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Emily Franklin Books in Order

Browse Emily Franklin books in order, from YA romance to historical fiction, with quick summaries, series guides, and easy ideas on where to start.

Last updated: July 9, 2026

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23 books

Liner Notes

by Emily Franklin

2003

Newly out of grad school, Laney drives from California back to Boston with a box of mix tapes and a head full of memories. When her mother joins the trip, the road turns into a reckoning with family, love, and the soundtrack of her life.

Piece, Love, and Happiness

by Emily Franklin

2005

Summer is over, and Love returns to Hadley Hall feeling oddly alone. With her father distracted, friendships shifting, and a mysterious London exchange student living in her house, the new semester starts with more questions than answers.

The Principles of Love

by Emily Franklin

2005

New sophomore Love Bukowski arrives at elite Hadley Hall, where her father is the principal and her imagination runs ahead of reality. Between friendship drama, boys, and family questions, she tries to turn fantasy into a life that actually fits.

All You Need is Love

by Emily Franklin

2006

Back from London, Love returns to Hadley Hall just as Aunt Mable faces breast cancer and old relationships start tugging at her again. Asher grows distant, Jacob reappears, and new truths about her mother make home feel less steady than ever.

Love From London

by Emily Franklin

2006

Love Bukowski heads to London for a term at drama school and a chance to reinvent herself. Between homesickness, new friends, family worries, and an off limits British crush, the adventure gets complicated fast.

The Girls' Almanac

by Emily Franklin

2006

This linked story collection follows Jenna, Lucy, and the friends, lovers, and relatives orbiting their lives. Moving from girlhood into adulthood, it explores how female friendship can steady, wound, and reshape a life.

Balancing Acts

by Emily Franklin

2007

At an exclusive Alpine ski resort, Harley, Melissa, and Lily try to reinvent themselves through demanding jobs, romance, and secrecy. Each girl wants a fresh start, but hiding the past only makes the winter messier.

It's a Wonderful Lie

by Emily Franklin

2007

This anthology gathers essays by women about the truths, myths, and surprises of life in your twenties. Funny, candid, and wide ranging, it looks at work, friendship, love, and the gap between what young adulthood promises and what it delivers.

Labor of Love

by Emily Franklin

2007

Love meets her half sister in Los Angeles, then rushes to Martha's Vineyard after a call from her long absent mother. Back home, Charlie has changed, Jacob resurfaces, and long buried family questions come painfully close.

Slippery Slopes

by Emily Franklin

2007

Back at the resort, Melissa is torn between two boys, Lily's heart is still somewhere far away, and Harley uncovers secrets that could wreck the group's trust. Work gets harder as friendship becomes the real thing on the line.

Summer of Love

by Emily Franklin

2007

Love heads to Martha's Vineyard for a summer at Aunt Mable's café with Arabella. A family clue hunt, college worries, and complicated feelings about Jacob turn break into another season of discovery.

The Other Half of Me

by Emily Franklin

2007

Sixteen-year-old artist Jenny has never felt at home in her sports obsessed family and knows her biological father only as donor 142. Searching for a half sibling, she hopes to find herself and instead upends everything.

At Face Value

by Emily Franklin

2008

In this modern retelling of Cyrano de Bergerac, Cyrie is witty, athletic, and tired of being reduced to jokes about her nose. When her crush likes her shy friend, Cyrie writes the emails that say what she cannot.

Lessons in Love

by Emily Franklin

2008

For her final year at Hadley Hall, Love Bukowski moves into the dorms with enemy Lindsay, juggles Charlie and Jacob, and prepares to reunite with her mother and half sister. Romance shifts, but family and self knowledge matter more.

Off the Trails

by Emily Franklin

2008

Melissa, Harley, and Lily leave the ski resort for Nevis, where new jobs, beach heat, and fresh crushes test their bond. Freedom looks tempting, but each girl still has unfinished business trailing behind her.

The Half-Life of Planets

by Emily Franklin

2010

Liana swears off kissing to focus on planetary science. Hank, a music obsessed boy with Asperger's, meets her by chance, and their awkward, funny friendship slowly grows into something bigger than either expected.

Jenna & Jonah's Fauxmance

by Emily Franklin

2011

Teen TV stars Charlie and Aaron are told to fake a romance to save their show. When Aaron is falsely outed and the whole glossy setup collapses, they have to figure out who they are without the script.

Tessa Masterson Will Go to Prom

by Emily Franklin

2012

Lifelong friends Lucas and Tessa are thrown into chaos when he asks her to prom and she comes out instead. As Tessa plans to go in a tux with the girl she likes, their small town erupts around them.

The First Time I Heard Cocteau Twins

by Emily Franklin

2012

This music anthology gathers writers and musicians remembering the first time Cocteau Twins changed the way they listened. Emily Franklin is one of many contributors reflecting on memory, fandom, and the strange power of a song.

Last Night at the Circle Cinema

by Emily Franklin

2015

On the night before graduation, three best friends lock themselves inside a condemned movie theater and dare themselves to stay until sunrise. As the hours pass, old secrets, hurt feelings, and fear of the future rise with them.

Tell Me How You Got Here

by Emily Franklin

2021

In her first poetry collection, Franklin writes about memory, motherhood, grief, inheritance, and the emotional lives of ordinary objects. These poems are intimate and observant, always alert to what love and loss leave behind.

The Lioness of Boston

by Emily Franklin

2023

This historical novel follows Isabella Stewart Gardner from her uneasy start in Boston society to the making of her museum. Grief, travel, art, and stubborn independence shape a woman determined to live on her own terms.

New

Love & Other Monsters

by Emily Franklin

2026

Claire Clairmont tells her side of the stormy 1816 summer by Lake Geneva, where Mary Shelley, Percy Shelley, Byron, and Polidori circle one another in art, desire, and betrayal. It is a vivid reimagining of the world around Frankenstein.

Where should I start?

If you want the main YA journey: The Principles of LoveLove From LondonAll You Need is LoveLessons in Love
If you like smart teen romances with two voices: The Half-Life of PlanetsJenna & Jonah's FauxmanceTessa Masterson Will Go to Prom
If you want standalone coming-of-age stories: The Other Half of MeAt Face ValueLast Night at the Circle Cinema
If you want adult historical fiction: The Lioness of BostonLove & Other Monsters
If you want adult literary work: Liner NotesThe Girls' AlmanacTell Me How You Got Here

Author bio

Emily Franklin grew up half in the UK and half in Boston, and that mix of places still feels baked into her work. Her books often carry a strong sense of location, but also the feeling of someone watching herself move through it, noticing the soundtrack, the weather, the social codes, and the emotional undercurrents.

Writing came early.

Franklin has said she published her first poem while she was still in high school. A teacher, James Connolly, encouraged those early poems and sent them out to contests and publications, which gave her the kind of confidence many writers spend years trying to build. Poetry was not a late detour for her. It was one of the first ways in.

Her route to a writing life was not especially straight. She studied at Oxford, then earned an undergraduate degree in writing and neuroscience at Sarah Lawrence College. For a while, medicine seemed like a real possibility. Instead, Franklin traveled, worked as a chef, taught English, edited medical texts, and later earned a master's degree in writing and media studies at Dartmouth. That mix of science, art, food, and ordinary work shows up in the texture of her books.

She has never stayed in one lane for long.

Many readers first meet her through the Principles of Love books, which follow Love Bukowski through prep school drama, travel, family uncertainty, and first love. Franklin is good at writing teenagers without turning them into caricatures. The feelings are intense, but the books stay grounded in embarrassment, longing, shifting friendships, and the slow work of figuring out who you are. Standalones like The Other Half of Me, At Face Value, and The Half-Life of Planets keep returning to questions of identity, belonging, and the gap between how young people are seen and how they feel inside.

Her adult fiction moves in a few different directions, but it keeps the same close attention to memory and relationships. Liner Notes turns a road trip and a stack of mix tapes into a story about mothers, daughters, and the songs that attach themselves to whole periods of life. The Girls' Almanac follows female friendships across years and landscapes. More recently, Franklin has moved into historical fiction with The Lioness of Boston, about Isabella Stewart Gardner, and Love & Other Monsters, which gives Claire Clairmont a central place in the stormy literary world around Mary Shelley and the making of Frankenstein. She is often drawn to women who were underestimated, sidelined, or half erased.

Music keeps surfacing in Franklin's work, which makes sense. She has written about how memories come to her with their own songs attached, and even her fiction often feels alert to rhythm, voice, and emotional timing. Food, gardens, family history, reinvention, and the private weight of ordinary objects show up again and again too. Her poetry collection, Tell Me How You Got Here, fits neatly into that pattern, taking on memory, motherhood, grief, inheritance, and the things people keep, lose, or pass down. At home, music is not just a metaphor. She has said she loves singing while her spouse plays piano.

Franklin now lives in Boston with her spouse and four children. She continues to write across forms, and her work has appeared in newspapers, magazines, and literary journals alongside her fiction and poetry.

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