Play 2026 Book Bingo
Kristin Hannah Books in Order
Are you a Kristin Hannah fan? If so, you’ve come to the right place! And if you’ve yet to read her work, let this be your starting point. We highlight her newest book, cover her full backlist, and address some of the most frequently asked questions.
Her 2027 Novel
After a decade of writing historical fiction, The Fire marks Kristin Hannah’s return to her contemporary fiction roots. This story centers on Merritt Locke, a woman who breaks from the dutiful role she’s played all her life after a public betrayal and sets out to reconnect with an estranged daughter. Along the way, she meets—and joins forces—with women who are as familiar as they are unforgettable.
Kristin Hannah Books In Order
The oldest novels on Kristin Hannah’s backlist can be difficult to obtain. We’re listing them in bullet form for your reference, followed by a more detailed listing of each of her books beginning in 1996.
- A Handful of Heaven (1991) out of print
- The Enchantment (1992) out of print
- Once in Every Life (1992)
- If You Believe (1993)
- When Lightning Strikes (1994)
- Waiting for the Moon (1995)
Home Again
Published 1996
Renowned heart surgeon Madelaine Hillyard has spent years estranged from the man who fathered her daughter and left before she was born. When he shows up needing the one heart transplant only Madelaine can give him, the two are forced into a reckoning neither saw coming.
On Mystic Lake
Published 1999
After her husband leaves her for someone else, Annie Colwater returns to her hometown and reconnects with her first love, Nick Delacroix, now a widower raising a daughter who’s shut down since her mother’s death. As the three start to heal together, Annie faces a choice that could upend the new life she’s building.
Angel Falls
Published 2000
When Mikaela Campbell falls into a coma after an accident, her husband Liam is left caring for their kids and searching for any way to reach her. His search turns up a first marriage Mikaela never told him about, and in desperation he brings her first husband in to help, unsure who she’ll choose if she wakes up at all.
Summer Island
Published 2001
After a public scandal, famous radio host Nora Bridge is confronted by the daughter she abandoned years earlier, comedian Ruby, who returns home planning to secretly write a tell-all about her. As Ruby reconnects with the island and the people she left behind, her mother starts to look a lot less like the villain of her own act.
Distant Shores
Published 2002
After decades of marriage and raising two daughters, Elizabeth and Jack Shore have quietly drifted apart. When her father’s death reveals a devotion she feels is missing from her own life, Elizabeth retreats to an isolated beach house to figure out whether her marriage is worth fighting for.
Between Sisters
Published 2003
As her estranged sister Claire’s wedding approaches, guarded divorce attorney Meghann Dontess has to face the choice she made 27 years ago that tore the sisters apart. Their tentative reconciliation forces Meghann to confront not just their shared past, but her own resistance to letting anyone in.
Things We Do For Love
Published 2004
After a failed marriage and years of infertility, Angie DeSaria Malone returns to her hometown and takes in Lauren, a neglected teenager whose alcoholic mother has abandoned her. The makeshift family the two build together raises hard questions about what it really means to be someone’s mother.
In 2023, this book was re-released as “Another Life,” but it is no longer being sold under that title.
Comfort and Joy
Published 2005
Newly divorced and estranged from her sister, Joy Candellaro impulsively lands in the small town of Rain Valley just before Christmas. There she meets a widowed father and his son, still grieving his mother’s death, and has to decide by Christmas Eve whether to go back to her old life or risk everything on a new one.
Magic Hour
Published 2006
Her career destroyed by scandal, child psychiatrist Julia Cates returns to her hometown to help a six-year-old girl who emerged from the forest alone, unable to speak or say who she is. As Julia fights to reach the traumatized child, she has to face down media scrutiny, institutional pressure, and her own shaken confidence.
This book has been rereleased under the title “Wild” in some markets.
Firefly Lane
Firefly Lane #1
Published 2008
Best friends since eighth grade, steady Kate Mularkey and ambitious, camera-ready Tully Hart build very different lives, but stay close through decades of triumph and hardship. When one unforgivable betrayal finally comes between them, both women have to decide whether their friendship can survive it.
True Colors
Published 2009
Sisters Winona, Aurora, and Vivi Ann have always been close, until a stranger comes to their family’s Washington horse ranch and exposes secrets none of them saw coming. What follows is a shocking crime that splits the family and the whole town, and forces a reckoning none of them can avoid.
Winter Garden
Published 2010
Sisters Meredith and Nina Whitson have spent their lives kept at arm’s length by their cold, distant mother, Anya. When their father is dying, he asks them to finally sit and listen to the fairy tale Anya’s always told them, one that turns out to hide a wartime love story that changes everything they thought they knew about her.
Night Road
Published 2011
Jude Farraday has built her life around her twins, and around Lexi, the former foster kid who’s become like a third child to her. One decision on a single summer night shatters all of their lives, and the years that follow test whether any of them can move past it.
Home Front
Published 2012
Michael and Jolene’s marriage is already strained when Jolene, an Army helicopter pilot, gets deployed to Iraq, leaving Michael home alone with their two daughters. As the war takes its toll on Jolene and the distance takes its toll on their marriage, a devastating turn forces Michael to fight for what’s left of his family.
Fly Away
Firefly Lane #2
Published 2013
After her best friend Kate’s death, Tully Hart is left grieving and adrift, trying to keep a promise to help raise Kate’s sixteen-year-old daughter, who’s spiraling fast. When Tully’s own long-absent mother resurfaces with a secret of her own, all three women are forced to face the pain they’ve been avoiding.
The Nightingale
Published 2015
As Nazi occupation tightens its grip on their French village, sisters Vianne and Isabelle Mauriac choose very different ways to survive. Vianne makes impossible compromises to protect her children under a German officer’s roof, while Isabelle risks everything smuggling downed airmen to safety with the Resistance.
The Great Alone
Published 2018
Thirteen-year-old Leni Allbright moves off-grid to remote Alaska with her parents, hoping the wilderness will give her volatile, war-haunted father the fresh start he needs. But as the long winter darkness sets in, the danger closing in on their family comes from inside their own home.
The Four Winds
Published 2021
As drought and the Great Depression destroy her family’s Texas Panhandle farm, Elsa Martinelli has to decide whether to stay and fight for the land or join the families heading west to California for a better life. Either way, survival demands more courage than she ever thought she had.
The Women
Published 2024
Sheltered nursing student Frankie McGrath enlists in the Army Nurse Corps and follows her brother to Vietnam, where she confronts the brutal realities of war most people back home will never understand. Coming home to a divided country that refuses to see her service, Frankie has to fight just to be believed.
We have a complete book club guide for The Women, plus a playlist of songs mentioned throughout the book.
The Fire
Publication 5/4/27
This story centers on a woman named Merritt Locke who breaks from the dutiful role she’s played all her life after a public betrayal, and sets out to reconnect with an estranged daughter. Along the way, she meets—and joins forces—with women who are as familiar as they are unforgettable.
Printable Kristin Hannah Book List
Looking for a printable version of this chronological Kristin Hannah book list? Our Buy Me a Coffee members have access to a cute one-page printable tracker featuring the covers of all her novels! Join our membership site today for instant access to your copy, along with some other fun perks!
Firefly Lane Book Series & Netflix Adaptation
While the vast majority of Kristin Hannah’s works are stand-alone novels, she has authored one popular series. Firefly Lane (2008) and its sequel, Fly Away (2013), should be read in order. These books explore the relationship between two best friends, Kate and Tully, beginning in 1974 through the mid-2000s.
This book series was also adapted into a smash-hit Netflix series, starring Sarah Chalke and Katherine Heigl. As you probably already know, we’re of the opinion that the book is always better, but there’s no denying the popularity of the adaptation. It was the #1 Netflix series around the world the week it came out.
While portions of the television series are faithful to the novels, there are also quite a few key differences. While the novels follow a linear timeline, the television show jumps back and forth. Additionally, there are major plot points from the novels missing in the adaptation, and others created solely for the television series.
Page to Big Screen Adaptations
The Nightingale Movie
The film adaptation of The Nightingale, starring real-life sisters Elle and Dakota Fanning, finally has what seems to be a solid release date, many years after the original announced date. Watch for it to hit theaters on March 19th, 2027. Production of the WWII period drama was halted due to the pandemic, and the release date has since been pushed back several times.
The Women Movie
Warner Bros. Motion Picture Group acquired the rights to The Women in 2024, but no further status updates are currently available.
Do You Have to Read Kristin Hannah Books in Order?
With the exception of the Firefly Lane series discussed above, all of Hannah’s novels are standalones that can be read in any order.
Other Works by Kristin Hannah
In addition to her full-length novels, Kristin Hannah published a short romance/mystery novella titled The Glass Case in 2011. She also contributed a short romance story to a 1993 collection called Harvest Hearts, and to a 2002 collection titled With Love. All of these titles are currently out of print.
In 2014, Hannah wrote the introduction to a 2014 historical romance anthology titled Grand Central: Original Stories of Postwar Love and Reunion, set at the close of WWII. And in 2020, she wrote the introduction to a short story collection, Stories from Suffragette City.
More Book & Author Recommendations
- Books Like The Women
- Books Like The Nightingale
- Books About the Dust Bowl (for fans of The Four Winds)
For fans of the historical fiction genre, other authors similar to Kristin Hannah that we highly recommend include Kelly Rimmer, Kate Quinn, Fiona Davis, Hazel Gaynor, Kristin Harmel, and Susan Meissner.
If you like Kristin Hannah’s more contemporary-styled women’s fiction work, we think you’ll also enjoy authors like Viola Shipman, Taylor Jenkins Reid, Liane Moriarty, Katherine Center, and Jodi Picoult.
Kristin Hannah Biography
Kristin Hannah was born in Garden Grove, California, in 1960, and moved to the Pacific Northwest with her family at eight. She earned a communications degree from the University of Washington and later studied law at the University of Puget Sound School of Law.
During her final year of law school, her mother was in the advanced stages of breast cancer. When Hannah complained about her classes one day, her mother told her she was going to be a writer instead, and the two spent her mother’s final months writing a book together in her hospital room. After her mother died, Hannah set the drafts aside and went on to practice law.
Years later, put on bed rest during her first pregnancy, she started writing again and finished a new manuscript by the time her son was born. She sold her first novel before he turned two and has been writing ever since.
I am a male 81 year old husband, father of two wonderful accomplished daughters and grandfather of two. I have just finished my third novel by Kristin Hannah and will keep on reading them. She is great. The most enjoyable writer in my many years of reading great books. Thank you,
Don Baldwin
Hickory, NC