Charlaine Harris Schulz Books in Order

Where to Start with Charlaine Harris

Charlaine Harris has spent decades building some of the most beloved universes in mystery and urban fantasy. Because she writes across multiple distinct genres, your ideal starting point depends on what you enjoy reading most:

• For Supernatural Mystery and Romance: Start with Dead Until Dark (2001), the first novel in the Sookie Stackhouse / Southern Vampire Mysteries series. If you loved the HBO adaptation True Blood, this is where the magic begins.
• For Cozy, Small-Town Sleuthing: Start with Real Murders (1990), introducing librarian-turned-detective Aurora Teagarden. This is a classic amateur sleuth series with small-town Southern charm.
• For Darker Paranormal Thrills: Start with Grave Sight (2005), which kicks off the Harper Connelly Mysteries. The series features a protagonist who can sense how and where people died, offering a slightly darker tone.
• For Gritty, Character-Driven Mystery: Start with Shakespeare's Landlord (1996) to enter the Lily Bard series. Set in Shakespeare, Arkansas, it follows a cleaning woman with a dark past and is more grounded and realistic than Sookie's world.
• For Magic and Alternate History: Start with An Easy Death (2018), the first book in the Gunnie Rose series, which takes place in a fractured, magic-imbued 1930s America.

The Southern Vampire Mysteries (Sookie Stackhouse) Chronological Reading Order

While publishing order is the easiest way to read the main novels, inserting the short stories chronologically gives readers the most complete experience of Sookie's life in Bon Temps. Many short stories introduce characters and resolve subplots that directly impact the main novels. Here is the recommended chronological reading path:

1. Dead Until Dark (2001)
2. Living Dead in Dallas (2002)
3. Club Dead (2003)
4. Dead to the World (2004)
5. "Fairy Dust" (Short Story) — Best read after Book 4. Sookie is hired by Claude to investigate the death of a fairy triplet.
6. "Dracula Night" (Short Story) — Best read after Book 4. Sookie attends a party celebrating Dracula's birthday at Fangtasia.
7. Dead as a Doornail (2005)
8. "One Word Answer" (Short Story) — Crucial transition story explaining the death of Sookie's cousin Hadley, setting up the events of Book 6.
9. Definitely Dead (2006)
10. All Together Dead (2007)
11. From Dead to Worse (2008)
12. "Lucky" (Short Story) — Sookie investigates a break-in at an insurance office and finds a magical protective charm.
13. "Gift Wrap" (Short Story) — A standalone holiday story where Sookie finds a wounded stranger in the woods on Christmas Eve.
14. Dead and Gone (2009)
15. "Two Blondes" (Short Story) — Sookie goes on a road trip with Pam to check out a new vampire bar in Mississippi.
16. Dead in the Family (2010)
17. "Small-Town Wedding" (Short Story) — Sookie accompanies Sam Merlotte to his brother's wedding in Wright, Texas.
18. Dead Reckoning (2011)
19. "If I Had a Hammer" (Short Story) — Sookie helper-cleans a house and discovers a dark magical presence.
20. Deadlocked (2012)
21. "Playing Possum" (Short Story) — Sookie deals with a necromancer event at Hunter's school.
22. Dead Ever After (2013)
23. "In the Blue Hereafter" (Short Story) — The final Sookie chronological tale, featuring a crossover with Manfred Bernardo.
24. After Dead: What Came Next in the World of Sookie Stackhouse (2013) — An alphabetical character epilogue collection detailing the futures of Bon Temps residents.

Note: Almost all of these short stories are collected in the comprehensive anthology The Complete Sookie Stackhouse Stories (2017), which is the most convenient way to acquire them.

The "Harris-Verse": Interconnected Crossovers

Readers of Charlaine Harris often realize that several of her major series exist in a single, shared literary universe. These connections add depth and reward long-time readers:

• Manfred Bernardo: The psychic Manfred Bernardo is first introduced in the Harper Connelly series (Grave Sight). He eventually moves to Midnight, Texas, becoming a central protagonist of the Midnight, Texas trilogy. He also visits Bon Temps, crossing paths with Sookie.
• Lily Bard's Influence: Bobo Winthrop, a key character in the Midnight, Texas trilogy, spent time in Shakespeare, Arkansas, where he learned martial arts from Lily Bard. Lily Bard herself makes a physical appearance in the Sookie Stackhouse novel Dead Reckoning.
• Quinn the Weretiger: Sookie's former lover, the weretiger Quinn, makes a crossover appearance in the Midnight, Texas series.

Aurora Teagarden Books in Order

This series represents Harris's most famous cozy mystery saga. After a long hiatus following the eighth book in 2003, Harris returned to the character in 2016 to write two final books that age Aurora up and address new chapters of her life.

1. Real Murders (1990)
2. A Bone to Pick (1992)
3. Three Bedrooms, One Corpse (1994)
4. The Julius House (1995)
5. Dead Over Heels (1996)
6. "Deeply Dead" (1997 short story published in the anthology Murder, They Wrote)
7. A Fool and His Honey (1999)
8. Last Scene Alive (2002)
9. Poppy Done to Death (2003)
10. All the Little Liars (2016)
11. Sleep Like a Baby (2017)

Lily Bard (Shakespeare) Books in Order

Centered on Shakespeare, Arkansas, this series is darker and more grounded than Aurora Teagarden, focusing on mystery, trauma recovery, and small-town secrets.

1. Shakespeare's Landlord (1996)
2. Shakespeare's Champion (1997)
3. Shakespeare's Christmas (1998)
4. Shakespeare's Trollop (2000)
5. Shakespeare's Counselor (2001)

The standalone short story "Dead Giveaway" also takes place in this universe and features Lily Bard.

Midnight, Texas Trilogy

Set in a dusty, remote Texas town populated by supernatural refugees, this trilogy acts as the ultimate crossroads for Harris's shared universe.

1. Midnight Crossroad (2014)
2. Day Shift (2015)
3. Night Shift (2016)

Gunnie Rose Books in Order

Set in an alternate 1930s North America fractured by history and magic, this series follows Lizbeth Rose, a gunslinger for hire.

1. An Easy Death (2018)
2. A Longer Fall (2020)
3. The Russian Cage (2021)
4. The Serpent in Heaven (2022)
5. All the Dead Shall Weep (2023)
6. The Last Wizards' Ball (2025)

Cemetery Girl Trilogy (Graphic Novels)

Co-authored with Christopher Golden and illustrated by Don Kramer, this graphic novel trilogy follows Calexa Rose Dunhill, a young woman with amnesia who lives in a cemetery and can interact with the spirits of the dead.

1. The Pretenders (2014)
2. Inheritance (2014)
3. Haunted (2018)