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Jason Mott Books in Order

Explore Jason Mott's books in order, with short summaries, series background, and clear where-to-start advice for his major novels and collections.

Last updated: July 12, 2026

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Jason Mott books in publication order

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16 books

We Call This Thing Between Us Love

by Jason Mott

2009

Mott's first poetry collection looks at love, loneliness, family, and desire in clear, musical language. The poems move between tenderness and hurt while keeping a close eye on the need for connection.

Hide Behind Me...

by Jason Mott

2011

This poetry collection uses superhero and comic-book imagery to think about morality, mortality, love, and everyday courage. Personal feeling and pop culture meet in poems that are vivid, restless, and inventive.

Dark Musings, Special Edition

by Jason Mott

2013

This special edition combines the first two Dark Musings books in one revised volume. Haunted objects, bad turns of fate, and other short shocks make it a handy one-stop sampler of the series.

Dark Musings, Volume 1

by Jason Mott

2013

A short set of eerie tales about the paranormal, the uncanny, and the things that linger at the edge of memory. It is built for readers who like quick chills and strange little turns.

Dark Musings, Volume 2

by Jason Mott

2013

Another slim collection of paranormal stories, this time widening the range with macabre touches, reality slips, and even an old-west showdown. It keeps the fast, spooky feel of the first volume.

The Choice

by Jason Mott

2013

Peter Galvin has built a life after losing his first love, Tracy, years ago. When she suddenly returns in a world where the dead are coming back, he and his wife must face an impossible emotional choice.

The First

by Jason Mott

2013

Emily is finally starting to move forward after her fiancé Edmund's death when he appears alive on her doorstep. His return becomes the first crack in a mystery that will soon shake the whole world.

The Random Drabblings of a Madman

by Jason Mott

2013

A collection of drabbles, stories told in exactly 100 words, built around brevity and surprise. Small in size but broad in tone, it invites readers to enjoy the tight challenge of microfiction.

The Returned

by Jason Mott

2013

Harold and Lucille Hargrave lost their son Jacob decades ago, then he comes home still eight years old. As more loved ones return around the world, their reunion becomes the center of fear, faith, and chaos.

The Sparrow

by Jason Mott

2013

When Heather and Matt find ten-year-old Tatiana alive far from the place where she died years earlier, they try to help her get home. Compassion turns risky as the crisis of the Returned grows wider and stranger.

Here A Drabble, There A Drabble...

by Jason Mott

2014

A compact collection of 100-word flash stories that jumps from funny to eerie to strange. Each piece aims to land a full tale fast, making it an easy pick for readers who like bite-sized fiction.

The Wonder of All Things

by Jason Mott

2014

After a plane crash at a small-town air show, thirteen-year-old Ava reveals a startling gift for healing. As people flood in seeking miracles, her power brings hope, danger, and a painful personal cost.

The Crossing

by Jason Mott

2018

In a world collapsing under war and deadly disease, orphaned twins Virginia and Tommy flee the draft and their past. Their desperate road journey tests loyalty, endurance, and how far they will go for each other.

Hell of a Book

by Jason Mott

2021

A Black author on book tour keeps moving through fame, pressure, and absurdity while another story follows a boy named Soot. The novel folds grief, race, and imagination into something funny, sharp, and deeply unsettling.

Recommended by

1 person

Best of Luck

by Jason Mott

2023

A dark short story about two lifelong friends, one crushed by loss and one seemingly charmed by fortune. When a gunpoint confrontation turns into a reckoning over luck and jealousy, something far worse starts to surface.

People Like Us

by Jason Mott

2025

Two Black writers try to find peace and belonging in a world scarred by gun violence, one on a post-award tour and one heading toward a school touched by tragedy. Mott blends grief, satire, and surreal turns with real emotional force.

Where to start with Jason Mott

If you want the award winner first: Hell of a BookPeople Like Us
If you want the full Returned world: The FirstThe SparrowThe ChoiceThe Returned
If you want a small-town miracle story: The Wonder of All Things
If you want dystopian suspense: The Crossing

Jason Mott sub-series and character series

The Returned books in order

Explore this series
  1. Book cover for "The Choice"

    The Choice

    by Jason Mott

    2013The Returned, Book 1
  2. Book cover for "The First"

    The First

    by Jason Mott

    2013The Returned, Book 2
  3. Book cover for "The Returned"

    The Returned

    by Jason Mott

    2013The Returned, Book 4
  4. Book cover for "The Sparrow"

    The Sparrow

    by Jason Mott

    2013The Returned, Book 3

The Returned books in chronological order

  1. Book cover for "The Choice"

    The Choice

    by Jason Mott

    2013The Returned, Book 1
  2. Book cover for "The First"

    The First

    by Jason Mott

    2013The Returned, Book 2
  3. Book cover for "The Sparrow"

    The Sparrow

    by Jason Mott

    2013The Returned, Book 3
  4. Book cover for "The Returned"

    The Returned

    by Jason Mott

    2013The Returned, Book 4

Jason Mott collections, short stories, and related book types

Short Stories/Novellas

  1. Book cover for "Here A Drabble, There A Drabble..."

    Here A Drabble, There A Drabble...

    by Jason Mott

    2014
  2. Book cover for "Best of Luck"

    Best of Luck

    by Jason Mott

    2023

Collections

  1. Book cover for "We Call This Thing Between Us Love"

    We Call This Thing Between Us Love

    by Jason Mott

    2009
  2. Book cover for "Hide Behind Me..."

    Hide Behind Me...

    by Jason Mott

    2011
  3. Book cover for "Dark Musings, Volume 1"

    Dark Musings, Volume 1

    by Jason Mott

    2013
  4. Book cover for "Dark Musings, Volume 2"

    Dark Musings, Volume 2

    by Jason Mott

    2013
  5. Book cover for "Dark Musings, Special Edition"

    Dark Musings, Special Edition

    by Jason Mott

    2013
  6. Book cover for "The Random Drabblings of a Madman"

    The Random Drabblings of a Madman

    by Jason Mott

    2013

Standalone Jason Mott books

  1. Book cover for "The Wonder of All Things"

    The Wonder of All Things

    by Jason Mott

    2014
  2. Book cover for "The Crossing"

    The Crossing

    by Jason Mott

    2018
  3. Book cover for "Hell of a Book"

    Hell of a Book

    by Jason Mott

    2021A Novel
  4. Book cover for "People Like Us"

    People Like Us

    by Jason Mott

    2025

Author bio

Jason Mott grew up in Bolton, North Carolina, a small town that still shows up in the emotional weather of his work. He has said he was a library kid, the kind who moved from mythology to comic books to whatever else looked promising on the shelf. That mix of folklore, imagination, and everyday Southern life never really left him.

At 14, reading John Gardner's Grendel flipped a switch.

Mott later studied at the University of North Carolina Wilmington, earning a BFA in fiction and an MFA in poetry. Poetry mattered to him, not as a side road, but as a way of sharpening rhythm, tone, and line. Before the novels took off, he published the poetry collections We Call This Thing Between Us Love and ...hide behind me....

Like a lot of writers, he got there the long way around. While working as a customer service representative at Verizon, he sold his debut novel, The Returned, in 2012. The book grew in part from a dream about his mother, who had died years earlier, sitting at his table as if she had simply come back.

The Returned begins with an impossible premise, the dead reappearing, and then grounds it in family grief, faith, and fear. It became a bestseller and was adapted for television as Resurrection. What readers often like about Mott is right there from the start: big speculative ideas, but with ordinary people at the center.

He kept pushing outward.

The Wonder of All Things turns a miracle in a small town into a story about love, damage, and what people demand from hope. The Crossing heads into darker, more dystopian territory, following twins Virginia and Tommy through war, disease, and a collapsing world. Even when the setup is wild, his focus stays human.

Then came Hell of a Book, the novel that changed his public life. After years of false starts and stubborn work, it reached readers in 2021 and won the National Book Award for Fiction. The book follows a Black author on tour while also tracing the life of a boy named Soot, and it carries Mott's mix of humor, ache, playfulness, and anger into a sharper register.

That novel also makes plain what runs through much of his writing: grief, family, race, memory, and the ways people learn to live inside systems that ask too much of them. He can be funny and surreal one minute, then painfully direct the next. Readers who come for the premise often stay for the voice.

People Like Us returns to some of that territory with two Black writers trying to find peace and belonging in a violent world. It works as another example of what Mott does well, using artifice, jokes, dream logic, and emotional honesty to get at very real American pain.

These days he lives in southeastern North Carolina and teaches fiction at the University of North Carolina Wilmington, where he serves as an associate professor in creative writing. In 2024 he was named a National Endowment for the Arts Creative Writing Fellow. That feels fitting. Mott's books may get strange, but they never lose sight of the people inside the strangeness.

Edited by

Richard Reis

Software engineer whose passion for tracking book recommendations from podcasts inspired the creation of MRB.

Anurag Ramdasan

Lead investor at 3one4 Capital whose startup expertise and love for books helped shaped MRB and its growth.

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