Joyce Maynard Books in Order

Written when Maynard was nineteen, Looking Back is a portrait of growing up during the 1960s, blending family stories with sharp observations about pop culture, politics, and shifting social rules as she tries to make sense of a turbulent coming of age.

In a small New Hampshire town, four teenage girls are bound together by early motherhood and a fierce devotion to their babies. When two childless women from out of town take an interest in them, everyone's lives are drawn toward a looming, life changing crisis.

In this gentle picture book about a family's overnight camping trip, two siblings, their baby brother, and their parents pack the car, paddle a canoe, share campfire food, face nighttime shadows, and wake to blueberry pancakes by a quiet lake.

Gathering essays from her long running newspaper column, Domestic Affairs offers wry, intimate snapshots of Maynard's years raising three children, from babysitter troubles and sibling squabbles to road trips and small victories, capturing the everyday chaos and quiet joys of family life.

When a new house goes up next door, young Andy befriends the builder and crew, watching each stage of construction and saving scrap wood to build his own treehouse. New House gently celebrates curiosity, neighborly friendship, and the satisfaction of making something with your hands.

Ambitious small town weather reporter Suzanne Maretto is determined to be a television star, even if her steady husband stands in the way. When she seduces a teenage admirer and talks him into murder, the result is a dark, satirical story of media, obsession, and crime.

After ending a comfortable but unsatisfying marriage, almost forty year old Claire sets out to find the adoration she feels she has missed. Her search leads through two very different men, complicated stepfamilies, and the messy, hopeful work of loving again while raising children.

In this candid memoir, Maynard traces her unconventional childhood, her teenage relationship with a much older, famously private novelist, and the long work of rebuilding a life, a writing career, and a sense of self in the years that followed.

The Usual Rules follows thirteen year old Wendy after her mother dies in the World Trade Center attack. Uprooted from Brooklyn to California to live with her long absent father, she must navigate grief, new friendships, and divided loyalties as she slowly learns how to live again.

In this coming of age novel, fourteen year old Nate Chance watches his father taken away after a violent suicide attempt. As rumors swirl and his family unravels, Nate pours himself into building a cloud chamber for the science fair, hoping it might help bring his father home.

Blending true crime and family drama, Internal Combustion investigates the Michigan case of a suburban teacher who killed her husband with a hatchet, tracing the history of their marriage and the divided loyalties that split their sons and shocked the community.

Thirteen year old Henry and his fragile, reclusive mother Adele bring home an injured stranger on Labor Day weekend, only to learn he is an escaped convict. Over a few charged days, their quiet New Hampshire life is transformed by danger, desire, and unexpected tenderness.

A sweeping story of two birthday sisters, Ruth Plank and Dana Dickerson, born the same day in the same New Hampshire hospital but raised in very different families, whose intertwined lives slowly uncover long buried family secrets about belonging, love, and identity.

Set in late 1970s Marin County, After Her follows teenager Rachel and her younger sister Patty as their detective father hunts a serial killer on the mountain behind their house, and Rachel's risky plan to help him changes their family forever.

First published in a national newspaper magazine in 1972, this candid essay captures Maynard at eighteen, looking back on her 1960s childhood and voicing the hopes, doubts, and disillusionment of a generation coming of age in a changing America.

After alcoholism costs Helen her marriage and custody of her young son, she falls under the spell of glamorous philanthropists Ava and Swift Havilland. When a terrible accident threatens her boy's future, Helen must choose between the truth and her powerful new friends.

In this memoir, Maynard tells the story of her late in life marriage to Jim Barringer, his sudden diagnosis with pancreatic cancer, and the nineteen months of love, caregiving, and clarity that reshaped her ideas about partnership and loss.

Spanning decades, Count the Ways follows Eleanor and Cam from an idyllic early marriage on a New Hampshire farm through a shattering accident and divorce, tracing how their three children grow, change, and struggle to forgive what happened between their parents.

In this short, unsettling story, aspiring influencer Tammy sets off on a cross country road trip with her boyfriend to build their online following. When Tammy is found dead and he vanishes, the case explodes across social media, blurring the line between entertainment and truth.

After devastating loss, young artist Irene lands in a remote Central American village and a faded lakeside hotel called La Llorona. As she restores the Bird Hotel and builds a circle of guests and locals, she discovers unexpected paths toward healing, love, and hope.

Picking up the story begun in Count the Ways, this novel follows Eleanor back to her New Hampshire farm to care for her brain injured son Toby while navigating fraught relationships with her adult children, later in life love, and a turbulent America from 2010 to 2024.