Hillary Manton Lodge Books in Order

If you want her signature mix of food, family, and romance: A Table by the Window → Reservations for Two → Together at the Table
If you want stories about change, faith, and Oregon Amish country: Plain Jayne → Simply Sara
If you want a standalone with tea-shop charm and Austen roots: Jane of Austin

Hillary Manton Lodge writes the kind of novels where food, family, faith, and complicated hearts all end up sharing the same table. She studied journalism at the University of Oregon, and that background still shows in her fiction. Her books tend to feel researched without ever feeling stiff, whether she is writing about an Oregon Amish community, a Portland restaurant family, or a tea shop fresh start in Texas.

She did not stumble into food fiction by accident.

During an internship at Northwest Palate magazine, Lodge found her way into the Pacific Northwest food scene, especially in Portland. She has said that experience stayed with her, and that reading Ruth Reichl's memoirs helped hook her on the possibilities of food writing. Even after the internship ended, she kept cooking, kept writing, and knew those interests would circle back together one day.

After college, she balanced creative work in a few directions at once. In addition to writing fiction, she ran a small photography business, which makes sense when you think about how visual her novels can be. She has also said that story ideas come from just about anywhere, family history, books, long walks, even a movie theater, which feels very on brand for a writer who notices the details of everyday life.

Her debut novel, Plain Jayne, arrived in 2010 and introduced readers to a reporter whose life is thrown off course by grief, work trouble, and an unexpected stay in Oregon Amish country. The follow-up, Simply Sara, shifted the spotlight to a young Amish woman testing life outside the community. That choice says a lot about Lodge as a novelist. She is interested in crossroads, not just premises.

Then came the food.

With the Two Blue Doors books, starting with A Table by the Window, Lodge moved fully into stories built around kitchens, restaurant dreams, family history, and romance. Juliette D'Alisa, the heroine of that series, is a food writer and later restaurateur from a loud French-Italian family in Portland. The later books, Reservations for Two and Together at the Table, expand the story through travel, old letters, and hard choices, but they keep the focus on work, love, and the messy ways family shapes both.

She also has a clear affection for reinvention. Jane of Austin, her modern take on Sense and Sensibility, trades drawing rooms for a tea shop, sister drama, and a move to Austin, Texas. It is a good example of what readers often like about her work: warmth, wit, tangible settings, and women trying to rebuild when life has other plans. The books are romantic, yes, but they are also interested in identity, home, and what happens after the neat version of your future falls apart.

The recognition came along the way. Plain Jayne was a Carol Award finalist, Simply Sara became an ECPA bestselling book, and later novels including A Table by the Window and Jane of Austin were shortlisted for the INSPY Awards.

Across her fiction, a few things keep returning. She likes women at turning points, families with long memories, settings that feel lived in, and faith that shows up in daily choices rather than speeches. Food is never just decoration in these books. It is work, comfort, memory, hospitality, and sometimes the clearest way a character knows to love somebody.

In recent years, Lodge has lived near Memphis, Tennessee, with her husband, Danny, and their Cavalier King Charles Spaniels, Shiloh and Sylvie. She has also worked as a graphic designer, creating book covers and other marketing materials. And yes, she once joked that as a child she considered royalty as a career, which tells you something useful about the dry humor running through her novels.