Edgars Family: Neptune's Five Books in Order

Neptune's Five takes the Edgars family line backward into World War II and turns it into a spy story. These books follow Zach Edgars, code name Neptune, and his small undercover ONI team as they hunt saboteurs, spies, and other threats moving in the shadows before and after America's entry into the war. It is romantic suspense, but with shipyards, coded messages, false identities, and wartime nerves always close at hand.

What makes the setup interesting is where it begins. Shanghaied opens in 1941, when America is still officially neutral and many people want to believe the war is far away. Ferrell does not start on a battlefield. She starts on the North Carolina coast, in docks, bars, side streets, and local businesses where rumor and danger mix easily. Neptune and his men are operating on American soil, and that home-front unease gives the series its mood.

Sophie Moore, the heroine of Shanghaied, works in her father's pub near a newly built emergency shipyard. She is not looking for espionage. She gets dragged into it when her world brushes up against Neptune's mission and a friend goes missing. That pattern continues through the series. The women in these books are not just standing off to the side while the men do the dangerous work. They are civilians, codebreakers, nurses, and problem-solvers whose knowledge changes the outcome.

Tracked widens the picture without losing the intimate feel. Ruth Haynes, an Army codebreaker, recognizes a warning hidden in a code she and her brothers invented as children. Sean Hanahan, known as Scout, is the team's tracker and sniper, a man more comfortable following a trail than making speeches. Their book brings in military maneuvers, sabotage, and the question of whether the real threat is only the enemy overseas, or someone much closer.

The war is close, even before America fully says so.

Tone matters here. Neptune's Five is historical, but it is not dusty or distant. The books move like thrillers, with short deadlines, secret missions, and people forced to make hard choices fast. At the same time, Ferrell keeps the human side front and center. Attraction grows in cramped, dangerous spaces. Trust is never simple. Patriotism helps, but it does not make anyone safe.

Start with Shanghaied and keep going in order. The larger pressure of the war builds from book to book, and so does the team's sense that every mission is pulling them toward something bigger.