City Of Jasmine Books in Order

The City of Jasmine stories live in the same 1920s world as Deanna Raybourn's other Jazz Age novels but focus on aviatrix Evangeline Merryweather Starke and archaeologist Gabriel Starke. They mix lost loves, desert adventure, and a touch of political intrigue.

The prequel novella Whisper of Jasmine opens in London on New Year's Eve 1914, at a glittering party thrown by Delilah Drummond just as Europe slides toward war. There Evie, who has always dreamed of escape and adventure, meets the intensely driven Gabriel. One impulsive night, a fairy tale elopement, and a whirlwind marriage set the stage for the years of separation and hurt that follow.

By the time City of Jasmine begins, it is 1920 and Evie is a famous pilot flying a biplane across the old "seven seas" on a sponsored tour. Widowed in the sinking of the Lusitania, she travels with her eccentric Aunt Dove, her mechanic Wally, and a pet parrot, performing daring stunts to pay the bills and to keep moving forward.

Her past crashes into that carefully built life when a recently taken photograph appears showing Gabriel alive in Damascus, five years after he supposedly died. The search for the truth leads Evie and her small entourage to the ancient city known as the "City of Jasmine", where they fall in with archaeologists, soldiers, smugglers, and revolutionaries in the uneasy years after the Great War.

From there the story spills out into the vast Syrian desert, with ruined Roman forts, Bedouin camps, and sandstorms that can swallow a caravan. At the heart of the journey is a priceless relic that ruthless collectors are willing to kill for, and the more personal question of whether Evie and Gabriel can untangle the lies and loyalties that broke their marriage.

Throughout the series, Raybourn leans into the glamour and speed of the 1920s while also showing the fractures left by the war and the realities of European power in the Middle East. Expect banter, peril, and a second chance romance framed by biplanes, lost cities, and the kind of desert nights that seem made for secrets.