Dakota Willink Books in Order

If you want dark, high-stakes romance: Heart of Stone → Stepping Stone → Set In Stone
If you prefer first love and second chances: Untouched → Defined
If you want a connected sports romance next: Endurance
If you want her darkest standalone: The Sound of Silence

Dakota Willink is a romance author from New York who writes stories with heat, tension, and a lot of emotional push and pull. Her books often pair strong-willed women with men who are damaged, controlling, guarded, or all three at once, then ask what love looks like when trust has to be earned the hard way.

She first published in 2015 with Heart of Stone. That book introduced Alexander Stone and Krystina Cole, and it also launched the series that first brought her wide attention. The Stone books would go on to appear on bestseller lists, pick up awards, and find readers in translation.

Willink has said she always wanted to write, but for a long time the idea stayed on the back burner while family life and everyday responsibilities took priority. The turning point came when she met another local woman who had managed to write and publish while raising a family. That made the goal feel practical instead of distant, and Willink finally sat down at the computer and started writing, without waiting for the perfect plan.

That leap turned into a career.

Her best known work shows the range she likes to play in. Heart of Stone, Stepping Stone, and Set In Stone lean dark, sexy, and suspenseful, with an obsessive billionaire hero and an ongoing relationship arc that rewards reading in order. Untouched and Defined, later grouped under the Fade Into You banner, shift toward first love, second chances, and the long shadow of choices made when people are young. Then there is The Sound of Silence, a darker romantic thriller about survival after abuse, which grew out of her involvement with Nevertheless We Persisted: Me Too.

Readers who click with Willink usually seem to like the same things. Her stories are emotional, intimate, and built around wounded people trying to figure out whether desire and devotion can survive secrets, fear, and old damage. Even when the men are dominant or deeply troubled, her heroines are not written as passengers. They push back, make choices, and carry real weight in the story.

She clearly likes messy love stories more than neat ones.

Outside her main fiction, Willink has also written under the pen name Marie Christy. Under that name she published the children's book And I Smile for charity, and she contributed to Nevertheless We Persisted: Me Too, an audiobook project that later helped spark The Sound of Silence. She is also the founder of Dragonfly Ink Publishing, and through that work she has created projects beyond her own novels, including Love & Lace Inkorporated Magazine and the Leave Me Breathless World.

Like many independent authors, she does far more than write. In interviews, she has talked about how much of the job lives outside the manuscript, from marketing and packaging to audio, translations, and the constant learning that comes with a fast-changing industry. That practical streak fits the picture she gives of herself, organized, direct, and very aware that books are both art and work.

Her books have been translated into five languages, and she has sold well over a million copies worldwide. The Stone series won the Readers' Favorite 2017 Gold Medal in Romance, and the Fade Into You series was a finalist in the HEAR Now Festival Independent Audiobook Awards.

These days, she still calls New York home. She travels with her husband, debates politics and economics with her Gen Z son and daughter, and writes with two spoiled Cavaliers nearby. The spreadsheets are color-coded, the lipstick is apparently non-negotiable, and the next idea is usually not far away.