Desperate Books in Order

The Desperate books are Alison Sherlock’s earlier comic women’s fiction, and they have a slightly different flavor from her later village and country-house series. They are bigger, busier, and more focused on friendship groups trying to cope when life becomes embarrassing, unfair, or just plain expensive.

The Desperate Bride's Diet Club introduces Violet Saunders, who should be excited about her wedding but is instead terrified of finding a dress and facing her own insecurities. She joins New You!, a diet club that promises confidence but offers more pressure than kindness. The turning point comes when Violet and the people she meets there begin supporting each other on their own terms.

It is not really a book about a diet. It is a book about shame, confidence, and the relief of finding friends who understand.

The story follows several characters with their own worries, including women unhappy with their weight and a man trying to get fitter after a health scare. Food, work, romance, and self-esteem all overlap. Violet’s journey is the spine of the novel, but the heart of it is the group she helps create when the official system fails them.

The Desperate Wife's Survival Plan moves into a riches-to-rags set-up. Charley Summers begins the book with money, comfort, and the kind of life that looks secure from the outside. Then her husband’s business collapses, the bank moves in, and her marriage cannot survive the fallout. Suddenly she has no house, no easy answers, and no choice but to find work.

That second book keeps the friendship element but raises the stakes around money and identity. Charley has to learn practical survival, not just emotional resilience. It is about taking a hard look at what security really means when the expensive parts of life are stripped away.

The Desperate series is best read in order because the first book sets the tone: funny, warm, and built around women finding strength together. Readers who know Sherlock from Riverside Lane or Railway Lane will recognize the same interest in fresh starts, but here the comedy is sharper and the problems feel closer to everyday adult panic.