Caroline Leavitt Books in Order (Updated 2026-02-06)

Caroline Leavitt’s fiction is best approached as a shelf of standalone novels rather than a single ongoing saga. The books don’t share a required timeline, but reading them by release date gives you the clearest sense of how her storytelling expands, from intimate relationship tension to bigger moral stakes and long-buried secrets.

Below is a complete, reader-friendly order with a one-line guide for every book.

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The novels in publication order

1. Meeting Rozzy Halfway (1982): Two women circle friendship, rivalry, and self-invention while learning what they’ll sacrifice to be seen.
2. Lifelines (1982): A relationship is tested when the people involved can’t agree on what they owe each other.
3. Jealousies (1983): Desire, comparison, and quiet resentment push a close connection toward an uncomfortable reckoning.
4. Into Thin Air (1993): A woman in crisis goes on a raw, impulsive journey that turns grief into motion, then consequences.
5. Living Other Lives (1995): When longing meets opportunity, a life that looks settled begins to split into dangerous possibilities.
6. Coming Back to Me (2001): After a rupture, a woman tries to rebuild trust, with others and with the person she used to be.
7. Girls in Trouble (2003): A moral crossroads forces a young woman to choose between secrecy and the cost of telling the truth.
8. Pictures of You (2011): A near-death event and a friendship unravel into a search for what really happened, and who’s been hiding it.
9. Is This Tomorrow (2013): Cold War suspicion and neighborhood fear turn one missing child into a storm that targets the “outsider” next door.
10. Family (2014): Love and loyalty collide when a family’s private fractures surface in ways no one can neatly manage.
11. Cruel Beautiful World (2016): A teenage choice reverberates for decades as a woman confronts the life she took, and the life she lost.
12. With or Without You (2020): A marriage, a best friend, and a long-held secret force a woman to decide what honesty would destroy, or save.
13. Days of Wonder (2024): A woman released from prison hunts for the child she gave up while the past keeps rewriting what “innocent” means.

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Short fiction (separate from the novels)

These do not connect to the novels’ plots and can be read anytime.

• The Wrong Sister: Stories (2014): Two darkly intimate stories where family bonds tighten into something that can comfort, or suffocate.

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A practical way to start (without overthinking it)

• Start with Pictures of You if you want a page-turning emotional mystery.
• Start with Is This Tomorrow if you want suburbia, paranoia, and social pressure as the engine.
• Start with Days of Wonder if you prefer her most recent style and higher-stakes momentum.

Then either keep moving forward, or go back and read the full list in order.

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FAQs

Do Caroline Leavitt’s novels connect to each other?
No. Each novel is its own world, with new characters and a complete arc.

Will reading out of order spoil anything?
Not across books. You’re choosing order for tone and craft progression, not to protect a series plot.

What’s the most recent novel?
Days of Wonder (2024) is the latest widely listed novel as of this update.

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Sources checked (not part of the article)

Caroline Leavitt’s official website book page; Algonquin/Hachette publisher listings; Goodreads author bibliography; Publishers Weekly author page; major retailer catalog listings for publication dates; compiled bibliography listings (AddALL / Fantastic Fiction) for cross-checking early titles.