18 Best Jojo Moyes Books
The best Jojo Moyes books, ranked by how many expert sources recommend each one, with notes on family stories, historical novels, romance, and where to start.
Our take
Jojo Moyes writes about people whose familiar lives change through work, family conflict, loss, or an unexpected relationship. Her books include contemporary stories with humor, historical fiction built around women’s experiences, and romances that can become emotionally difficult. Some follow a household or friendship group, while others connect characters across different periods.
Me Before You begins Lou Clark’s story, continued in After You and Still Me. Read those three in order. For a historical standalone, The Giver of Stars follows traveling librarians in Kentucky, while The Girl You Left Behind links a wartime story with a modern dispute over a painting. One Plus One takes a more comic road-trip approach. Someone Else’s Shoes and We All Live Here turn toward adult reinvention, friendship, and complicated families, while Paris for One and Other Stories offers shorter reading.
Start with the setting and emotional tone that appeal to you, or choose the story collection for a smaller introduction to her voice.
18 books · 8 sources · Last updated
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Reading Jojo Moyes in order? See all Jojo Moyes books in order
How to choose from this list
Skip to the full rankingIf you want the complete Lou Clark story: Me Before You → After You → Still Me
If you want historical fiction about women: The Giver of Stars → The Ship of Brides
If you enjoy past-and-present romance: The Girl You Left Behind → The Last Letter from Your Lover
If you want contemporary reinvention: Someone Else’s Shoes → We All Live Here
If you want family stories: Sheltering Rain → The Peacock Emporium → Night Music
If you want shorter fiction: Paris for One and Other Stories → Honeymoon in Paris
The 18 books, ranked
Ranked by how many expert sources name each book. Ties go to the book more people recommend.
For readers who want an emotionally intense relationship story with difficult questions about choice and responsibility. Lou’s perspective provides a clear entry into the trilogy, though the novel’s portrayal of disability and its ethical framing can be divisive.
What it's about
Louisa Clark, an ordinary girl with a steady life, loses her job and becomes a caregiver for Will Traynor, a wealthy man confined to a wheelchair after an accident. Will has lost his will to live, but Lou becomes determined to show him that life is still worth living.
The Giver of Stars
For readers who want women’s friendship and work within a historical setting. Its traveling librarians connect individual lives with a wider community, though the ensemble and threats surrounding them make it broader than a single-couple romance.
What it's about
Set in Depression-era Kentucky, this novel follows Alice Wright, an Englishwoman who joins a group of women delivering library books to remote mountain families. Based on a true story, it captures a powerful friendship between five women who refuse to be bowed by convention or danger.
Also recommended by
1 person
Reese Witherspoon recommended this bookReese Witherspoon
"Her characters are so compelling and y’all already know how much I love historical fiction!" - Reese Witherspoon
Reese Witherspoon's recommendation of this book
The Girl You Left Behind
For readers who enjoy a historical strand connected to a present-day dispute. Its painting gives love, loss, and ownership a shared focus, though the alternating periods require patience before their connections fully emerge.
What it's about
During World War I, Sophie risks everything to keep her husband's painting safe from the Germans. A century later, Liv Halston owns the portrait in London, but a legal battle over its history threatens to take the painting—and her connection to her late husband—away from her.
The Last Letter from Your Lover
For readers who enjoy romantic mysteries built around letters and separate time periods. Its connection between a past affair and a journalist’s search gives the romance a question to follow, though the gradual reconstruction delays a complete understanding.
What it's about
In 1960, Jennifer Stirling wakes up in a hospital with no memory, only to discover love letters from a man who is not her husband. Decades later, a journalist finds one of the letters and becomes obsessed with uncovering the end of the affair.
Night Music
For readers interested in rebuilding family life within an unfamiliar community. Its country-house setting makes practical conflicts part of the emotional story, though tensions over property and neighbors give it more domestic drama than romantic escape.
What it's about
Isabel Delancey, a widowed violinist, inherits a dilapidated house in the English countryside and moves there with her two children. Unprepared for rural life, she finds herself in a dispute with neighbors and a contractor, eventually discovering that the house holds the key to a new beginning.
Paris for One and Other Stories
For readers who want shorter pieces before committing to a full novel. The title novella offers a compact romantic journey alongside other stories, though the changing characters and lengths provide less sustained development than Moyes’s longer books.
What it's about
A collection of short stories headlined by *Paris for One*, where Nell is abandoned by her boyfriend for a romantic weekend but decides to stay and explore the city alone. The collection features funny, romantic, and poignant tales of everyday women facing turning points.
Sheltering Rain
For readers interested in relationships among mothers, daughters, and granddaughters. Its three-generation perspective offers a family-centered introduction to Moyes’s earlier fiction, though the secrets and emotional distance unfold more gradually than in her road-trip stories.
What it's about
Three generations of Irish women—Joy, her estranged daughter Kate, and her granddaughter Sabine—are brought together on the family's farm. As they navigate their strained relationships, old secrets resurface, forcing them to confront the distance that has grown between them.
Someone Else’s Shoes
For readers who want contemporary women’s fiction with a comic mix-up and contrasting financial circumstances. Its paired viewpoints explore identity and second chances, though the central coincidence and heightened turns ask for a willingness to accept an unlikely setup.
What it's about
Nisha, a wealthy socialite, and Sam, a struggling woman trying to keep her family afloat, accidentally swap gym bags. Forced to walk in each other's shoes—literally—they discover that their lives are more intertwined than they expected as they help one another regain control.
The Horse Dancer
For readers who enjoy horses and an unlikely bond between a teenager and an adult. Its equestrian focus gives ambition and responsibility a concrete setting, though the practical riding world matters as much as the romantic elements.
What it's about
Fourteen-year-old Sarah is raising her grandfather's horse in a city lock-up, hoping to join an elite French riding academy. When disaster strikes, her life intersects with Natasha, a lawyer whose marriage is failing, leading to an unexpected alliance that changes both their lives.
We All Live Here
For readers who enjoy messy adult family relationships and the work of beginning again. Its crowded household gives reconciliation several competing viewpoints, though the many personal complications make it more of an ensemble drama than a focused romance.
What it's about
Lila Kennedy's life is already chaotic with a divorce, two daughters, and an aging stepfather when her estranged father reappears after thirty-five years. Forced to share a roof with the family she thought she knew, Lila learns surprising lessons about forgiveness and second chances.
For readers who have finished Me Before You and want Lou’s story to continue. Its attention to adjustment and new relationships shifts the emotional focus, though it depends on the first novel and should be read afterward.
What it's about
Still mourning Will Traynor, Louisa Clark struggles to imagine a meaningful next chapter. An accident sends her back to her family and into a bereavement group, where paramedic Sam Fielding offers a possible connection—until a figure from Will’s past alters her plans.
Foreign Fruit
For readers who enjoy a house connecting different generations and social worlds. Its seaside setting and past-and-present structure give the family drama room to unfold, though the broad timeline makes it a slower route into Moyes’s fiction.
What it's about
In the 1950s, a bohemian group moves into the seaside town of Merham, captivating young Lottie Swift and her friend Celia. A forbidden love triangle ensues, the consequences of which ripple forward fifty years when the house, Arcadia, is renovated by a designer seeking a fresh start.
One Plus One
For readers who want family complications and humor alongside an unlikely romance. Its road-trip structure keeps several characters moving toward a concrete goal, though the accumulating mishaps and coincidences favor warmth over tightly restrained realism.
What it's about
Single mom Jess Thomas is determined to get her gifted daughter to a Maths Olympiad, but she can't afford the trip. When a tech millionaire stranger offers to drive them, an unlikely group embarks on a chaotic, humorous, and life-changing road trip.
Silver Bay
For readers who like a coastal community and competing visions for its future. Its Australian setting connects romance with environmental and development pressures, though the family secrets and slower atmosphere make it less brisk than a comic road trip.
What it's about
Liza McCullen lives a quiet life in a remote Australian bay known for its whales, hiding from her past. When a slick developer arrives with plans to turn the area into a tourist resort, Liza must fight to protect her sanctuary and the family she has built.
For readers following Lou through the complete trilogy who want questions of independence brought forward. Its New York setting changes the social landscape, though the relationships and personal history make the earlier two novels important preparation.
What it's about
Louisa Clark moves to New York for a job with wealthy Leonard Gopnik and his younger wife, Agnes, while trying to sustain a long-distance relationship with Sam. As she encounters high society, a vintage shop, and a man tied to her past, Lou must decide who she wants to be.
The Peacock Emporium
For readers who want a woman’s search for independence tied to family history. Its shop and small-community relationships provide a personal center, though the emotional inheritance and secrets make it more layered than a straightforward fresh-start romance.
What it's about
Suzanna Peacock struggles with her socialite reputation and a difficult relationship with her stepmother. Opening a shop called The Peacock Emporium helps her find independence, but she must eventually confront the past and the secrets surrounding her mother's life to find true happiness.
The Ship of Brides
For readers drawn to historical fiction about women facing uncertain new lives together. The ship’s confined setting brings distinct backgrounds into close contact, though the multiple viewpoints and wartime aftermath call for more attention than a short romance.
What it's about
Based on true events, this story follows four Australian war brides in 1946 traveling aboard an aircraft carrier to join their husbands in England. As they face a grueling six-week journey, their pasts and hopes for the future collide in the close quarters of the ship.
For readers interested in the couples at the center of The Girl You Left Behind. Its brief prequel gives their early relationships additional texture, though the limited length offers a smaller experience than the main novel’s intertwined historical strands.
What it's about
A prequel novella to *The Girl You Left Behind*, weaving together the stories of Sophie in 1912 and Liv in 2002. Both women are on their honeymoons in Paris, navigating the early uncertainties of marriage and love in the City of Light.
Sources
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Books
jojomoyes.com
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Jojo Moyes
fantasticfiction.com
- 3
Books by Jojo Moyes
goodreads.com
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Where to start reading Jojo Moyes
penguin.co.uk
- 5
Top 5 Jojo Moyes books
bbcmaestro.com
- 6
Jojo Moyes
penguinrandomhouse.com
- 7
What does this wonderful sub think of Jojo Moyes?
reddit.com
- 8
Loved Kristin Hannah's books "The Nightingale" and "The Great Alone" also Jojo Moyes "Me Before You" looking for new books, any suggestions? Thank you!!
reddit.com
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