Gunnie Rose Books in Order

In the Gunnie Rose series Charlaine Harris imagines a North America reshaped by disaster. After an assassination attempt on Franklin Roosevelt succeeded and a run of plague and economic collapse followed, the old United States shattered into several rival countries. One of the poorest is Texoma, a dry stretch of former Texas and Oklahoma where law is thin and survival depends on your aim.

Lizbeth Rose, nicknamed Gunnie Rose, grows up there with a rifle in her hands. She works as a hired gun, escorting travelers through bandit country and dealing with threats before they become corpses. She is stubborn, loyal, and painfully aware that gunnies do not usually live to old age. When a job goes wrong and her crew is killed, she takes on work she would normally refuse, protecting a pair of wizards from the Holy Russian Empire who have come to hunt for a descendant of Rasputin.

That first book, An Easy Death, sets the tone for the series. Magic exists, but it is rare and often distrusted, especially in places where people are more worried about clean water than spells. The Russian royal family controls the West Coast, Mexico has reclaimed much of the South, and old prejudices around class, race, and religion still flare up in new political arrangements. Lizbeth has to navigate all of that while deciding whom, if anyone, she will trust.

As the books continue, Lizbeth's world widens. She travels beyond Texoma, goes deeper into the politics of the Russian controlled territory, and learns painful truths about her own family history. The series mixes shootouts and train robberies with court plots and magical rituals, and it keeps Lizbeth at the center as a woman who measures every plan against the question of whether she and the people she cares about will walk away alive.

Readers who like alternate history, Western flavor, and competent female leads will find plenty to enjoy here. The Gunnie Rose books are brisk, violent when they need to be, and anchored by a heroine who may be terse on the page but feels fully human in her fears, loyalties, and hard won hopes.