Mothers book series in reading order

by Julie Kenner

by Nancy Springer

by Justin Somper

by Bernard Waber

by Ellen Hopkins

by Jenna Evans Welch

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.

Nancy Springer, born July 5, 1948, is an American author of fantasy, young adult literature, mystery and science fiction. Larque on the Wing won the 1994 Tiptree Award, and the Mystery Writers of America gave Springer Edgar Awards for Toughing It in 1995 and Looking for Jamie Bridger in 1996. I am Mordred earned the Pennsylvania Library Association's Carolyn W. Field Award in 1999. The first Enola Holmes book appeared in 2006. The catalogue lists 90 Springer books from The White Hart (1979) to Enola Holmes and the Clanging Coffin (2026), with the Book of Isle, Rowan Hood and Tale of Camelot series alongside.

Jack Canfield, born August 19, 1944, is an American author and motivational speaker. Canfield co-authored the Chicken Soup for the Soul series, which has more than 250 titles and 500 million copies in print across over 40 languages. The Success Principles, written with Janet Switzer, followed in 2005. The catalogue lists 182 books from Dare to Win (1988) to Everyday Catholicism (2020), with Mark Victor Hansen co-credited on 148 and Amy Newmark on 46. Chicken Soup for the Soul appeared in 1993.

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.

Julie Kenner is an American author of romance and fantasy, a USA Today bestseller and a two-time winner of the Romance Writers of America RITA Award. Kenner also publishes as J.K. Beck and J. Kenner, and the Blackwell-Lyon series appears under the J. Kenner name. The 158 catalogued books run from The Cat's Fancy (2000) to The Beast (2026). Series include Stark Saga, Stark Security, Stark International, Kate Connor: Demon Hunter, Shadow Keepers and A Man of the Month, with demonology and paranormal fiction among the subjects.

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.

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.

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.

Brandon Sanderson

109 books• 28 series

Brandon Sanderson, born December 19, 1975, is an American writer of high fantasy, science fiction and young adult fiction. Mistborn and The Stormlight Archive both belong to the Cosmere, a shared fictional universe. Outside the Cosmere, Sanderson wrote the Reckoners, Skyward and Alcatraz series, and completed Robert Jordan's Wheel of Time. White Sand and Dark One are Sanderson's two graphic novels. Sanderson's Laws of Magic, a framework for hard and soft magic systems, carry the author's name. The catalogue lists 109 titles, from Centrifugal (1994) through Elantris (2005) to King Lopen the First of Alethkar (2026).

Beverly Lewis

112 books• 17 series

Beverly Marie Lewis is an American novelist of Christian fiction and a children's author, and much of the writing concerns the Old Order Amish. Lewis taught school and worked as a musician beforehand. Born and raised in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, where her father was a pastor, Lewis traces that interest to a maternal grandmother born into an Old Order Mennonite church. The catalogue lists 112 books, from Holly's First Love / Best Friend, Worst Enemy (1993) to The Christmas House (2025). Series include Abram's Daughters, Heritage of Lancaster County, Home To Hickory Hollow, Annie's People, Cul-de-sac Kids and Holly's Heart.

South Carolina is the setting of Dorothea Benton Frank's novels, among them Porch Lights and By Invitation Only. Frank, an American novelist, lived from September 12, 1951 to September 2, 2019. Frank's 26 catalogued books begin with Sullivan's Island (1999) and end with Reunion Beach (2021). The Lowcountry Tales form the main series, beside standalone novels and a children's title. Subjects on the books include family life, mothers and daughters, plantation life, widows and friendship.

Luanne Rice, born 25 September 1955, is an American novelist whose books frequently turn to nature, the sea, love and family. The catalogue lists 42 Rice titles, from Angels All Over Town (1985) to Until Midnight (2026), including Crazy in Love, Firefly Beach, The Lemon Orchard and Beach Girls. Subjects on file include sisters, mothers and daughters, Connecticut, suspense and missing persons. Series include Hubbard's Point/Black Hall, Newport, Rhode Island and Detective Conor Reid, and Rice's work has been translated into 26 languages.

Dame Susan Hill, Lady Wells, is an English writer of fiction and non-fiction born 5 February 1942. The Woman in Black has been adapted for stage and screen. I'm the King of the Castle (1970) won the Somerset Maugham Award in 1971, and The Bird of Night took the Whitbread Novel Award in 1972 and reached the Booker Prize shortlist. The catalogue counts 78 books from The Enclosure (1961) to A Change of Circumstance (2021), including the Simon Serrailler police procedurals, children's books and picture books. Hill became a CBE in 2012 and a DBE in 2020, both for services to literature.

Joyce Carol Oates

180 books• 8 series

Joyce Carol Oates, born June 16, 1938, is an American writer of novels, short stories, poetry, plays and nonfiction. The catalogue holds 180 books, beginning with By the North Gate (1963) and reaching The Frenzy: Stories (2026). Oates took the National Book Award for the novel Them (1969), and later honours include two O. Henry Awards, the National Humanities Medal and the Jerusalem Prize in 2019. Black Water, What I Lived For, Blonde and the collection Lovely, Dark, Deep were each finalists for the Pulitzer Prize. Oates taught at Princeton University from 1978 to 2014.

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.

Margaret Peterson Haddix

55 books• 12 series

Margaret Peterson Haddix, born April 9, 1964, is an American writer best known for two children's series: Shadow Children (1998-2006) and The Missing (2008-2015). She also wrote the tenth book of The 39 Clues, a series with multiple authors. The catalogue lists 55 of her books from Running Out of Time (1995) to Moonleapers (2025), including Among the Hidden (1998), Just Ella (1999) and Turnabout (2000). Other series listings include Palace Chronicles, Children of Exile, Greystone Secrets, Mysteries of Trash and Treasure and Under Their Skin. Subjects include time travel, science fiction, brothers and sisters, and schools.

Maggie Hartley writes non-fiction accounts of foster care in Britain. The catalogue holds 31 books, opening with Tiny Prisoners in 2016 and reaching Please Don't Hurt Me in 2026, with Please Don't Take Her scheduled for 2027. The Maggie Hartley Foster Carer Story series carries most of the run and draws on Hartley's own career in foster care, the children placed with her, and the teenage mothers and ex-foster children whose stories sit alongside theirs.

Erma Bombeck (February 21, 1927 – April 22, 1996), born Erma Louise Fiste, was an American humorist whose newspaper column on suburban home life was syndicated from 1965 to 1996. Bombeck filed more than four thousand columns, the last on April 17, 1996, and by the 1970s the column reached 30 million readers in nine hundred newspapers across the United States and Canada. Fifteen humor books were published, most of them bestsellers. The catalogue lists 22 titles, among them If Life Is a Bowl of Cherries What Am I Doing in the Pits? (1978), The Grass Is Always Greener Over The Septic Tank (1981) and Motherhood: The Second Oldest Profession (1983).

Ann M. Martin

446 books• 24 series

Ann Matthews Martin, born August 12, 1955, is an American writer of children's and young adult fiction and a Smith College graduate. The Baby-Sitters Club, first published in 1986, is the series Martin is known best for, and Martin remains involved with the series and its spin-offs. The catalogue lists 446 books, beginning with Inside Out and Bummer Summer in 1983. Related lines include Baby-Sitters Club Mysteries, California Diaries, Kids in Ms. Colman's Class, Main Street and Doll People. Jessi Ramsey, Pet-sitter: A Graphic Novel (2025) is the newest listed title.

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.

Patricia MacDonald writes psychological suspense. Twenty books are catalogued between The Unforgiven (1981) and Safe Haven (2018), among them Stranger in the House (1983), Little Sister (1986), Mother's Day (1994), Lost Innocents (1998) and The Girl Next Door (2004). Murder, mothers, marriage, sisters and the parents of murder victims are the recurring subjects. Nothing has been catalogued since 2018.

Lisa T Bergren writes Christian fiction and children's books, with Christian romance, historical fiction and picture books all in the subject tags. The catalogue lists 71 titles from Romantic Notions (1993) to Heaven on Earth (2026). Love 'n' Romance, Once Upon a Caribbean Summer, Refuge and Torchlight all date from 1994, and The Captain's Bride from 1998. Series include God Gave Us, River of Time, River of Time: California, Oceans of Time, Once Upon a Summer, Homeward Trilogy and Sugar Baron's Daughters. Bears, polar bears, God and love appear among the tags.

Cozy mystery is Diana Orgain's form, usually with a woman sleuth and a comic edge. The Maternal Instincts Mysteries open the catalogue with Bundle of Trouble (2009) and put a new mother onto murder cases; the Love or Money, Roundup Crew, iWitch, Gold Strike and Killer Foursome series follow. Dog owners, private investigators and false arrest recur across 34 catalogued books, which reach Pumpkin Pie Prison (2024).

Anita Brookner was an English novelist and art historian who lived from 1928 to 2016. Brookner held the Slade Professorship of Fine Art at the University of Cambridge across 1967 and 1968, the first woman appointed to that visiting chair, and took the Booker Prize in 1984 for Hotel du Lac. Thirty books are catalogued, from A Start in Life (1981) to At the Hairdresser's (2011). Women, families, female friendship and London life are the recurring subjects.