Carlene O'Connor Books in Order
Explore Carlene O'Connor's books in order, from Irish Village cozies to County Kerry mysteries, with series overviews, reading order tips, and quick summaries.
Last updated: December 23, 2025
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Publication Order
30 books
Murder at an Irish Session
by Carlene O'Connor
2026
Pregnant and planning a music and matchmaking festival to help her brother find love, Siobhán O'Sullivan watches renowned matchmaker Liam Noone take the stage. When the lights go out and he is found skewered by an arrow fashioned from a bass bow, she hunts a killer among musicians.
Death Wasn't Invited
by Carlene O'Connor
2026
In 1922 Paris, June attends an engagement party uniting two powerful families with friends Nate and Jack. Nate intends to stop the wedding but is stabbed with Jack's knife before he can act, leaving June racing through salons and backstreets to clear Jack's name.
Murder in an Irish Garden
by Carlene O'Connor
2025
As Siobhán studies for her detective exams, her brother Eoin launches his new restaurant and enters Kilbane's Top Garden Contest to draw customers. When a showpiece garden reveals a corpse hidden beneath a golden statue, Siobhán and Macdara must prune a long list of suspects.
Come Through Your Door
by Carlene O'Connor
2025
Driving home on a stormy night, Dimpna Wilde nearly hits her assistant Niamh, who is barefoot, soaked, and confused. At Niamh's flat they find a stranger shot dead in her bed, and as parallels to an old murder emerge, Dimpna realizes a stalker may now be watching her.
You Have Gone Too Far
by Carlene O'Connor
2024
Two pregnant women in Dingle receive anonymous warnings that they are in danger. When one vanishes and a couple tied to her adoption plans are attacked, Dimpna Wilde and DI Cormac O'Brien fear a sinister cult from decades past has resurfaced with deadly intent.
Murder at an Irish Chipper
by Carlene O'Connor
2024
Hoping for a quiet seaside honeymoon, Siobhán O'Sullivan and Macdara Flannery instead find the door to a beloved fish and chip shop locked and its owner dead inside. With rival businesses, family feuds, and holidaymakers swirling, their romantic getaway becomes another murder case.
Some of Us Are Looking
by Carlene O'Connor
2023
Summer tourists flock to the Dingle Peninsula, but local vet Dimpna Wilde is drawn into darker currents when an elderly man is killed in a hit and run and a young woman from a roadside caravan is later found murdered in a disturbing, ritual like scene.
Murder at an Irish Bakery
by Carlene O'Connor
2023
A reality TV baking show descends on Kilbane's beloved flour mill bakery, but when a top contestant is found face down in her own signature pie, Garda Siobhán O'Sullivan must sift through rival bakers and old resentments to catch a killer.
Irish Milkshake Murder
by Carlene O'Connor
2023
In the title novella of this St Patrick's Day collection, Tara Meehan and fiancé Danny O'Donnell take friends to the Aran Islands for a joint hen and stag party. Boozy milkshakes on the ferry turn deadly when one reveler collapses, trapping Tara with a killer in a storm.
No Strangers Here
by Carlene O'Connor
2022
When the body of wealthy racehorse owner Johnny O'Reilly is discovered on a Dingle beach beside a cryptic stone message, vet Dimpna Wilde rushes home to find her parents under suspicion and teams up with DI Cormac O'Brien to uncover buried grievances.
Murder on an Irish Farm
by Carlene O'Connor
2022
On the morning of Siobhán O'Sullivan and Macdara Flannery's wedding, a long hidden skeleton is found in a slurry pit on the farm Macdara secretly bought them, soon followed by a fresh corpse. Their nuptials go on hold while they investigate two tangled deaths.
Murder in Connemara
by Carlene O'Connor
2021
As Tara Meehan prepares to open her architectural salvage shop in Galway, a newly sober heiress invites seven people she once wronged to an amends weekend at a Connemara castle, only to end up murdered, leaving Tara to untangle motives and protect her uncle.
Murder in an Irish Bookshop
by Carlene O'Connor
2021
A new bookshop in Kilbane hosts an event for resident authors, but after a night of barbed literary rivalries one of the writers is found dead among the shelves. Garda Siobhán O'Sullivan must read between bruised egos and old secrets to solve the case.
Murder in Galway
by Carlene O'Connor
2020
New Yorker Tara Meehan arrives in Galway with her mother's ashes and a message for the uncle she has never met, only to find a dead man on his cottage threshold and Johnny Meehan missing. To clear his name, she digs into family history and wary locals.
Murder in an Irish Cottage
by Carlene O'Connor
2020
Siobhán O'Sullivan and fiancé Macdara answer a desperate call from his cousin and arrive at a remote village cottage to find a blind young woman in shock and her mother dead. Locals blame a fairy curse, but Siobhán is sure a very human murderer is at work.
Murder at an Irish Christmas
by Carlene O'Connor
2020
The O'Sullivans head to West Cork for brother James's Christmas with his fiancée's musical family, but festivities sour when famed conductor Enda Elliot is found crushed beneath a harp. Stranded with new relatives and simmering tensions, Siobhán must find the killer.
Murder in an Irish Pub
by Carlene O'Connor
2019
A high stakes poker tournament brings notorious cardsharp Eamon "Octopus" Foley to Kilbane, but when he is found hanging in a locked pub storeroom, Garda Siobhán O'Sullivan suspects murder rather than suicide and must call a killer's bluff.
Murder in an Irish Churchyard
by Carlene O'Connor
2018
Newly minted Garda Siobhán O'Sullivan faces her first major case when a stranger is found dead aboveground in the Kilbane churchyard. As his American relatives arrive and tensions spike, she and visiting detective Macdara Flannery dig into complicated family roots.
Murder at an Irish Wedding
by Carlene O'Connor
2017
Catering a glamorous model's wedding should be a boon for Naomi's Bistro, but when the original best man turns up dead in the woods and another guest is poisoned, Siobhán O'Sullivan races to clear her beau Macdara after he becomes the prime suspect.
Murder in an Irish Village
by Carlene O'Connor
2016
In Kilbane, twenty two year old Siobhán O'Sullivan runs her late parents' bistro and raises her siblings, until a man is found at one of their tables with hot pink scissors in his chest. With the family under suspicion, she turns reluctant sleuth to save them.
Home with My Sisters
by Carlene O'Connor
2016
Once inseparable, sisters Faith, Hope, and Joy Garland have drifted far apart. Summoned to Bavarian themed Leavenworth, Washington, by their ailing grandmother for one last Christmas together, they confront old grievances, new romances, and what family will look like going forward.
London From My Windows
by Carlene O'Connor
2015
Agoraphobic sketch artist Ava Wilder lives safely in small town Iowa until she unexpectedly inherits her Aunt Beverly's London flat on the condition she live there for a year. Armed with a list of challenges, she must venture out into the city and into a life she has only drawn.
Meet Me in Barcelona
by Carlene O'Connor
2014
A surprise trip to Barcelona with her boyfriend seems like the perfect escape for Grace Sawyer, until she learns her former foster sister arranged it and then both her sister and boyfriend vanish. Following clues across Spain, Grace must face old guilt to uncover the truth.
Three Months in Florence
by Carlene O'Connor
2013
Lena Wallace gave up her own art studies to support her husband Alex's career, and Florence was meant to be their shared dream. When he takes a teaching post there alone and she later discovers his affair, a summer in Italy forces her to decide whether to save her marriage or herself.
The Things I Do For You
by Carlene O'Connor
2012
Bailey Jordan has always followed her adventurous husband Brad's dreams, but after a car accident and near death experience leave him obsessed with turning a Hudson River lighthouse into a bed and breakfast, she must decide how far she'll go to support him once a buried secret surfaces.
The Pub Across the Pond
by Carlene O'Connor
2011
Cleveland native Carlene Rivers never expects to win the raffle ticket she buys on a whim, let alone claim the prize, a pub on Ireland's west coast. Taking a leap, she moves to Ballybeog, where running the bar, taming quirky regulars, and falling for its former owner upend her life.
My Sister's Voice
by Carlene O'Connor
2010
Deaf artist Lacey Gears is content with her life in Philadelphia until a letter arrives that begins, "You have a sister. A twin to be exact." Learning that her hearing twin Monica was raised by their birth parents, Lacey sets out to uncover the truth behind their separation.
Sunnyside Blues
by Carlene O'Connor
2009
Restless twenty five year old Andes Lane thinks she has finally found home on a Seattle houseboat, until her landlord's sharp young son Chase pulls her into his quest to find family in Sunnyside, Queens. Their cross country journey forces both to confront old hurts and new possibilities.
She'll Take It
by Carlene O'Connor
2006
Melanie Zeitgar is an aspiring actress and chronic shoplifter who insists she only takes what "speaks" to her. When one theft goes too far and her lies tangle with a promising new romance, she is forced to face why she keeps stealing and what she really wants.
Accidentally Engaged
by Carlene O'Connor
2006
Psychic reader Clair Ivers is dragged into chaos when a panicked bride to be demands a fake reading, then flees and leaves her engagement ring behind. Tracking down the groom, Clair falls for him herself, even as secrets about the runaway fiancée threaten to blow up her life.
Where should I start?
If you want cozy village mysteries: Murder in an Irish Village → Murder at an Irish Wedding → Murder in an Irish Churchyard → Murder in an Irish Pub.
If you like darker, atmospheric crime: No Strangers Here → Some of Us Are Looking → You Have Gone Too Far → Come Through Your Door.
If you want a modern heroine discovering Ireland: Murder in Galway → Murder in Connemara → Irish Milkshake Murder.
If you prefer standalone women's fiction with travel: The Pub Across the Pond → Three Months in Florence → Meet Me in Barcelona.
If you love 1920s historical mysteries: Death Wasn't Invited is a self contained June's Journey novel that works as an easy entry point.
Author bio
Carlene O'Connor writes mysteries steeped in Irish landscapes, family ties, and the kinds of secrets that cling to small communities. A USA Today bestselling author, she is best known for her Irish Village Mysteries, the darker County Kerry novels, and the Home to Ireland Mysteries, along with a shelf of earlier novels published as Mary Carter.
She was born on April 18, 1970, in Ravenna, Ohio, in a family where storytelling was part of everyday life. Her great grandmother left Ballymena in County Antrim for Philadelphia at the end of the nineteenth century, carrying stories that were handed down through the generations. Those Irish roots, mixed with a Midwestern upbringing, gave her both the pull of home and the itch to wander.
As a young adult she moved to New York City and stayed for about fifteen years. By day she worked and studied the craft of writing. By night she spent long hours in Irish pubs, listening to accents, jokes, and local gossip, and collecting the textures of speech that would later infuse her fiction. A visit with Irish friends to the medieval walled town of Kilmallock in County Limerick became a turning point, planting the seed for the fictional village of Kilbane in County Cork.
Before she turned fully to crime fiction, O'Connor wrote contemporary novels as Mary Carter, often about women at crossroads in their lives. Books like My Sister's Voice, The Things I Do For You, Three Months in Florence, and The Pub Across the Pond follow characters who are pushed out of their comfort zones by inheritances, betrayals, or sudden chances to start over in new cities.
Her mystery breakthrough came with Murder in an Irish Village, the first Irish Village Mystery. The series follows Siobhán O'Sullivan, who steps up to run her family's bistro in Kilbane after her parents' death, then trains as a garda while raising her younger siblings. What begins with a dead man and a pair of pink scissors in Naomi's Bistro grows into a long running series of village murders tied to weddings, pubs, churchyards, cottages, bookshops, and even reality baking shows.
The Irish Village books stay warm and funny, but they are also police procedurals. Siobhán's relationship with fellow garda Macdara Flannery, the changing fortunes of the O'Sullivan siblings, and the pressures of tourism and tradition in rural Ireland all thread through cases that remain firmly grounded in everyday life.
With the County Kerry Mysteries, starting with No Strangers Here and continuing through Some of Us Are Looking, You Have Gone Too Far, and Come Through Your Door, O'Connor leans into a moodier kind of crime novel. These books follow veterinarian Dimpna Wilde and Detective Inspector Cormac O'Brien in and around Dingle, where racehorses, cults, stalkers, and old family wounds give the stories a more psychological, slow burn tension.
The Home to Ireland Mysteries sit somewhere between those tones. In Murder in Galway, Murder in Connemara, and related novellas, New Yorker Tara Meehan travels west with her mother's ashes and ends up restoring both architectural salvage and her own sense of belonging. Tara's cases tie together tourism, local history, and the pull of family, while still delivering classic puzzle plots.
O'Connor also writes shorter Irish themed mysteries, including novellas in holiday anthologies and Death Wasn't Invited, the first June's Journey Mystery set in 1920s Paris. Across all of these projects she returns to a few obsessions: complicated families, outsiders trying to make a home, and communities where everyone knows more than they are saying.
Today she divides her time between New Mexico and Ireland, traveling back as often as she can to walk the towns and coastlines that inspire her settings. She is a member of Mystery Writers of America and Sisters in Crime, and she enjoys visiting book clubs and festivals, whether on screen or in person. However far she roams, the stories keep circling back to Ireland, where rain, gossip, and murder all seem to fall from the same sky.
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