Colleen Oakes Books in Order

If you want a dark fairy-tale retelling: Queen of Hearts → Blood of Wonderland → War of the Cards
If you want a darker Peter Pan story: Stars → Seas → Shadow
If you want adult romance and wedding-shop drama: Elly in Bloom → Elly In Love
If you want a sharp YA thriller: The Black Coats
If you're reading for middle-grade friendship and sibling chaos: Sister Sabotage

Colleen Oakes was born in Denver, Colorado, and grew up the way a lot of future writers do, with stacks of books close by and an imagination that kept running even when nobody asked it to. She has said her teachers were encouraging her writing as early as fourth grade, which makes her path look obvious in hindsight. It probably did not feel that neat at the time.

She stayed connected to books through school, graduating from Denver Lutheran High School before heading east to Concordia College in Bronxville, New York. There she earned a B.A. in English literature and creative writing, a course of study that gave her both the reading life and the writing discipline to keep going.

Before publishing novels, Oakes spent nearly five years working as a wedding florist. That job matters when you read her early work. She later sold the business and decided to write full time, turning a long-held plan into an actual career.

Her first novel, Elly in Bloom, comes straight out of that world. It follows florist Elly Jordan as she rebuilds her life after heartbreak, and the sequel, Elly In Love, stays with Elly through more romantic chaos, career pressure, and family surprises. Readers who like those books tend to enjoy their warmth, humor, and the way Oakes writes everyday messes without sanding them down.

Then she shifted gears.

Inspired by an Alice in Wonderland poster and, by her own account, a lot of anger, Oakes wrote the series that brought her widest attention: Queen of Hearts, followed by Blood of Wonderland and War of the Cards. Instead of retelling the familiar Alice story, these books imagine the making of the Queen of Hearts through Dinah, a princess navigating court politics, cruelty, love, and power in a darker version of Wonderland. Those books were later translated into more than eleven languages. Oakes returned to classic literature again in the Wendy Darling trilogy, beginning with Stars and continuing through Seas and Shadow, where Peter Pan becomes far less charming and Neverland far more dangerous.

That mix is a big part of her appeal.

Across her young adult books, she tends to write girls who are under pressure and not always sure whether anger will save them or swallow them. The Black Coats pushes that idea into thriller territory with a grieving Texas teen pulled into a secret vigilante society. Sister of the Chosen One, which she coauthored with Erin Armknecht, plays with prophecy, fame, and sisterhood. Her middle grade novel Sister Sabotage brings the focus down to friendship and sibling rivalry, while Eleven Houses leans into haunted-island gothic suspense.

Even when the settings change, a few things keep showing up. Oakes likes retellings, girls with sharp edges, family knots that will not come loose easily, and worlds where love and loyalty are never simple. She can write palace intrigue, pirate danger, wedding-shop comedy, and middle school sabotage, but the through line is usually the same: a character trying to figure out who she is when everyone around her wants something from her.

These days, Oakes lives in Connecticut with her husband and son. She also has a master's degree in library science and works as a public librarian, which feels like a pretty natural home for someone who grew up in a pile of books. When she is not writing, she has said she is usually reading, swimming, traveling, or wandering deeper into nerdy pop culture. Her golden retrievers, Butterscotch and Cider, are part of the household too.