Joss Stirling Books in Order
Browse Joss Stirling books in order, with reading lists, summaries, series background and start-here advice across her YA romance, fantasy, mystery and thriller novels.
Last updated: January 16, 2026
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Publication Order
23 books
Grey Stones
by Joss Stirling
2021
Leo George takes new girlfriend Jess Bridges to a reunion weekend with his old university friends at an exclusive Cotswolds lodge. Jess quickly spots that this close knit circle hides toxic secrets, and when the weekend turns deadly she must work out which friendship has finally snapped.
White Horse
by Joss Stirling
2020
After a woman's body is found staged near the ancient chalk figure of the Uffington White Horse, Leo George suspects links to a secretive rural commune. Jess Bridges is already undercover inside the group, and together they must untangle cult loyalties before more blood is spilled.
Red House
by Joss Stirling
2020
When a Russian millionaire is found dead in the grounds of a grand Oxford house, Leo George is called to investigate. Next door, Jess Bridges is housesitting and quickly drawn into the case, uncovering simmering rivalries among wealthy neighbours that could easily have turned murderous.
Black River
by Joss Stirling
2020
A killer is dumping bodies in remote wild swimming spots along the upper Thames. Private investigator Jess Bridges, who stumbles on one victim during a midnight dip, teams up with DI Leo George to follow a trail that leads to a celebrity author and buried childhood trauma.
A Girl's Best Friend is Her Wolf
by Joss Stirling
2020
Sam Sweeney has just started at an elite Canadian high school, where her mother is bodyguard to notorious royal troublemaker Prince John. Tasked with keeping him out of scandals, Sam instead finds the cameras turning on her, a not quite tame dog and a reality survival show gone wrong.
The Silence
by Joss Stirling
2019
Concert violinist Jenny moves into a crumbling Blackheath house that promises a fresh start among artists. Sharing the space with charismatic actor Jonah and eccentric landlady Bridget, she slips deeper into painkiller addiction and old trauma until one violent night leaves someone dead and everyone doubting what really happened.
Stinging Nettle
by Joss Stirling
2019
After a failed attempt to steal a fey amulet, Wren watches fiery symbols crawl up her skin and her seven brothers turn into wild swans. Hunted by Devlin Brannan, sworn enemy of her family, she races to break the curse before it destroys them all.
Flare
by Joss Stirling
2018
On the run from Atlantis, Meri Marlowe and Kel Douglas seek shelter in New York just as a catastrophic storm bears down on the city. With enemies closing in and climate chaos rising, Meri uncovers shocking truths about her past and must choose whether to risk everything to end the war.
Don’t Trust Me
by Joss Stirling
2018
Jessica thinks she is rebuilding her life when she lands a job at a small company and starts dating criminologist Michael. Then the firm vanishes overnight, Michael's flat is burgled and he blames her, forcing Jessica to investigate a trail of lies that soon leads to a body.
Deadly Nightshade
by Joss Stirling
2018
Linny has lived and died before; every life ends before her sixteenth birthday thanks to a centuries old curse laid by a Sidhe king. At a Maine boarding school she meets Quinn Ramsay, heir to the family that doomed her, and together they confront magic that demands a terrible sacrifice.
Scorched
by Joss Stirling
2017
Ember Lord wakes in custody, accused of murdering her crime boss father and unsure what really happened. Young Detective Agency operative Joe Masters is assigned to befriend her and uncover the truth, but the deeper he digs, the less certain he is that Ember is the villain.
Peril
by Joss Stirling
2017
Seventeen year old Meri Marlowe can see peril, a colour in the ultraviolet spectrum that signals danger, marking her as the last of a hunted people. Hiding in a flooded London, she collides with bodyguard Kel Douglas and realises her gift is bound up with an ancient, deadly war.
Glow
by Joss Stirling
2017
Having escaped London, Meri discovers she is heir to Atlantis and still the focus of hatred between the Tean and Perilous. Separated from Kel, she digs into Atlantean history while he crosses a fractured Europe to find allies, both of them fighting to prove their love can survive the conflict.
Teasing Xav
by Joss Stirling
2016
This short story shows events from healer Xav Benedict's point of view as he first clashes with Crystal Brook. His easy charm bounces off her hostility, but beneath the banter he senses she is hiding more than she knows and cannot resist trying to reach her.
Summer Shadows
by Joss Stirling
2016
Summer Benedict lives with a suffocating presence in her mind that drains her strength and choices. Sent on a covert mission that pairs her with focused soldier Hal Robinson, she must use her mind shadowing gift to hunt a target while working out whether she can trust Hal with the truth.
Shaken
by Joss Stirling
2016
Rose Knight lives quietly in a Brooklyn brownstone, secretly scheming to raise enough money to save her father's life. Damien Castle, a suave Young Detective Agency agent, suspects crime behind her desperation, yet finds himself drawn in as her secrets and his assignment collide.
Stung
by Joss Stirling
2015
Once the Young Detective Agency's brightest recruit, Kate Pearl is now framed for murder and running from a vicious gang known as the Scorpions. Nathan Hunter is sent to track her down before they do, but their shared past makes choosing between duty and loyalty painfully hard.
Angel Dares
by Joss Stirling
2015
Impulsive musician Angel hides a dangerous gift, the ability to control water. At a summer music festival she falls for brooding singer Marcus, but his fear of her power and a growing threat to the savant community force her to decide how openly she can live.
Storm and Stone
by Joss Stirling
2014
Raven Stone is a scholarship student at an exclusive British boarding school where her classmates have turned inexplicably hostile and pupils quietly disappear. When undercover agents Kieran Storm and Joe Masters arrive, she joins them in exposing a conspiracy that links the school to an international blackmail ring.
Misty Falls
by Joss Stirling
2014
Misty has a savant gift that forces her to tell the truth, a trait that leaves wrecked friendships and awkward scenes in her wake. When a serial killer begins targeting young savants, a trip that brings her close to charming Alex turns her compulsive honesty into both a liability and a lifeline.
Seeking Crystal
by Joss Stirling
2012
Crystal Brook is the supposedly talentless member of a gifted savant family, better at finding lost car keys than saving the world. A trip to Denver and a wedding in Venice throw her together with healer Xav Benedict, and the pair must work together when an old enemy strikes at both their families.
Stealing Phoenix
by Joss Stirling
2011
Phoenix has grown up in a criminal Community of savant thieves, convinced soulmates are just a myth. When she is ordered to steal from visiting student Yves Benedict, she discovers he is both her mark and her destined partner, forcing her to risk everything to escape her ruthless master.
Finding Sky
by Joss Stirling
2010
Adopted teenager Sky Bright moves from England to the Colorado Rockies and wants nothing more than to fit in. Instead she meets moody classmate Zed Benedict, discovers a telepathic link between them and is pulled into a dangerous plot targeting savants like her.
Where should I start?
If you want YA paranormal romance with soulmates: Finding Sky → Stealing Phoenix → Seeking Crystal → Misty Falls
If you like teen detective thrillers: Storm and Stone → Stung → Shaken → Scorched
If you prefer near-future dystopian romance: Peril → Glow → Flare
If you enjoy twisty crime for adults: Don’t Trust Me → The Silence → Black River
If you love modern fairy-tale fantasy: Deadly Nightshade → Stinging Nettle → A Girl's Best Friend is Her Wolf
Author bio
Joss Stirling is the pen name British novelist Julia Golding uses for her young adult and adult commercial fiction. She was born in London in 1969 and grew up on the edge of Epping Forest, with the city in one direction and deep woods in the other. That mix of everyday life and hidden places shows up again and again in her books.
She read English at Cambridge, then took a path that did not look much like a typical writer's apprenticeship. After university she joined the Foreign Office and worked as a diplomat in Poland, before returning to Oxford to complete a doctorate on Romantic period literature.
From there she moved into the charity world, becoming a policy adviser on conflict for an international aid organisation. Her work meant campaigning at the United Nations and with governments to reduce the impact of war on civilians, and it sharpened her interest in how politics, power and personal choices collide under pressure.
Writing came next. Under her own name she began publishing children's novels such as The Diamond of Drury Lane, the first in the Cat Royal series set in Georgian London. That debut won several major children's book prizes and quickly established her as a full time author. Fantasy sequences like The Companions Quartet followed, and before long she had a backlist that spanned historical adventures, ecological fantasy and contemporary stories.
As Joss Stirling she turned towards teen and crossover readers, starting with the savant romance Finding Sky in 2010. That book introduced the Benedict brothers, a family of Colorado boys with psychic abilities and destined soulmates, and it caught on with readers who liked a mix of supernatural gifts, travel and first love. Two more Benedict novels and a run of related stories expanded the savant world, taking characters from London to Venice, South Africa and beyond.
Rather than stay in one lane, she kept reinventing the kind of story she told. The Struck series blends undercover teen detectives with high stakes romance, while the Peril trilogy heads into a climate changed future where a girl who can see danger as a new colour becomes central to a centuries old war. Across these books the tone stays grounded: there are psychic bonds and secret agencies, but also messy friendships, school pressures and the question of who you can safely trust.
Stirling has also written for adults under the Joss name. Psychological novels like Don’t Trust Me and The Silence take her interest in unreliable memories and shifting identities into darker territory. The Jess Bridges mysteries, beginning with Black River, follow a chaotic Oxford private investigator and a very precise detective inspector as they chase killers along rivers, chalk hills and university streets. The humour is dry, the bodies real, and the emotional stakes quietly high.
Under her three names she has published more than fifty novels, translated into many languages and read by audiences from middle grade up. Her shelves include prizes such as the Romantic Novel of the Year award for Struck and early children's book honours for The Diamond of Drury Lane.
Today she lives in Oxford with her family and continues to balance writing with teaching and community work. She directs a literary centre that explores fantasy writing connected to the city, and has even co hosted a podcast that imagines how Jane Austen might comment on modern life. Whether she is working as Julia Golding, Joss Stirling or Eve Edwards, the through line is clear: stories about people finding courage, connection and a sense of home in complicated worlds.
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