Trollope's listed series.

Nora Roberts

279 books• 37 series

Nora Roberts, born Eleanor Marie Robertson on October 10, 1950, is an American writer of romance under that name. As J. D. Robb, Roberts writes police procedurals with science-fiction elements, and has also published as Jill March and, in the UK, as Sarah Hardesty. This listing carries 280 Roberts books, opening with Irish Thoroughbred (1981); The Missing is scheduled for 2027. Series on the page include the In Death Universe, the MacGregors, Night Tales, the Calhoun Women, the Chesapeake Bay Saga, Irish Hearts and the O'Hurleys.

Debbie Macomber

245 books• 35 series

Debbie Macomber, born October 22, 1948, is an American author of romance novels and contemporary women's fiction. Six Macomber novels became made-for-TV movies, and the Cedar Cove novels became a television series of the same name, with Macomber serving as executive producer on the adaptations. Macomber won the first fan-voted Quill Award for romance in 2005 and holds a RITA Award and a lifetime achievement award from the Romance Writers of America. The catalogue counts 245 books between Starlight (1983) and A Date with Santa (2026). Series include Heart of Texas, Midnight Sons, Navy, Those Manning Men, Orchard Valley and Angels Everywhere.

Robyn Carr is the American author of the Virgin River books, and an executive producer on the television versions of Virgin River and Sullivan's Crossing. The catalogue records 70 Carr books, from Chelynne (1980) to The Friendship Club (2024). Thunder Point, Sullivan's Crossing and the Grace Valley Trilogy are Carr's other series. Several novels, The Hero among them, reached The New York Times Best Seller list. Subject tags on the books include contemporary romance, California, single mothers, veterans and city and town life.

Brad Meltzer

85 books• 14 series

Brad Meltzer, born April 1, 1970, is an American novelist, non-fiction author, television creator and comic book writer. The novels span political thrillers, legal thrillers and conspiracy fiction. Meltzer has written superhero comics for DC Comics and, at times, Marvel, and a run of short biographies of well-known people for young readers. The catalogue holds 86 titles from The Tenth Justice (1997) to We are the Wright Brothers (2026), and I am Taylor Swift is scheduled for 2027. Series include Ordinary People Change the World, Beecher White/Culper Ring and Escape Artist/Zig & Nola. Other titles include Identity Crisis (2004) and The Book of Fate (2006).

Susan May Warren writes Christian fiction spanning contemporary and historical romance, romantic suspense, thrillers, romantic comedy and Christmas novellas. The catalogue counts 144 books, starting with Happily Ever After and Tying the Knot (both 2003) and reaching Shadow (2026), with On Thin Ice set for 2027. Deep Haven, the Christiansen Family, Montana Rescue, Montana Fire, the Minnesota Marshalls and True Lies of Rembrandt Stone are among the series. Warren has won the Christy, RITA and Carol awards, coaches other writers, and was named Mentor of the Year by American Christian Fiction Writers in 2009.

Christian mystery, thriller and fantasy novels make up the work of Ted Dekker, an American author born October 24, 1962, whose name is stylised TED DEKkER. Thr3e, Obsessed and the Circle Series are named in the sourced record. The catalogue holds 66 Dekker books from Heaven's Wager (2000) to Play Dead (2021), including Black, Red and White (all 2004). Listed series include Books Of Mortals, Martyr's Song, Paradise, Dream Traveler's Quest and A.D. No new title is recorded after 2021, so the catalogue lists Dekker as dormant.