Cassandra Clark Books in Order
Explore Cassandra Clark books in order, with summaries, series guides for Hildegard of Meaux and Brother Chandler, plus clear advice on where to start.
Last updated: July 1, 2026
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Publication Order
33 books
Impossible To Forget
by Cassandra Clark
1987
A beauty salon owner sees a hotel chain as the perfect business opportunity, until the devastatingly attractive owner complicates everything. What begins as a smart expansion plan quickly turns into a battle between ambition and desire.
Fantasy Lover
by Cassandra Clark
1988
A brief posting as a foreign correspondent leaves a woman haunted by the one man she cannot forget. Back in London, memory, longing, and the difference between fantasy and real life refuse to stay neatly apart.
Hazard of love
by Cassandra Clark
1989
A former Hollywood starlet returns to an English village and feels as out of place as ever. The local man who challenges her most may also be the one who can help her imagine a different future.
Law Of Love
by Cassandra Clark
1989
Falling for a brilliant barrister is hard enough. Learning he is tied to painful family history makes the romance far more dangerous, and forces a reckoning between love, pride, and old resentment.
Today, Tomorrow and Forever
by Cassandra Clark
1989
An unexpected inheritance gives a woman a Mediterranean island, and a heap of problems to go with it. A trip to inspect the property turns into a life-changing choice about love, money, and where she belongs.
Bride Of Ravenscroft
by Cassandra Clark
1990
Hoping to find her roots, a woman comes to a Yorkshire fishing village to build a steadier life. Instead she is drawn into old secrets, strong attraction, and the unsettling pull of Ravenscroft.
Jungle Lover
by Cassandra Clark
1990
An expedition into the Amazon promises rare plants, heat, and real danger. It also brings a headstrong botanist face to face with a man as formidable and unpredictable as the jungle around them.
Love's Sweet Harvest
by Cassandra Clark
1990
A talented young set designer lands the chance of a lifetime with a world-famous dance director. The work is dazzling, but staying close to brilliance, and to the man behind it, proves more unsettling than she expected.
Simply Forever
by Cassandra Clark
1990
A woman who fled her marriage after betrayal is forced to face the husband she left behind. Time has changed plenty, but not the pull between them or the hurt that still stands in the way.
The Gemini Bride
by Cassandra Clark
1990
A case of mistaken identity throws a woman into the path of a handsome stranger who refuses to believe she is not the person he seeks. Secrets and strong attraction make escape much harder than it should be.
Trust Me, My Love
by Cassandra Clark
1990
Left broke and adrift after her father's death, a former show jumper takes on a difficult mission for her employer. Winning the trust of a guarded trainer may be her only way forward, but trust is the one thing neither of them gives easily.
Dark Passion
by Cassandra Clark
1991
An antiques shop owner refuses to let a ruthless developer bulldoze her livelihood without a fight. Their business war turns personal fast, and attraction becomes the most inconvenient complication of all.
Castle of Desire
by Cassandra Clark
1992
A woman bound by an old promise hides the truth about who she is, even as an arrogant, compelling man pushes too close. The harder she fights attraction, the more dangerous the secret becomes.
Love Island
by Cassandra Clark
1992
After a shipwreck, a woman wakes to find herself stranded with only one other survivor. Isolation forces them together, but rescue may prove almost as complicated as being lost.
Steps To Heaven
by Cassandra Clark
1992
A nightclub singer wants success on her own terms, even if a suave admirer is hard to resist. As career ambition and romance collide, she must decide which dream matters more.
Tides of Passion
by Cassandra Clark
1992
An independent painter is offered the perfect studio and a career-changing exhibition, but the wealthy man making the offer seems to want more than her art. Desire and control make risky companions.
Master of Destiny
by Cassandra Clark
1994
A long-ago summer in Corfu left a mark that never really faded. Years later, memory and desire return together, forcing a woman to ask what dreams are worth, and what they cost.
Hangman Blind
by Cassandra Clark
2008
Riding through Yorkshire on a mission for her priory, Hildegard finds five hanging bodies and a slaughtered boy. The trail leads into family loyalties, political unrest, and a killer who expects silence.
The Red Velvet Turnshoe aka The Velvet Turnshoe
by Cassandra Clark
2009
Hildegard is sent across plague-struck Europe to recover the Cross of Constantine from Rome. A murdered clerk and enemies who want her mission to fail make the journey far more dangerous than a pilgrimage should be.
The Law of Angels
by Cassandra Clark
2011
When armed men destroy Hildegard's quiet refuge, she escorts two frightened girls to York in search of justice. A stolen relic, a suspicious explosion, and rising unrest soon leave her juggling several mysteries at once.
A Parliament of Spies
by Cassandra Clark
2012
Hildegard reaches Westminster as plots close around Richard II and Parliament fills with spies. Poison, divided loyalties, and court intrigue turn her journey south into one of her most dangerous investigations.
The Dragon of Handale
by Cassandra Clark
2013
At a remote priory used to discipline unruly nuns, Hildegard finds a ripped corpse and rumors of a dragon in the woods. She trusts neither story, especially after discovering a guarded tower hidden nearby.
The Butcher of Avignon
by Cassandra Clark
2014
Sent to the papal court at Avignon, Hildegard enters a maze of politics, suspicion, and old enemies. When a body is found in a secret treasury, the mission turns into a deadly search for who can be trusted.
Ten Weeks That Changed England Forever
by Cassandra Clark
2016
This prequel follows a much younger Hildegard, recently widowed and fighting to reclaim her place in a brutal world. In turbulent 1376 London, private loss and national politics collide in ways that will shape everything she becomes.
The Scandal of the Skulls
by Cassandra Clark
2016
Back in England during the terror of the Merciless Parliament, Hildegard is drawn into a risky effort to save one of King Richard's allies. A hanging in Salisbury Cathedral suggests a second mystery, and the two may be linked.
The Alchemist of Netley Abbey
by Cassandra Clark
2017
Forced to shelter at Netley Abbey, Hildegard finds suspicious guests, a missing book, and a Welsh alchemist with a troubling reputation. When deaths follow, the abbey's welcome starts to feel like a trap.
Murder at Meaux
by Cassandra Clark
2018
Returning home at last, Hildegard finds Meaux Abbey shaken by a corpse discovered in a locked room. When an old friend is accused of murder, she risks everything to save him and expose what is being hidden.
Murder at Whitby Abbey
by Cassandra Clark
2019
Hildegard travels to Whitby Abbey to bargain for a prized relic, only to find rival bidders, bitter tensions, and a dead monk. The holy precinct soon feels anything but safe as the hunt for a killer gathers speed.
The Hour of the Fox
by Cassandra Clark
2020
In 1399 London, a murdered novice from Barking Abbey draws Brother Chandler into a case that reaches far beyond the riverbank. As Henry Bolingbroke closes in on the throne, every answer pulls the friar deeper into treason and fear.
Murder at Beaulieu Abbey
by Cassandra Clark
2021
Sent south to escort a young heiress and quietly judge Beaulieu Abbey's loyalties, Hildegard walks into an abduction plot. With ransom, religious division, and danger circling the abbey, she has little time to separate devotion from deceit.
The Day of the Serpent
by Cassandra Clark
2021
Brother Chandler is forced north on a mission tied to the fallen Richard II. As a mysterious bowman starts killing men one by one, he must investigate while hiding loyalties that could destroy him.
Dark Waters Rising
by Cassandra Clark
2022
At Swyne Priory, whispering novices, a fugitive musician, and a missing lay sister pull Hildegard into overlapping mysteries. Rising floodwaters cut off help and turn suspicion into immediate danger.
The Night of the Wolf
by Cassandra Clark
2023
Brother Chandler barely escapes one danger before another finds him in Chester. While trying to save banned Chaucer booklets, he is asked to investigate a merchant's wife's death, and the road ahead offers no safe allegiance.
Where should I start?
If you want the Hildegard mysteries in publication order: Hangman Blind → The Red Velvet Turnshoe → The Law of Angels
If you want Hildegard's backstory first: Ten Weeks That Changed England Forever → Hangman Blind
If you want the darker Brother Chandler books: The Hour of the Fox → The Day of the Serpent → The Night of the Wolf
If you want her earlier romance novels: Impossible To Forget → Fantasy Lover → Today, Tomorrow and Forever
Author bio
Cassandra Clark was born in Bridlington and grew up in the East Riding of Yorkshire, in a part of England where history is hard to ignore. The old churches, ruined abbeys, and wide Yorkshire landscapes stayed with her, and she has often pointed back to the ruins of Meaux Abbey as one source of the atmosphere that later shaped her medieval fiction.
The old stones stayed with her.
She started early. At twelve she won a television playwrighting competition, and by seventeen she had left Yorkshire for London. She went on to study English and philosophy at Bedford College, but her route into a writing life was anything but tidy. She married, had two daughters, helped run creative businesses, and wrote in the mornings before the rest of the household was awake.
Drama came first. Clark wrote for radio, television, and the stage, with work produced by the BBC, York Theatre Royal, the Croydon Warehouse, and the Edinburgh Fringe. She also taught for the Open University, covering subjects such as history, philosophy, music, and religion, and later collaborated on chamber operas as a librettist.
Then life pushed her in a different direction. After her divorce, and needing steady income, she was encouraged by romance writer Sara Craven to try category romance. Clark did exactly that, published as Sally Heywood, and went on to write more than twenty-five romances. Books like Impossible To Forget, Fantasy Lover, and Bride Of Ravenscroft show another side of her writing, quick-moving, emotional, and full of people whose working lives are tangled up with love.
She has never really stayed in one lane.
In 1991 she returned to study and completed an MA in creative writing at the University of East Anglia. After a long stretch caring for her elderly parents, and after training as a psychotherapist in North Yorkshire, she turned more fully toward the medieval world that had fascinated her since childhood. She has also said that the Chronicle of Meaux, written in 1395, became a secret source for the Hildegard books.
That shift produced the series many readers know her best for, beginning with Hangman Blind. In The Red Velvet Turnshoe, The Law of Angels, The Dragon of Handale, Murder at Whitby Abbey, and Dark Waters Rising, Clark built a late medieval mystery sequence that is less interested in tidy nostalgia than in the rough texture of real life, mud, travel, wool wealth, church power, political fear, and the dangers faced by women who refuse to stay quiet. Readers tend to like the books for the same reason they like Hildegard herself. She is smart, observant, stubborn, and brave, but never unreal.
Clark later opened another path through the same troubled period with Brother Chandler. The Hour of the Fox, The Day of the Serpent, and The Night of the Wolf lean further into espionage, censorship, divided loyalties, and the violent change from Richard II to Henry IV. Together, the Hildegard and Chandler novels show what Clark does especially well, turning large political upheaval into intimate, human suspense.
In recent years she has divided her time between North Yorkshire and the English south coast. Across plays, romances, and historical crime, the through-line is easy to spot. She writes about people under pressure, people trying to keep their independence, and people who discover that private feeling and public history are never as separate as they might wish.
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