Missouri book series in reading order

Roger Lea MacBride, born in 1929 and died in 1995, was an American lawyer, political figure and writer who inherited Laura Ingalls Wilder's estate. MacBride edited and published further Wilder material, then wrote the Rose Years, a spin-off series set in the Little House on the Prairie world and following Rose Wilder Lane through Missouri farm life and frontier schools. He also pushed the development of the television adaptation, and served a single term as a Republican in the Vermont House of Representatives in the 1960s. Fifteen catalogued titles date from 1976 to 2001.

John Lutz

66 books• 6 series

John Lutz (1939-2021) was an American writer in mystery, crime and suspense, with a career past fifty years, at least fifty books and roughly 250 short stories to it. Three private investigators carry the series work, Alo Nudger, Fred Carver and Frank Quinn, with St. Louis, Florida and New York among the settings. SWF Seeks Same, filmed in 1992 as Single White Female, is his best known title, and Lutz led both the Mystery Writers of America and the Private Eye Writers of America as president. The catalogue holds 66 books, from The Truth of the Matter (1971) to Single White Female Seeks Same (2022).

Quilting runs through every series Ann Hazelwood writes: Colebridge Community, East Perry County, Wine Country Quilts and Door County Quilts. Missouri, widows, family secrets and small-town life are the recurring subjects. The Basement Quilt (2012) is the earliest of 23 catalogued titles, and Christmas, She Wrote closed the run in 2023. Nothing new has appeared since.

Fannie Flagg

12 books• 5 series

Small towns and the people in them are the subject of Fannie Flagg's fiction. Fried Green Tomatoes at the Whistle Stop Cafe (1987) is her best known novel, and the Elmwood Springs books, A Redbird Christmas (2004) and I Still Dream About You (2010) follow. Flagg's catalogue holds 12 titles published between 1981 and 2025, including a Whistle Stop Cafe cookbook.

Denise Swanson is an American mystery writer. The Scumble River Mysteries are set in a fictional Illinois town, and the Devereaux's Dime Store Mysteries in a small fictional town in Missouri. Catalogue subjects name Skye Denison as a recurring fictional character and list school psychologists, murder, investigation and women sleuths. The catalogue holds 46 books running from Murder of a Small-Town Honey (2000) to Wedding Jitters and Stormy Rivers (2026). Welcome Back To Scumble River, Chef-To-Go Mysteries, Stephanie Danielson and Forever Charmed Mysteries are the other series listed. Swanson has been nominated for the Agatha Award and the Mary Higgins Clark Award.

Dorothy Garlock (1919-2018) wrote historical romance, much of it set on the American frontier. The catalogue runs to 63 books published between 1980 and 2017, from Love and Cherish (1980) to The Nearness of You (2017), with the 1980s her heaviest decade. Series include Wyoming Frontier, Dolan Brothers, Wabash River, Route 66, Colorado Wind and the Tucker Family books. Garlock also published as Johanna Phillips, Dorothy Phillips and Dorothy Glenn.

Paige Shelton's mysteries put amateur sleuths in bookshops, farmers' markets and small towns. The Scottish Bookshop Mysteries, the Farmers' Market Mysteries, the Alaska Wild Mysteries and the Country Cooking School Mysteries are the main series, with Broken Rope and the Dangerous Type Mysteries alongside. Chewy Moon (2007) is the earliest catalogued title, and The Bone Woman arrives in 2026. Thirty-six books in all, at 304 pages on median.

Elaine Viets writes mystery series with women investigators: the Dead-End Job Mysteries led by Helen Hawthorne, Josie Marcus: Mystery Shopper, the Death Investigator Angela Richman books, the Francesca Vierling mysteries and the Florida Beach Mysteries. Fifty catalogued books run from Urban Affairs (1988) to Beach Blonde Betrayal (2026), with non-fiction among the early titles.

Catherine Palmer writes Christian romance, much of it historical and set in frontier America. The catalogue holds 56 books dated between 1974 and 2010, grouped into Treasures Of The Heart, Town Called Hope, English Ivy and Miss Pickworth. Titles include The Burning Plains (1988), Land of Enchantment (1990), Forbidden (1991), Outlaw Heart (1992) and Gunman's Lady (1993), and the newest listing is The Gunman's Bride (2010). Recorded subjects include marriage, inheritance, pioneer life and American Christmas stories. The list is marked likely complete.

Stephanie Grace Whitson is an American writer of historical fiction who has lived in Nebraska since 1975 and took her subject from the lives of pioneer women in the West. Walks The Fire (1994) opens a catalogue of 36 books reaching 2024, and the series include Prairie Winds, Dakota Moons, Keepsake Legacies, Quilt Chronicles and Pine Ridge Portraits. Women pioneers, Dakota Indians, women missionaries, quilts and Christian historical romance recur as subjects.

Daniel Woodrell (1953–2025) was an American novelist and short story writer. Woodrell set most of the fiction in the Missouri Ozarks among the rural poor, and coined the term country noir for Give Us a Kiss (1996); reviewers then applied it to the rest of the work. The Rene Shade novels came first and take place in Louisiana: Under the Bright Lights (1986), Muscle for the Wing (1988) and The Ones You Do (1988). Eleven titles are catalogued in all, including Tomato Red (1998), Winter's Bone (2006), The Outlaw Album (2011) and The Maid's Version (2013).

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.