Women journalists book series in reading order

by Carola Dunn

by Patricia Hall

by Barbara D’Amato

by Mary Daheim

by Alyssa Maxwell

by Kate White

by Leslie Meier

by Michael R. Phillips

by David Baldacci

Daisy Dalrymple, a journalist, leads Carola Dunn's English mystery series. Dunn's catalogue holds 67 books, opening with Toblethorpe Manor (1981) and reaching The Corpse at the Crystal Palace (2019). The Cornish Mysteries form a second detective line, and the Black Sheep, Rothschild and Miss Larkin trilogies are romance. Women sleuths and English settings recur as subjects.

Dogs run through Susan Conant's mysteries. Holly Winter, a journalist in Cambridge, Massachusetts, leads the Dog Lover's Mysteries, which open with A New Leash on Death (1990). The Cat Lover's Mysteries and the Gourmet Girl Mysteries follow. Twenty-seven books are catalogued, closing with Sire and Damn (2015). Dog trainers, dog owners and murder are the standing subjects.

Patricia Hall writes mystery and detective fiction set in England, and the subject records name Laura Ackroyd and Michael Thackeray as fictitious characters alongside women journalists, police procedure, London and women sleuths. The catalogue holds 33 books, opening with The Poison Pool (1991) and reaching Cover Up (2019). The Coldness of Killers (1992), Death by Election (1993), Dying Fall (1995) and In the Bleak Midwinter (1995) fall early in the run. Ackroyd and Thackeray and Kate O'Donnell are the two series on record, and both also stand as character entries. The run is likely complete.

Irene Kelly, a California journalist, carries Jan Burke's mystery series, which opens with Goodnight, Irene (1993). Burke has won the Edgar Award for Best Novel, the Agatha Award for Best Short Story, the Macavity Award and the Ellery Queen Readers Choice Award. Serial murder, police work and women detectives fill the subject tags. The catalogue holds 23 titles and ends with Tried (2014).

Sherryl Woods is an American writer of romance and mystery, born July 23, 1944, in Arlington, Virginia, who has also used the pen names Alexandra Kirk and Suzanne Sherrill. The Chesapeake Shores novels became a six-season Hallmark Channel series, and Netflix's Sweet Magnolias is based on Woods' books, with Woods as an executive producer. The catalogue lists 157 titles from Restoring Love (1982) to Starlit Secrets (2024). Other named series include Calamity Janes, Devaney Brothers and the Amanda Roberts and Molly DeWitt mysteries.

Edna Buchanan covered the police beat in Miami and won the 1986 Pulitzer Prize for General News Reporting for that work. Her non-fiction, including The Corpse Had a Familiar Face (1987) and Vice: Life and Death on the Streets of Miami (1992), came out of the same city. Buchanan then turned to crime fiction: the Britt Montero novels follow a Miami woman journalist, and the Craig Burch and Michael Venturi books follow. Twenty catalogued titles end at Dead Man's Daughter (2017).

Television news is the setting for most of Mary Jane Clark's suspense. The KEY News series, opening with Do You Want to Know a Secret? (1998), follows journalists and producers through murder cases; the Piper Donovan wedding cake mysteries came later. Eighteen books are catalogued, ending with That Old Black Magic in 2014, at 352 pages on median.

Liza Marklund

13 books• 2 series

Annika Bengtzon, a newspaper journalist, is the character Liza Marklund writes. Thirteen books are catalogued from The Bomber (1998) to The Final Word (2017), including Studio Sex (1999), Vanished (2000), Prime Time (2001), Red Wolf (2003), Last Will (2006) and The Long Shadow (2008). Murder investigation, bombings, investigative reporting and Stockholm are the subject headings. Marklund, born in 1962, is a Swedish journalist and crime writer whose novels have appeared in forty languages; she co-owns the publishing house Piratförlaget and has served as a goodwill ambassador for UNICEF. The median book runs 448 pages.

Lisa Unger

40 books• 11 series

Lisa Unger, born Lisa Miscione on April 26, 1970, is an American writer whose contemporary fiction is mainly psychological thrillers. Angel Fire (2002) opens a catalogue of 40 books that reaches Served Him Right (2026). Lydia Strong, Ridley Jones and House of Crows are series. Other listed titles include Beautiful Lies (2006), Black Out (2008) and Fragile (2010). Subjects cover women journalists, missing persons, married people and women sleuths.

Carolyn G. Hart writes mystery and detective fiction with women sleuths, and the subject records name Annie Laurance Darling, Max Darling and Henrie O as fictitious characters, alongside booksellers and bookselling, women journalists and murder. The catalogue holds 69 books, from The Secret of the Cellars (1964) to Ghost Blows a Kiss (2021), with the 2000s the heaviest decade. Death On Demand, Bailey Ruth, Henrie O and Nela Farley are the lines on record, beside standalone novels, short stories and non-fiction. No new title has been listed since 2021, so the entry is dormant.

Penny Warner writes in two halves. One is mystery: the Connor Westphal books, with deaf women and women journalists in the subject record, plus the Party-Planning and Food Festival mysteries, the Code Busters Club for children and Troop 13. That work has taken multiple Agatha Awards. The other half is practical non-fiction, more than 50 titles on cooking, parenting, parties and children's activities, starting with Healthy Snacks for Kids (1983). Seventy-one books are catalogued through The Search for the Missing Mascot (2025).

Anna Smith writes thrillers and suspense fiction set in Scotland. Rosie Gilmour is the recurring character named in the subject headings, which also list women journalists, investigation, social conditions, child abuse and friendship. Twenty books are catalogued from Spit Against the Wind (2003) to The Widows (2026), across the Rosie Gilmour, Kerry Casey and Billie Carson series.

Jackie Collins

40 books• 6 series

Jackie Collins wrote about Hollywood, the film business and the women who fought their way through it. 40 catalogued books run from The World Is Full of Married Men (1960) through The Stud (1969), The Love Killers (1974), The World Is Full Of Divorced Women (1975) and Lovers and Gamblers (1977), ending at The Santangelos. Lucky Santangelo is the character Collins is best known for, joined by the Madison Castelli and Fontaine Khaled books. The catalogue is likely complete.

Charles Stross

74 books• 13 series

Charles Stross is a British science fiction and fantasy writer, born 18 October 1964, who specialises in hard science fiction and space opera. The Laundry Files, featuring Bob Howard, mixes intelligence work with demonology. Other series are Merchant Princes, Singularity Sky, Halting State, Empire Games and Freyaverse. The catalogue lists 74 entries from Deathwing (1980) to Apostle (2026), including A Colder War (2000), Antibodies (2000) and Lobsters (2001).

James W. Ziskin, born in 1960, is an American crime fiction writer. The catalogue credits Ziskin with an Anthony Award, a Barry Award and two Macavity Awards. Ellie Stone is the recurring character, and the Ellie Stone Mysteries are the series on record, with women journalists, reporting, murder, investigation, New York City and the nineteen sixties among the subjects. Nine books run from Styx & Stone (2013) to Bombay Monsoon (2022); eight have a recorded length, at a median of 301 pages.

Val McDermid

55 books• 13 series

Val McDermid, born 4 June 1955, is a Scottish crime writer whose work falls under the Tartan Noir label and is noted for unflinching violence. The catalogue runs to 55 books, from Report For Murder (1987) to Winter: The Story of a Season (2026). McDermid's best-known novels follow clinical psychologist Tony Hill and his colleagues in the police, a sequence televised as Wire in the Blood from 2002 to 2008. Inspector Karen Pirie, Lindsay Gordon and Kate Brannigan are the other named series. Awards on record include the Crime Writers' Association Gold Dagger and the Cartier Diamond Dagger.

Lucy Burdette builds her mysteries around a profession: a food critic in Key West, a golfer named Cassie Burdette and an advice columnist each head a series, and murder investigation carries all three. The catalogue holds 28 titles, from Six Strokes Under (2002) through Deadly Advice (2007) to A Delicious Deception in 2026, with short fiction published under the name Roberta Isleib.

Chelsea Cain

19 books• 7 series

Archie Sheridan and Gretchen Lowell head Chelsea Cain's crime novels from Heartsick (2007), with police work and women serial murderers among the recorded subjects. The catalogue holds 19 books, starting at Dharma Girl (1996) and reaching a Man-Eaters graphic novel in 2022, with Kick Lannigan, Spy Island, the Mockingbird comics and humorous non-fiction alongside. Portland is the recurring setting.

Women journalists investigate in Hank Phillippi Ryan's crime fiction, with television reporting among the recorded subjects. Charlotte McNally heads the first series from Prime Time (2007), and the Jane Ryland books follow with The Other Woman (2012). Eighteen catalogued titles reach Mother Daughter Sister Stranger in 2026, set largely in Boston.

Cindy Gerard is an American writer of romantic suspense and romance, a two-time RITA Award winner who lives in Marengo, Iowa. The catalogue holds 59 books from Maverick (1991) to His Secret to Surrender (2021), including Temptation from the Past (1991), Slow Burn (1992), Dream Lover (1993) and Into the Night (1994). Black Ops Inc., Bodyguards, One-Eyed Jacks, Legend Lake Trilogy and Sons and Lovers are among the series. Bodyguards, ranchers, kidnapping and women journalists appear in the subjects.

Sarah Strohmeyer

21 books• 1 series

Bubbles Yablonsky, a Pennsylvania hairdresser drawn into solving crimes, is Sarah Strohmeyer's best known creation. Strohmeyer writes crime novels and comic fiction about relations between men and women, starting with the parody Barbie Unbound (1997) and running to A Mother Always Knows (2025), 21 titles in all. The Bubbles books, Bubbles Unbound (2001), Bubbles In Trouble, Bubbles Ablaze, Bubbles Betrothed, Bubbles All The Way, fill the first decade. Female friendship, journalists and humour mark the subject tags.

Barbara D'Amato, born Barbara Steketee on April 10, 1938, is an American mystery author who has won both the Agatha and Anthony awards. The Cat Marsala Mystery series features a woman journalist in Chicago, and the catalogue includes Hardball (1989), Hard Tack (1991) and Hard Christmas (1995). D'Amato also writes the Figueroa and Bennis police procedurals featuring Suze Figueroa, and the Gerritt De Graaf books. The catalogue holds 23 books to The Hands of Healing Murder (2016). D'Amato appears in Great Women Mystery Writers (2007).

Laura Van Wormer is an American novelist born in 1955. The catalogue lists 16 books from 1985 to 2009, opening with Dallas: The Official Biography of the Ewings (1985) and Knots Landing (1986). Titles include Riverside Drive (1988), West End (1989) and Jury Duty (1996). Van Wormer's series are Sally Harrington and Alexandra Chronicles. Subjects on the listing cover women journalists, television personalities, New York and Connecticut. Riverside Park (2009) is the newest entry.

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.