Reese Rivers Books in Order (Updated March 14, 2026)

Reese Rivers has a much smaller bibliography than some romance authors, which makes this page less about survival and more about choosing the right lane. She writes why choose romance, and her books split fairly cleanly into three groups: a paranormal time-travel trilogy, two linked contemporary holiday novellas, a completed duet, and a handful of standalones.

The main decision is simple: read the connected books in order, and treat the standalones as separate entries.

The shelf map

There are four useful ways to approach Reese Rivers:

Want the full paranormal series? Start with Catch Me and read the full Time After Time trilogy.

Want the most popular completed contemporary series? Start with Dance Butterfly Dance and continue straight into Burn Butterfly Burn.

Want the shortest entry point? Start with Trick My Treats, but know that it leads into two more linked holiday novellas.

Want a standalone first? Pick by premise: Dying to Love for zombie apocalypse, Unbreak Me for healing-family contemporary romance, or Falls Like Rain for small-town second-chance romance.

Reese Rivers books in publication order

1. Dying to Love (2021): A post-apocalypse why choose romance where Kelsey has survived the zombie outbreak alone until four men climb her fence looking for safety, turning isolation into found-family survival.
2. Catch Me (2021): Eden Kelly falls through a magic mirror into 1667 France, where time travel, vampires, wolf shifters, and a four-man romantic setup launch Rivers’ first series.
3. Before I Fall (2021): The second Time After Time book turns the mirror premise into a harder emotional problem, as Eden tries to get back to the men she loves without knowing what another step through time will cost.
4. And Shatter (2022): The trilogy closes by paying off the centuries-long dream of a faceless woman, bringing the supernatural romance and the long search for belonging to its full conclusion.
5. Unbreak Me (2022): Avery, hiding from abuse and protecting her daughter while living out of a car, finds refuge with three men in a healing-focused contemporary standalone built around recovery and family.
6. Dance Butterfly Dance (2022): Savy St. James, a university student with too many secrets, gets pulled into a fake-dating why choose setup with Tate and his three friends in the first half of a duet.
7. Burn Butterfly Burn (2023): The duet’s second book follows Savy after trust has been broken, shifting the story from attraction and concealment into fallout, pursuit, and repair.
8. Falls Like Rain (2023): A small-town second-chance standalone that leans more openly into healing, self-reclamation, and emotional rebuilding than Rivers’ darker setups.
9. Trick My Treats (2024): A Halloween housesitting job turns into a home-invasion why choose novella when three masked men burst in after a nearby robbery goes wrong.
10. Deck My Halls (2025): The Christmas follow-up reunites the thief heroine with the three men she conned earlier, turning the chase into a steamy holiday rematch.
11. Steal My Heart (2026): The Valentine-themed third Happy Con-idays novella brings Blue, Andre, Marcus, and Damon into one final heist-and-revenge play, closing the holiday sequence.

The books that truly need to be read in order

Time After Time trilogy

This is Reese Rivers’ clearest “start at book one and do not skip ahead” series. The time-travel setup, supernatural worldbuilding, and central relationship arc all carry forward from one book to the next.

1. Catch Me (2021): The entry point, where Eden is thrown from modern life into seventeenth-century France and discovers that the men around her are not human.
2. Before I Fall (2021): The middle book deepens the emotional and temporal stakes instead of resetting them.
3. And Shatter (2022): The payoff volume, where the long-running dream and destiny threads finally come together.

Best order: publication order.
Why order matters: this is one continuous romantic and supernatural storyline, not a loose shared world.

Masked Duet

This is the other sequence that should be read strictly in order.

1. Dance Butterfly Dance (2022): The setup book, with fake dating, college-age characters, and the secrets that make the whole duet work.
2. Burn Butterfly Burn (2023): The resolution book, where the emotional damage from book one becomes the center of the story.

Best order: publication order.
Why order matters: book one is openly presented as the first half of a duet, and book two completes it.

Happy Con-idays

This is a novella line, but it is still a linked continuity rather than three unrelated holiday stories.

1. Trick My Treats (2024): Halloween launches the premise with Blue and three masked men colliding during a botched night of crime.
2. Deck My Halls (2025): Christmas picks up the same dynamic and pushes the relationship toward reunion rather than first contact.
3. Steal My Heart (2026): Valentine’s Day brings the final con, the final target, and the full emotional close.

Best order: publication order.
Why order matters: the later novellas build on the same characters and prior events.

The standalones

Dying to Love (2021)

This is the oddball entry in the best way. It is a zombie-apocalypse why choose romance, but Rivers’ own description makes clear that it is not trying to be a gore-heavy horror novel. The appeal is survival, comedy, protective men, and intimacy behind the fences of a ruined world.

Unbreak Me (2022)

This is the most openly healing-centered standalone in the catalog. Avery’s escape from an abusive situation, her daughter’s safety, and the gradual construction of a new family give it a very different emotional shape from the more premise-driven series books.

Falls Like Rain (2023)

This standalone shifts toward small-town warmth and second-chance emotion. It still fits Rivers’ broader style, but it is less built around danger or spectacle and more around recovery, sweetness, and choosing a future that actually fits.

Best Reese Rivers reading orders

If you want one clean starting point

Start with Dance Butterfly Dance. It is one of the books most commonly surfaced by readers, the duet is complete, and the contemporary setting is easier to test than the paranormal trilogy.

If you want the strongest series experience

Read:

1. Catch Me
2. Before I Fall
3. And Shatter

That gives you the fullest single continuity in the bibliography.

If you want everything in the least confusing order

Read:

1. Dying to Love
2. Catch Me
3. Before I Fall
4. And Shatter
5. Unbreak Me
6. Dance Butterfly Dance
7. Burn Butterfly Burn
8. Falls Like Rain
9. Trick My Treats
10. Deck My Halls
11. Steal My Heart

That is not a shared-universe order. It is simply the cleanest way to move through the catalog as published.

What is the best Reese Rivers series?

That depends on what you want.

Time After Time is the best pick if you want paranormal romance, time travel, and a true trilogy structure.

Masked Duet is the best pick if you want contemporary why choose romance with a stronger emotional breakup-and-repair arc.

Happy Con-idays is the best pick if you want short, linked holiday reads instead of full-length novels.

Latest release status

Reese Rivers’ official site lists Steal My Heart as the newest release, and both the official site and third-party bibliography pages show the Happy Con-idays line as a three-book sequence with Deck My Halls in 2025 and Steal My Heart in 2026. At the moment, the verified public bibliography is still compact: three Time After Time books, two Masked Duet books, three standalones, and three Happy Con-idays entries.

Final recommendation

If you want the easiest first read, go with Dance Butterfly Dance.

If you want the strongest continuity-first experience, begin with Catch Me and read the entire Time After Time trilogy in order.

If you prefer standalones, choose by mood rather than chronology: Dying to Love for apocalypse, Unbreak Me for healing and family, and Falls Like Rain for small-town second-chance romance.