Emma Fern Books in Order

The Emma Fern novels follow an unassuming small business owner whose life explodes when she is given a shortcut into literary fame. Emma is not a hardened criminal when the series begins, she is a people pleaser who runs a shop, reads crime novels, and dreams about being a writer.

Until I Met Her opens with a chance meeting between Emma and Beatrice Johnson Greene, a famous crime author who has grown restless with her brand. Beatrice has already written a very different kind of book and wants to publish it under someone else’s name. She offers Emma the chance to be that other name on the cover, promising that Emma will simply smile for the cameras while Beatrice does the real work.

At first, the arrangement feels like a wild favor between friends. Then the novel becomes a runaway success and Emma is suddenly celebrated as a brilliant new voice. The higher she climbs, the harder it becomes to admit that she did not write a single word, and small compromises harden into darker choices as she scrambles to protect her new identity.

After He Killed Me picks up with Emma now an award winning author under intense pressure to produce a second hit. Inside, she knows she is a fraud, and the handful of people who knew the truth are no longer in a position to talk. Her husband Jim has watched her rise very closely, and the sequel digs into his secrets and long game just as much as Emma’s.

Across the two books, the series tracks how a single lie infects every part of Emma’s life, from her marriage and friendships to the way she thinks about herself. What begins as an almost glamorous inside look at the publishing world becomes a study of paranoia, entitlement, and the cost of telling one story in public while living another in private.

The tone stays firmly in psychological thriller territory, with Barelli keeping readers inside Emma’s head as she justifies each new step. Settings range from cozy bookshops and literary parties to tense domestic scenes where a thrown away comment or a look across the dinner table carries as much danger as any weapon. The supporting cast, especially Beatrice and Jim, shift from mentor or spouse into something far more unsettling as their own motives are revealed.

Read together, Until I Met Her and After He Killed Me offer a complete arc, a two book dive into ambition, guilt, and the lengths someone will go to hold onto a life built on a stolen story.