Cults book series in reading order

by Michael Wallace

by John Flanagan

Michael Wallace's catalogue includes a run of titles dated 2011, among them The Righteous, The Wicked, Mighty and Strong, The Dark Citadel, The Devil's Deep and The Devil's Peak. Subjects include polygamy, cults, religious leaders, Utah, terrorists, the end of the world, Christian suspense and thrillers. Series include Righteous, Dark Citadel, Starship Blackbeard, Sword Saint, Void Queen Trilogy, Red Sword Trilogy and Quintana Trilogy. The Free Kingdoms and The Kingdom of the Bears are also 2011 titles, and Fogland (2024) is the newest.

F. Paul Wilson

102 books• 26 series

F. Paul Wilson (Francis Paul Wilson, born May 17, 1946) is an American author of horror, adventure, medical thrillers and science fiction, based in Wall, New Jersey. Repairman Jack is the recurring character of novels such as Ground Zero, The Tomb and Fatal Error, and a young adult series follows Jack as a teenager. The Adversary Cycle includes The Keep (1981). Healer (1976) is the first catalogued title. Wilson has won the Prometheus Award, the Bram Stoker Award, the Inkpot Award and the Horror Writers of America Lifetime Achievement Award.

Donald Eugene Pendleton (December 12, 1927 to October 23, 1995) was an American author of fiction and non-fiction who created Mack Bolan, a character with hundreds of millions of copies sold since a 1969 debut. From 1980, other authors wrote the Bolan books under the Pendleton name, at first with Pendleton's editorial guidance. Pendleton also wrote six Joe Copp, Private Eye novels and six Ashton Ford, Psychic Detective novels. Early titles include The Insatiables (1967), War Against the Mafia (1969) and Miami Massacre (1970).

Thrillers and mysteries make up the catalogue of Layton Green: 19 books published between 2010 and 2022. The Summoner (2010) opens the list, and The Family (2022) is the most recent. Green's series are Dominic Grey, Blackwood Saga, Detective Preach Everson and the Genesis Trilogy. Listed subjects include private investigators, cults, diplomats, Africa and Europe. No Layton Green title is catalogued after 2022.

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.

John Flanagan

37 books• 6 series

John Flanagan writes fantasy adventure for readers in grades 6 to 8. The Ruins of Gorlan (2004) opens Ranger's Apprentice, which extends into The Royal Ranger and The Early Years; the Brotherband Chronicles are a second series, and seafaring life and pirates sit in the subject tags. Thirty-eight titles are catalogued through Ambush at Sorato (2024). Apprentices, heroes, courage and friendship recur across the books.

Melody Carlson, born March 2, 1956 in San Francisco, is an American author of more than 250 books for women, teens and children, including the Diary of a Teenage Girl series. The catalogue lists 298 books from 1995, when Contemplative Bible Reading and How to Start a Quality Childcare Business in Your Home appeared, to All Booked Up (2026). Series include Carter House Girls, On The Runway, TrueColors, 86 Bloomberg Place, Secret Life of Samantha McGregor, Beary Patch Bears and Fruit Troops. Subjects include Christian life, high schools, friendship, Bible stories and stories in rhyme. Carlson grew up in Springfield, Oregon, attended Lane Community College and lives in Sisters, Oregon.

Larry Correia

50 books• 14 series

Larry Correia, born 1977, is an American writer of fantasy and science fiction known for Monster Hunter International, the Grimnoir Chronicles and the Saga of the Forgotten Warrior. The catalogue lists 52 books from Monster Hunter International (2009) to Monster Hunter Alien Files: First Contact (2026), with Reap the Whirlwind due in 2027. Monster Hunter Vendetta (2010), Hard Magic (2011) and Dead Six (2011) came early. Correia has written or co-written more than 30 novels and over 50 short works and has co-edited four anthologies. Honours include a 2011 John W. Campbell Award nomination, two Audie Awards and four Dragon Awards.

Jim Harrison

46 books• 4 series

Jim Harrison (December 11, 1937 - March 26, 2016) was an American poet, novelist and essayist who published across poetry, fiction, nonfiction, children's literature and memoir. Harrison also wrote screenplays, book reviews, literary criticism and essays on food, travel and sport, and said poetry mattered most among the work. Harrison published 24 novellas. The catalogue holds 46 books from Plain Song (1965) to The Search for the Genuine: Nonfiction, 1970-2015 (2022), including Wolf (1971), Farmer (1976) and Legends of the Fall (1979). Dalva and Detective Sunderson are named series.

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.

Gore Vidal

67 books• 6 series

Gore Vidal, born Eugene Louis Vidal on October 3, 1925, was an American writer and public intellectual noted for a cynical, epigrammatic wit, and died on July 31, 2012. Vidal's novels and essays attacked the social and sexual norms Vidal saw shaping American life. Born into an upper-class political family as grandson of U.S. Senator Thomas Gore, Vidal ran unsuccessfully as a Democrat for the House of Representatives in New York in 1960 and for the Senate in California in 1982. The catalogue lists 67 books from Williwaw (1946) to I Told You So (2012), including In a Yellow Wood (1947), The City and the Pillar (1948) and Death Before Bedtime (1953). Narratives of Empire and Myra and Myron are among the series.

Sharon Shinn

39 books• 6 series

Sharon Shinn writes fantasy that borrows from science fiction and romance. The Shape-Changer's Wife (1995) opens 39 catalogued books running to Tropes (2026). Samaria, an imaginary place, names one sequence; Twelve Houses, Elemental Blessings, Safe-Keepers, Shifting Circle and Uncommon Echoes divide the rest, and angels, shapeshifting, magic and social class recur. Jenna Starborn (2002) retells Jane Eyre. Shinn graduated from Northwestern University and works as a journalist in St. Louis.

Dan Abnett

224 books• 95 series

Dan Abnett, born 12 October 1965, is an English novelist and comic book writer. Abnett has written for Marvel Comics and its UK imprint Marvel UK since the 1990s, for 2000 AD and for DC Comics, often in partnership with Andy Lanning. Abnett's Warhammer Fantasy and Warhammer 40,000 novels and graphic novels for Games Workshop's Black Library number several dozen and have sold more than two million copies. Abnett's first original novels came from Angry Robot in 2009. The catalogue lists 224 books from Uther, the Half Dead King (1993) to Legends of the Waaagh! (2026), across series such as Gaunt's Ghosts, Eisenhorn, Ravenor, Guardians of the Galaxy and Aquaman graphic novels.

Robert Charles Wilson

23 books• 2 series

Science fiction is the field of Robert Charles Wilson, an American-Canadian author born on December 15, 1953. The catalogue credits Wilson with 23 books from A Hidden Place (1986) to Owning the Unknown (2023), one of them shared with Marc Scott Zicree. Subject tags include the end of the world, human-alien encounters, time travel and cults. Memory Wire (1987), The Divide (1989), Mysterium (1994) and Darwinia (1998) come from the earlier years, and the Spin Saga is the named Wilson series.

Franklin W. Dixon is the author name on the Hardy Boys books, and the catalogue lists 473 titles under the Dixon name from 1927 to 2023. The Tower Treasure, The House on the Cliff and The Secret of the Old Mill all date from 1927. Dixon series include Hardy Boys Casefiles, Hardy Boys Adventures, Hardy Boys: Undercover Brothers, Hardy Boys: Secret Files and Nancy Drew/Hardy Boys Super Mystery, plus the Ted Scott Flying Stories. Undercover Bookworms (2023) is the newest title.

Dan Jolley

34 books• 11 series

Dan Jolley is an American novelist and comic book writer. The comics work takes in DC Comics' Firestorm, where Jolley created Jason Rusch, the second Firestorm, with the artist Chris Cross, and Twisted Journeys, a run of gamebooks in graphic novel form from Graphic Universe. The Gray Widow's Walk opens the Gray Widow trilogy, published through Seventh Star Press, and Alex Unlimited is a young adult science fiction espionage series. The catalogue lists 34 books dated 2002 to 2021, several of them G.I. Joe and Star Trek tie-ins.