Empty Coffin Books in Order

The Empty Coffin novels—reissued as the Port Gamble Chronicles—mix real‑world crimes with a ghostly edge. Set in the picturesque waterfront town of Port Gamble, Washington, they follow identical twins Hayley and Taylor Ryan, teenagers who can sense the dead and are drawn to the ugliest secrets hiding under their neighbors’ perfect lives.

Beneath Her Skin (first published as Envy) begins when the twins are still trying to process a bus crash that scarred their town a decade earlier. Their former friend Katelyn Berkley is found dead in her bathtub, and everyone is quick to assume suicide. Katelyn survived what other girls did not, struggled to fit in, and had a history of being bullied. But Hayley and Taylor start hearing from Katelyn in ways they can’t explain.

As the girls dig into social‑media posts, old rumors, and the tight social circles of Port Gamble’s high school, they uncover a pattern of cruelty that feels ripped from the news: cyber‑bullying, casual humiliation, and adults who don’t look too closely as long as their own kids are doing fine. The supernatural touches—flashes of visions, whispered warnings—underline how hard it is for a frightened teen to be heard before it’s too late.

Dying to Be Her (originally Betrayal) picks up with the murder of Olivia Grant, a British exchange student stabbed to death after a Halloween party. The obvious suspects are her glamorous host friend Brianna and Brianna’s boyfriend, who don’t seem nearly upset enough. Once again Hayley and Taylor find themselves following both hunches and ghostly nudges as they trace the crime back to a family secret that shatters their trust in someone close.

Under the crime‑of‑the‑week plots runs a slower burn about the twins’ own history. Their “twin‑sense” isn’t just a cool trick; it’s rooted in a past trauma that neither girl fully understands. Each case they take on in Port Gamble shakes loose another piece of that story and forces them to decide how much of themselves they’re willing to expose to save someone else.

These books are aimed at older teens and adults who like their mysteries with both emotional weight and a hint of the uncanny. They don’t flinch from topics like online harassment, toxic friendships, and the pressure to be perfect in a small town, but they’re ultimately about empathy—about what it means to stand up, even when you’re scared, for people who can no longer speak for themselves.