Elle Cosimano Books in Order
Explore Elle Cosimano books in order, from Finlay Donovan to her young adult thrillers and fantasy, with summaries, series guides, and where to start.
Last updated: June 30, 2026
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Publication Order
16 books
Nearly Gone
by Elle Cosimano
2014
Nearly Boswell hides her trailer park life, her mother's job, and a strange ability to taste emotions through touch. When a killer starts leaving coded newspaper clues only she can solve, staying invisible is no longer an option.
Nearly Found
by Elle Cosimano
2015
Nearly's crime lab internship turns deadly when a girl from her trailer park is murdered and a corpse is found with a message carved into its bones. The case drags her toward long-buried secrets about her father and her past.
Holding Smoke
by Elle Cosimano
2016
John Smoke Conlan is locked in juvenile detention for murders he did not mean to commit, and after a near-death experience he can leave his body behind. With Pink's help, he hunts for the truth behind the crime that ruined his life.
The Suffering Tree
by Elle Cosimano
2017
After moving to rural Maryland, Tori witnesses a young man claw his way out of a grave beneath the tree in her yard. What follows is a dark tangle of curses, family history, and a town determined to keep its secrets buried.
Seasons of the Storm
by Elle Cosimano
2020
Jack is an immortal Winter. Fleur is the Spring destined to kill him. When they fall in love, they challenge the ancient cycle that keeps the seasons turning and risk everything for a future together.
Finlay Donovan Is Killing It
by Elle Cosimano
2021
A stressed-out novelist and single mom, Finlay is mistaken for a contract killer after discussing her book in a restaurant. One desperate choice pulls her into a real murder case that is far messier than anything she writes.
Seasons of Chaos
by Elle Cosimano
2021
Jack and Fleur escaped the old cycle, but freedom comes with a brutal cost. As magic spins out of control and an enemy rises, they must face the fallout of their choices before the world tears itself apart.
Finlay Donovan Knocks 'Em Dead
by Elle Cosimano
2022
Finlay is barely holding life together when she learns someone wants her ex-husband dead. To keep her kids' father alive, she and Vero dive into a messy hunt that involves hit men, mob trouble, and more secrets than she can handle.
Finlay Donovan Jumps the Gun
by Elle Cosimano
2023
Finlay and Vero owe the Russian mob after wrecking a borrowed car, and the price is a dangerous one: identify a contract killer hiding in plain sight. Their best lead takes them straight into a citizen police academy.
Veronica Ruiz Breaks the Bank
by Elle Cosimano
2023
Before Finlay, Vero is starting over under a cloud of accusation and trying to make a life in her cousin's town. A theft at her new bank job gives her a chance to prove herself, if Javi and her past do not derail her.
Finlay Donovan Rolls the Dice
by Elle Cosimano
2024
Finlay and Vero head to Atlantic City to save Javi, recover a stolen car, and deal with a dangerous loan shark. Instead they find a dead man, meddling family, and a getaway that turns into another high-wire mess.
Staged
by Elle Cosimano
2024
Lyda is trying to flip a crumbling Victorian with help from Dani, a home stager with big opinions and quick instincts. Then a landscaper turns up dead in a bedroom, and the open house becomes a race to catch a killer.
Finlay Donovan Digs Her Own Grave
by Elle Cosimano
2025
When a body turns up in Mrs. Haggerty's backyard, Finlay's nosy neighbor lands at the center of a murder case and in Finlay's house. Digging into the truth may be the only way to keep the police from uncovering Finlay's own secrets.
Finlay Donovan Crosses the Line
by Elle Cosimano
2026
Vero is extradited to Maryland over the sorority theft that upended her life, and threatening messages suggest someone wants more than a conviction. Finlay heads south to clear her friend's name before the case, and the danger around it, closes in.
Home for the Homicides
by Elle Cosimano
2026
Special Agents Holly Frost and Mark Shepherd are sent to the town of Christmas after a tourist is found murdered in the nativity scene. With a festival looming and their rivalry simmering, they need to solve the case fast.
Finlay Donovan Plays with Fire
by Elle Cosimano
2027
After Finlay confronts her gossiping neighbor Stacey Pickens, Stacey disappears and blood turns up in the woods. Finlay, Nick, and Vero become prime suspects in a suburban case full of blackmail, grudges, and ugly secrets.
Where should I start?
If you want funny mystery chaos: Finlay Donovan Is Killing It → Finlay Donovan Knocks 'Em Dead → Finlay Donovan Jumps the Gun
If you want her YA mystery roots: Nearly Gone → Nearly Found
If you want darker supernatural suspense: Holding Smoke → The Suffering Tree
If you're here for fantasy romance: Seasons of the Storm → Seasons of Chaos
Author bio
Elle Cosimano grew up in the Washington, DC, suburbs, in a family that gave her plenty to observe. Her mother was an elementary school teacher. Her father was a prison warden, and that world later fed the locked doors, bad choices, and uneasy moral lines that show up so often in her fiction.
She did not take a straight path to publishing.
Cosimano studied psychology at St. Mary's College of Maryland, then built a successful career in real estate. On paper, things looked settled. In real life, she felt increasingly pulled toward the stories she had been carrying around for years. With encouragement from her mother, she took a two-month sabbatical from work and wrote the first draft of Nearly Gone in about eight weeks. It was the first fiction she had written in roughly fifteen years, and it changed the direction of her life.
Her family helped make that leap possible. While she was figuring out whether writing could become more than a dream, she leaned on a close circle of support, including her husband, children, and parents. At one point, the family relocated to Quintana Roo, Mexico, so they could be closer to her parents and give her the time and childcare help she needed to keep going. It was a practical move, not a glamorous one, and that mix of ambition and ordinary family logistics feels very much like her books.
Nearly Gone turned out to be a strong beginning. The novel, about a sharp, secretive teen caught in a killer's puzzle, was an Edgar finalist and won the International Thriller Award for Best Young Adult Novel. Later YA books such as Holding Smoke and The Suffering Tree kept the suspense high while pushing into prison lore, ghostly elements, curses, and complicated family histories.
Even Seasons of the Storm, her fantasy romance about immortal embodiments of weather, is built like a pressure cooker.
What ties those early books together is her interest in ordinary people forced into extraordinary moral corners. Teens in her novels are often smart but not slick. Adults are fallible, institutions are unreliable, and the past never stays politely buried.
The book that brought her to a wider adult audience was Finlay Donovan Is Killing It. Its heroine is a stressed-out novelist and mother who is mistaken for a contract killer, which is exactly the sort of premise Cosimano knows how to turn into both comedy and panic. Readers who love the series usually point to the same things: the friendship between Finlay and Vero, the speed of the plots, and the way domestic stress sits right beside murder, mob trouble, and romantic complications. Followups like Finlay Donovan Knocks 'Em Dead and Finlay Donovan Jumps the Gun keep building on that formula without losing the warmth underneath the chaos.
She has also published essays in Time and The Huffington Post, including pieces about how she came to writing and how her father's prison work shaped her imagination. She now lives in Virginia with her husband and two sons. Across YA thrillers, fantasy, and adult mysteries, the thread is easy to spot: she likes people under pressure, secrets with teeth, and characters who keep moving even when everything around them is falling apart.
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