Mother and child book series in reading order

Karen Kingsbury is an American Christian novelist, born in Fairfax, Virginia, on June 8, 1963. Kingsbury worked as a sports writer for the Los Angeles Times and later wrote for the Los Angeles Daily News. Missy's Murder (1991), Kingsbury's first book, grew out of a murder story covered as a reporter in Los Angeles. Kingsbury is a #1 New York Times and USA Today bestselling novelist. The catalogue holds 115 titles, running to The Christmas Ring (2025), and the series include Firstborn, Sunrise, Above the Line, Bailey Flanigan, Red Gloves and Forever Faithful. Christian fiction and family life recur among the subjects.

Patricia MacLachlan (March 3, 1938 to March 31, 2022), born Patricia Marie Pritzkau, was an American children's writer. MacLachlan's novel Sarah, Plain and Tall won the Newbery Medal in 1986 and gave its name to a series. The catalogue holds 63 books for young readers, including the Barkus series, Arthur, for the Very First Time and My Poet (2022). Family life, dogs, grandparents, friendship and frontier life are frequent subjects.

V.C. Andrews was the name used by Cleo Virginia Andrews (June 6, 1923 to December 19, 1986), an American novelist best known for Flowers in the Attic (1979). That novel led to four sequels and two film adaptations. The publisher never classed the books as Young Adult, yet their young protagonists have drawn teenage readers for decades. After Andrews died in 1986, a ghostwriter first hired to finish two incomplete manuscripts went on publishing new books under the V.C. Andrews name. The catalogue carries 108 books under that name from 1979 to 2025, across series such as Dollanganger, Casteel, Cutler, Landry, Logan and De Beers.

Elizabeth Berg

35 books• 7 series

Elizabeth Berg, born December 2, 1948, is an American novelist and a former registered nurse. Family life and personal change are the core of Berg's character-focused fiction, which the American Library Association has recognized. The catalogue counts 35 books from Family Traditions (1992) and Durable Goods (1993) to Life: A Love Story (2026). Talk Before Sleep, Range of Motion and Open House are early titles, and Mason and Katie Nash are series. Subjects include female friendship, sisters, widows and mothers and daughters.

Margaret Yorke (1924–2012) wrote English crime fiction across five decades. 44 books are catalogued under the name, from Summer Flight (1957) to an edition of Cause for Concern dated 2014. Patrick Grant, an Oxford don who investigates, is her one recurring detective; the rest of the catalogue is standalone suspense about criminals, families and murder in England. Yorke was born Margaret Beda Larminie and wrote under the Yorke name throughout her career.

Paullina Simons, born in Russia in 1963 and writing from America, is best known for The Bronze Horseman (2000), which grew into a series with The Bridge to Holy Cross / Tatiana and Alexander (2003) and The Summer Garden (2005). Saint Petersburg and New York recur as settings, alongside historical romance and suspense. Her catalogue opens with Tully (1994) and takes in Red Leaves (1996), Eleven Hours (1998) and The Girl in Times Square (2004), reaching The Bell and the Blade (2025) at 21 books. The novels run long, at a median of 563 pages.

Fay Weldon

59 books• 9 series

Fay Weldon (1931-2023), born Franklin Birkinshaw, was a British novelist, essayist and playwright whose career ran fifty-five years and produced 31 novels. The Life and Loves of a She-Devil (1983) is the best known, televised by the BBC in 1986. The Bulgari Connection (2000), Puffball (1980), Wicked Women (1995) and The Cloning of Joanna May (1989) sit alongside it. Weldon was a feminist and described her subject as overweight, plain women. Fifty-nine catalogued titles, taking in novels, plays, short stories and nonfiction, run from 1967 to 2019.