Women novelists book series in reading order

Donald Bain (March 6, 1935 - October 21, 2017) was an American author and ghostwriter credited with more than 115 books over a 40-year career. Murder, She Wrote is the series listed for Bain, and the subjects include Jessica Fletcher and the fictional Cabot Cove, Maine. The catalogue holds 59 books, from Coffee, Tea or Me? (1967) to A Time for Murder (2019), and also lists Veronica: The Autobiography of Veronica Lake (1969).

Stephanie Barron

19 books• 3 series

Stephanie Barron is the name under which Francine Barron Mathews, an American writer of mystery and spy fiction born May 23, 1963, publishes historical mysteries. Jane Austen and women sleuths appear in the subjects, and the listed books run from Jane and the Unpleasantness at Scargrave Manor (1996) through Jane and the Man of the Cloth (1997) and Jane and the Stillroom Maid (2000) to Jane and the Final Mystery (2023). The catalogue holds 19 books, including A Flaw in the Blood (2008), and Regency romance and England appear in the subjects. Mathews is profiled in Great Women Mystery Writers (2007).

Elizabeth Peters was a pen name of Barbara Louise Mertz (September 29, 1927 to August 8, 2013), an American writer who also published as Barbara Michaels. Mertz earned a PhD in Egyptology from the University of Chicago in 1952. Mertz was best known for mystery and suspense novels, above all the Amelia Peabody series. In the 1960s Mertz also wrote two histories of ancient Egypt, Temples, Tombs, and Hieroglyphs and Red Land, Black Land, both revised in 2007 and 2008. The catalogue lists 43 Elizabeth Peters titles from The Jackal's Head (1968) to The Locked Tomb Mystery: And Other Stories (2018), with the Amelia Peabody, Vicky Bliss and Jacqueline Kirby series.

Nora Roberts

279 books• 37 series

Nora Roberts, born Eleanor Marie Robertson on October 10, 1950, is an American writer of romance under that name. As J. D. Robb, Roberts writes police procedurals with science-fiction elements, and has also published as Jill March and, in the UK, as Sarah Hardesty. This listing carries 280 Roberts books, opening with Irish Thoroughbred (1981); The Missing is scheduled for 2027. Series on the page include the In Death Universe, the MacGregors, Night Tales, the Calhoun Women, the Chesapeake Bay Saga, Irish Hearts and the O'Hurleys.

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.

Kasey Michaels is a New York Times and USA Today bestselling author credited with more than 110 books, and the catalogue lists 123 from The Belligerent Miss Boynton (1982) to Her Royal Pain-In-The-Highness (2023). Early titles include The Tenacious Miss Tamerlane (1982), The Rambunctious Lady Royston (1983), The Savage Miss Saxon (1985) and Compliments of the Groom (1987). Michaels has received a RITA, four Publishers Weekly starred reviews and a Romantic Times Career Achievement award for Regency historical romance, and is on the Romance Writers of America Honor Roll. Series include Maggie Kelly, Romney Marsh, Redgraves, Daughtry Family, Crown Family and Sunshine Girls.

Ralph McInerny (February 24, 1929 to January 29, 2010) was an American novelist and a professor of philosophy at the University of Notre Dame. Father Dowling is the priest at the centre of the most popular McInerny mysteries, which were adapted as the Father Dowling Mysteries television series from 1987 to 1991. The catalogue holds 110 books from Jolly Rogerson (1967) to A Student's Guide to Philosophy (2014), including philosophy titles such as Thomism in an Age of Renewal (1968). Other series include Sister Mary Teresa, Andrew Broom and Notre Dame. McInerny also used the pen names Monica Quill, Harry Austin, Matthew FitzRalph, Ernan Mackey and Edward Mackin.

Mary Jane Maffini is a Canadian mystery writer, credited with three mystery series and 12 novels. Short stories by Maffini have appeared in Chatelaine, Storyteller and Ellery Queen's Mystery Magazine and in the Ladies Killing Circle and RendezVous Crime anthologies, and two of those stories won Arthur Ellis Awards. The catalogue records 26 books from Menopause Is Murder (1999) to You Light Up My Death (2022). Series include Camilla MacPhee Mystery, Charlotte Adams Mystery, Fiona Silk Mystery and the Book Collector Mystery Series, published as Victoria Abbott. Subjects include women sleuths, women lawyers and book collectors.