Alexandria (Mary Burton) Books in Order

The Alexandria series (Mary Burton writing as Mary Ellen Taylor) is women’s fiction with a strong mystery thread, set in and around Old Town Alexandria, Virginia. The books share a world with the Union Street Bakery novels, but they shift the focus to different women and different family histories, all tied together by old houses, salvaged objects, and secrets that keep resurfacing.

At the Corner of King Street follows Addie Morgan, who has worked hard to build a calm life away from the chaos she grew up with. When a family crisis forces her back to Alexandria, Addie ends up caring for a newborn and stepping into the daily work of her aunt’s architectural salvage business. It’s a homecoming full of old resentments and new responsibilities. Then a strange colonial-era relic, one of a set of “witch bottles,” comes to light, raising uncomfortable questions about whether the women in Addie’s line have been carrying a curse, or something that only feels like one.

In this series, history does not stay politely on the shelf.

The second book, The View from Prince Street, turns to Rae McDonald, a psychologist who has spent years avoiding the night her teenage sister died in a car crash. Rae’s old friend Lisa Smyth, who survived that same wreck, carries her own load of guilt and a long struggle with alcohol. When more artifacts emerge through the salvage yard and the families’ pasts start to overlap, the women are pushed into conversations they have dodged for years, about grief, responsibility, and what it means to admit you need help.

Taylor threads in pieces of eighteenth-century Alexandria through letters, legends, and the backstory behind the witch bottles. The books play on the edge of the supernatural, with moments that feel haunted, but they stay rooted in emotional realism. The mystery matters because it changes how the characters understand their families and themselves, not because it delivers a courtroom-style reveal.

Expect a slow-building sense of unease paired with deeply personal stakes, and a city setting that feels textured and lived-in. These novels are best read in order, At the Corner of King Street then The View from Prince Street, so the shared history and the emotional arcs land with full weight. They’re a good fit for readers who like family drama, a dash of history, and a mystery that unfolds through objects and memory rather than police work. It’s quieter than a thriller, but it still keeps the tension tight.