Cliffside Bay Books in Order

Cliffside Bay is Tess Thompson in full small-town mode, warm, emotional, funny in spots, and packed with interconnected lives. The series is set in a coastal California town inspired by a place that does not especially want tourists, which turns out to be a great backdrop for romance. People come here to hide, to heal, to start over, or to return to something they left behind.

The town is half the charm.

The other half is the friend group that holds the series together. The books orbit a tight circle of men and the women who change their lives, so even when each romance stands on its own, there is always the pleasure of coming back to familiar faces. In Traded: Brody and Kara, a football star falls for a nurse in hiding. Deleted: Jackson and Maggie pushes into bigger soap and mystery territory with a heroine whose father faked her death. From there the series keeps widening, babies, weddings, old crushes, grief support groups, second chances, and the sort of community where everybody eventually ends up in everybody else's business.

That might sound cozy, but Cliffside Bay is not weightless. Thompson folds in witness protection, abuse survival, murder accusations, family scandal, infertility, grief, and long-buried secrets. The beach-town vibe makes the series feel breezy on the surface, but the stakes underneath are often serious. That balance is a big part of why the books are easy to binge. You get warmth and friendship, but you also get enough suspense and emotional mess to keep things moving.

The romantic setups vary a lot, which helps. There are second-chance stories, enemies-to-lovers, best-friends-to-lovers, age-gap tension, surprise babies, holiday novellas, and couples who have to rebuild after a tragedy. Pepper and Stone, Trey and Autumn, Nico and Sophie, David and Sara, each book has its own hook, but the larger world keeps them feeling like parts of one big community saga rather than random standalones.

There is also a strong family thread running through the whole thing. Some characters are close to the people they were born to. Others have been hurt badly by them. Again and again, the series asks what it means to build a safer life with the people who show up for you. Friends become family here almost by default. So do neighbors, in-laws, and the occasional person you originally wanted to avoid.

This is a very easy series to settle into.

If you want your romance with lots of recurring characters, holiday side trips, weddings, babies, and emotional continuity, Cliffside Bay delivers. Start at the beginning if you can, because the town really does grow book by book. What you are signing up for is not just one couple at a time. It is the feeling of moving into a seaside community where the people are nosy, loyal, wounded, hopeful, and usually only a few scenes away from helping each other get through the worst day of the year.