Mothers and sons book series in reading order

by Kathryn Cushman

by Elin Hilderbrand

Guardians of Ga'Hoole is one of the series by Kathryn Lasky, an American children's writer born June 24, 1944, who writes for adults as Kathryn Lasky Knight and E. L. Swann. Lasky's children's work also includes Dear America and The Royal Diaries books, Wolves of the Beyond, Sugaring Time and The Night Journey, and honours include a Newbery Honor, the National Jewish Book Award and the Anne V. Zarrow Award for Young Readers' Literature. The catalogue holds 159 books from I Have Four Names for My Grandfather (1976) to Sacred Light (2026), including Tugboats Never Sleep (1977), The Weaver's Gift (1980) and Beyond the Divide (1983). Horses Of The Dawn, Bears Of The Ice and Camp Princess are further series, and subjects name owls, wolves, diaries and Jews.

Stephan Pastis is an American cartoonist and former lawyer, and the creator of the comic strip Pearls Before Swine. Strip collections fill much of a 37-title catalogue - Nighthogs (2005), When Pigs Fly (2010), Rat's Wars (2013), Pearls Blows Up (2014) - and Pastis also writes for children, starting with Timmy Failure: Mistakes Were Made (2013) and continuing into Trubble Town. The seventh Timmy Failure book, It's the End When I Say It's the End, entered the New York Times children's middle grade list at number 4.

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.

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.

Anne Lamott

23 books

Faith, family and the writing life are Anne Lamott's recurring subjects. Hard Laughter (1979) is the earliest of 23 catalogued titles, which include Operating Instructions (1993), Bird by Bird (1994) and Traveling Mercies (1999) and reach Good Writing in 2026. Christian biography, spirituality and mothers and sons fill the subject tags.

Across 194 catalogued books, Danielle Steel writes contemporary romance and family drama: love stories, marriages, widowhood and the turns that reshape a life. The run starts with Going Home (1973) and continues through Celebration, with 24 Hours scheduled for 2027. Steel's catalogue also holds children's picture books, short stories and non-fiction beside the standalone novels that make up most of it.

Dean Koontz, born on July 9, 1945, is an American novelist of suspense thrillers that mix in horror, fantasy, science fiction, mystery and satire. Koontz published early work under pen names including Deanna Dwyer, K. R. Dwyer, Leigh Nichols, David Axton and Brian Coffey. The catalogue holds 164 books, from Star Quest / Doom of the Green Planet (1968) to The Friend of the Family (2026), with A Storm So Bright and Beautiful set for 2027. Jane Hawk, Nameless and Dean Koontz's Frankenstein are Koontz series, and Odd Thomas appears among the characters. Fourteen Koontz hardcovers and sixteen paperbacks reached number one on The New York Times list, and sales top 500 million copies.

Jodi Picoult

42 books• 7 series

Jodi Picoult is an American writer, born in 1966, whose fiction is described as family saga, often built around moral dilemmas or procedural dramas that set family members against one another. As of 2026 Picoult had published 30 novels and several short stories, and had written several issues of Wonder Woman. Around 40 million copies of Picoult's books are in print in 34 languages, and the New England Bookseller Award for fiction came in 2003. The catalogue holds 42 books, opening with Songs of the Humpback Whale (1992) and including Harvesting the Heart, The Pact, Plain Truth and Salem Falls, alongside plays and graphic novels.

Sandra Brown

94 books• 11 series

Sandra Brown, born Sandra Lynn Cox on March 12, 1948, is an American author of romance and suspense thrillers. Brown has also published under three pen names: Rachel Ryan, Laura Jordan and Erin St. Claire. The catalogue counts 94 titles from 1981, when Love's Encore and Love Beyond Reason came out as Rachel Ryan, to Bloodlust (2026). Listed series include the Texas! Tyler Family Saga, the Coleman Family Saga, Mason Sisters and Lee Coburn. Texas, widows and murder recur among the subject headings.

Susan Mallery is an American romance novelist born in 1970, whose books are set in small, tight-knit communities and give pets a prominent role. The catalogue counts 201 books from Tender Loving Care (1991) onward, including early titles published as Susan Macias. Series include Fool's Gold, Desert Rogues, Hometown Heartbreakers, Happily Inc., Marcelli, Buchanans, Blackberry Island and Mischief Bay. The Bookstore Diaries (2026) is the newest release, and Friend Request is due in 2027.

Christmas stories, Christian fiction and romance make up most of Richard Paul Evans's catalogue, which also turns to science fiction, electricity and Tourette syndrome as subjects. Evans's 64 titles open with The Christmas Box (1993) and take in the Michael Vey books, the Walk series, the Locket Trilogy, the Christmas Box, Noel and Mistletoe collections and the Broken Road novels. Mercy's Child is the most recent title, and publication continues into 2026.

Martha Grimes is an American detective novelist born on May 2, 1931. The best-known Grimes series features Richard Jury, a Scotland Yard inspector, and Melrose Plant, an aristocrat who became an amateur sleuth. The catalogue opens with The Man With a Load of Mischief (1981), followed by The Old Fox Deceiv'd and The Anodyne Necklace, and totals 40 books through The Red Queen (2025). Emma Graham, Andi Oliver and Foul Matter are among the other series.

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.

Sherrilyn Kenyon

117 books• 29 series

Sherrilyn Kenyon, born December 11, 1965, is an American writer of urban fantasy and paranormal romance, best known for the Dark-Hunter series. Under the pseudonym Kinley MacGregor, Kenyon writes historical fiction with paranormal elements. The books have sold over 70 million copies in more than 100 countries. The catalogue lists 117 titles from The Wager (1992) to Hell's Half Acre (2026), among them series such as League: Nemesis Rising, Dream-Hunter, B.A.D. Agency and Chronicles of Nick. Two early non-fiction titles are writer's guides from 1994 and 1995.

Anna Quindlen

26 books

Anna Quindlen writes novels and non-fiction in equal measure: domestic fiction about family life and mothers and sons, set beside essays and short books of reflection. Living Out Loud (1988) opens the catalogue, with Object Lessons (1991), One True Thing (1994), Black and Blue (1998) and A Short Guide to a Happy Life (2000) following. Twenty-six catalogued titles reach More Than Enough in 2026.

James Ellroy

28 books• 5 series

Los Angeles crime is James Ellroy's territory - police, murder and hard-boiled detective fiction. Brown's Requiem (1981) opens the catalogue; the Lloyd Hopkins books follow in the mid-1980s, and The Black Dahlia (1987) and The Big Nowhere (1988) start the L.A. Quartet. Underworld U.S.A. and a Second L.A. Quartet came after. Ellroy has 28 titles catalogued, arriving at Red Sheet in 2026.

Sport is Tim Green's subject on both sides of his catalogue: football and baseball novels for young readers, and suspense novels for adults. Ruffians (1993) opens the list, followed by Titans, Outlaws and The Red Zone, with the non-fiction The Dark Side of the Game alongside. Football Genius, Baseball Great and Baseball Genius are the children's series, and Casey Jordan heads a legal one. Forty-five titles run to Rocket Arm in 2025.

Gilbert Morris produced Christian historical fiction at length: 248 catalogued books between 1977 and 2014. The House of Winslow follows one family across American history; the Appomattox Saga and Bonnets & Bugles take up the Civil War; Cheney Duvall, M.D. follows a woman physician; the Seven Sleepers, Dixie Morris and Too Smart Jones series sit alongside, with children's fiction among the subjects. The catalogue opens with Race Against Time (1977), reaches Raina's Choice, and is listed as likely complete.

Wendy Corsi Staub's catalogue lists 87 books between 1993 and 2026, beginning with Summer Lightning and ending with Toil and Trouble. Lily Dale Mystery, Mundy's Landing, Nightwatcher, Live To Tell, Foundlings, Psychic Killer and Campus Life 101 are among the series, and one series appears under the name Wendy Morgan. Thrillers, serial murders, psychics and New York share the subjects with children's fiction, women college students and chick lit. Witch Hunt (1995) and Help Me! (1995) are among the early titles.

Joyce Maynard

22 books

Joyce Maynard writes memoir and fiction about mothers, fathers and daughters, and lives altered by a single event. The catalogue opens with Looking Back: A Chronicle of Growing Up Old in the Sixties (1973), then Baby Love (1981), Camp-Out (1985), Domestic Affairs (1987), New House (1987) and To Die For (1992). 22 titles are catalogued in all, the newest being In Wonderland.

Dame Catherine Cookson (born Catherine Ann McMullen, 20 June 1906 to 11 June 1998) was a British novelist. A hard childhood in South Shields, North East England, shaped the novels and supplied their setting. By 2003 Cookson's books had sold an estimated 100 million copies, and 104 titles appeared under the Cookson name and two pen names. The catalogue records 112 books, from Kate Hannigan (1950) to The Rag Maid (2017). Series include Mary Ann Shaughnessy, the Bailey Chronicles, the Mallen Trilogy and the Hamilton Trilogy. Working-class life, family sagas and historical romance appear among the subject tags.

Santa Montefiore

34 books• 4 series

Santa Montefiore is a British author, born Santa Palmer-Tomkinson on 2 February 1970. Montefiore's 34 catalogued books run from Meet Me Under the Ombu Tree (2001) to The Last Encore (2026). The Deverill Chronicles is the largest series, followed by Royal Rabbits of London, Timeslider and Flappy. Historical and contemporary romance dominate the output, with family secrets, fathers and daughters, Italy and London recurring across the novels.

Marcia Willett (1945-2022) was a British writer of women's fiction who also published as Willa Marsh. The catalogue holds 38 titles published between 1995 and 2022, opening with A Friend of the Family (1995) and The Courtyard (1995) and closing with Christmas at the Keep (2022). The Chadwick Family Chronicles is Willett's one continuing series; the rest are standalone novels and novellas. Family life, family secrets, brothers and sisters, widows and the county of Cornwall recur across the subjects.

Stephen R. Donaldson

32 books• 8 series

The Chronicles of Thomas Covenant is Stephen R. Donaldson's central work, opening with Lord Foul's Bane (1977) and continuing through the Second Chronicles and the Last Chronicles. Donaldson is an American novelist working in fantasy, science fiction and mystery. His 32 catalogued books also hold the Gap science fiction sequence, Mordant's Need, The Great God's War, and the Man Who mysteries, which feature the private investigators Mick Axbrewder and Ginny Fistoulari. The catalogue runs to The Killing God (2022) and has been dormant since.