Where to Start with Carrie Pulkinen
If you are new to Carrie Pulkinen's steamy and supernatural worlds, your starting point depends on your favorite paranormal romance flavor:
- For Shifter Romance: Start with Werewolves Only, the award-winning first book in the Crescent City Wolf Pack series. It introduces you to her New Orleans setting and features a gripping romance between a detective and an alpha wolf.
- For Ghostly Romance and Mystery: Start with Love at First Haunt (originally published as To Catch a Spirit), the opening novel of the Spirit Chasers / Haunted Ever After series, which centers on a psychic medium who is terrified of ghosts.
- For Romantic Comedies: If you prefer laugh-out-loud humor with your spice, start with License to Bite, the first book in the New Orleans Nocturnes series.
The Crescent City & New Orleans Universe
Many of Pulkinen’s most popular series are set in the sultry, supernatural backdrop of New Orleans. While these series can be read independently, they share a setting and a similar paranormal atmosphere. Reading them in their respective publication orders is highly recommended to fully appreciate the world-building.
Crescent City Wolf Pack
This series focuses on werewolves, vampires, and other supernatural beings navigating fated mates and dangerous conflicts. The recommended reading order is:
- Werewolves Only (2018)
- Beneath a Blue Moon (2018)
- Bound by Blood (2018)
- A Deal with Death (2019)
- A Song to Remember (2020)
- Shifting Fate (2022)
Crescent City Ghost Tours
Set in the same haunted city, this series follows psychics and skeptics connected to a local ghost tour company:
- Love and Ghosts (2019)
- Love & Omens (2019)
- Love and Curses (2022)
New Orleans Nocturnes
This lighthearted paranormal romantic comedy series features vampires, witches, and shifters getting into hilarious romantic situations:
- License to Bite (2020)
- Shift Happens (2020)
- Life's a Witch (2020)
- Finders Reapers (2020)
- Santa Got Run Over by a Vampire (2020)
- Swipe Right to Bite (2021)
- Batshift Crazy (2022)
The Fire Witches of Salem
Moving away from New Orleans, this urban fantasy romance series is structured as distinct trilogies following a coven of elemental fire-wielding witches in Salem, Massachusetts, who protect the world from monsters:
The Chaos and Ash Trilogy
- Chaos and Ash (2023)
- Commanding Chaos (2023)
- Claiming Chaos (2023)
The Mayhem and Ember Trilogy
- Mayhem and Ember (2024)
- Mending Mayhem (2024)
- Mastering Mayhem (2024)
Shared Worlds & Lessons in Divine Disasters
Pulkinen has contributed to popular multi-author shared universes. Most notably, her stories for the Gods of Thunder MC and Speed Dating with the Denizens of the Underworld series were later rebranded and compiled into her own series titled Lessons in Divine Disasters. If you want to follow her specific entries, they should be read in this order:
- How to Steal a God's Heart (originally published in 2021 as Sign Steal Deliver, Book 2 of the multi-author Gods of Thunder MC series)
- How to Flirt With the Angel of Death (originally published in 2022 as Azrael, Book 3 of the multi-author Speed Dating with the Denizens of the Underworld series)
- How to Woo the World's First Vampire (originally published in 2022 as Lilith, Book 15 of the multi-author Speed Dating with the Denizens of the Underworld series)
Spirit Chasers / Haunted Ever After Series
Pulkinen's debut series, focusing on psychic encounters and hauntings, was originally released under one set of titles and later revised and re-released with new titles:
- To Catch a Spirit / Love at First Haunt (2011)
- To Stop a Shadow / Second Chance Spirit (2017)
- To Free a Phantom / Third Time's a Ghost (2018)
Standalone Novels & Anthologies
For quick, self-contained stories, Pulkinen has written several standalone novels and short works:
- The Rest of Forever (2011)
- Reawakened (2012)
- Soul Catchers (2018)
- Bewitching the Vampire (2017 - Novella)
- Flipping the Bird (2020 - Shift Creek Series)
- Furever Free (2021 - Anthology)