Circle Of Friends Books in Order

Circle Of Friends is Mary Jo Putney's contemporary side, and it feels very different from her Regency work in all the right ways. These books are linked by friendship rather than aristocratic family ties, and they lean into adult lives already complicated by divorce, career pressure, trauma, grief, and unfinished choices. The romances are still hopeful, but they live much closer to ordinary modern mess.

The Burning Point opens the series with Kate Corsi and her ex-husband Donovan forced back under one roof by the terms of her father's will. That setup gives the book both emotional and practical tension. There is family business drama, old resentment, and a mystery surrounding her father's death. The series starts, in other words, with people who already have history, and Putney never lets them ignore it.

The next books keep that grown-up tone. The Spiral Path follows actress and director Raine Marlowe as she works with the husband she is losing, only to discover that the role he is playing cuts too close to real buried trauma. An Imperfect Process shifts toward law and justice, with Val Covington stepping away from corporate work to help a man on death row. A Holiday Fling lightens the mood with a Christmas frame, but it still grows out of career stress, community ties, and the question of whether old connections can turn into lasting love.

These books care about consequences.

What links the series is the sense of a supportive network, people who know one another, show up, and carry pieces of each other's pasts. The settings are contemporary and the problems are recognizably modern, but Putney's familiar interests are still here: recovery, courage, and the belief that love is meaningful because it asks people to face what they would rather avoid. She does not treat emotional pain like window dressing, and that gives these books their weight.

If you are coming to Putney for only ballroom historicals, Circle Of Friends is a good reminder that she writes modern relationships well, too. Expect second chances, serious subjects, and couples who have to do more than confess attraction. They have to change, speak honestly, and choose one another in the middle of real life.