Judy Astley Books in Order
See Judy Astley books in order, with quick summaries, where to start tips, and a full guide to her warm, funny novels about family, love, and Cornwall.
Last updated: July 6, 2026
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Publication Order
21 books
When One Cat Woke Up
by Judy Astley
1990
A mischievous cat prowls through the house at night, knocking things over and causing trouble in counting order. This playful picture book turns one naughty adventure into an easy game with numbers.
Just For The Summer
by Judy Astley
1994
Clare heads to her Cornish holiday home ready for escape from suburban strain, a difficult daughter, and her husband's restlessness. One long summer brings temptation, revelations, and changes none of them saw coming.
Pleasant Vices
by Judy Astley
1995
A tidy London close gets worked up about crime and respectability while its residents quietly hide troubles of their own. As Jenny juggles family strain and an unexpected sideline, the real threat may be much closer to home.
Seven For A Secret
by Judy Astley
1996
On the eve of what should be her silver wedding anniversary, Heather is jolted by memories of the secret teenage marriage she buried years ago. When her first husband reappears, scandal ripples through her quiet riverside village.
Muddy Waters
by Judy Astley
1997
Agony aunt Stella seems to have all the answers, until her glamorous old friend Abigail comes to stay on Pansy Island. Abigail wants a place in Stella's life, and maybe her marriage, making friendship suddenly look risky.
Every Good Girl
by Judy Astley
1998
Newly free of her cheating ex, Nina is enjoying life with her daughters until danger creeps closer to home. A local flasher and Joe's unsettling new plans turn her hard-won calm into another round of suspicion and upheaval.
The Right Thing
by Judy Astley
1999
A funeral pushes Kitty to think again about the daughter she gave up for adoption at eighteen. Secure on the surface, she decides to make contact, and her whole family has to reckon with what that choice still means.
Excess Baggage
by Judy Astley
2000
Broke house-painter Lucy cannot refuse a once-in-a-lifetime Caribbean trip with her parents, siblings, children, and assorted partners. Sun and luxury should soothe the family, but old tensions pack themselves into every suitcase.
No Place For A Man
by Judy Astley
2001
Jess writes a cheerful newspaper column about family life, but off the page everything is wobbling. Her husband loses his job, her daughters keep dangerous secrets, and holding the household together gets harder by the day.
Unchained Melanie
by Judy Astley
2002
Newly single after years of marriage, Melanie is far more excited than devastated. With her daughter off to university and her ex remarried, she plans to enjoy her freedom, until real independence proves more complicated than it looks.
Away From It All
by Judy Astley
2003
Organized Alice goes to Cornwall when her mother falls ill in the old clifftop family house. As her children fall for the place and her husband argues for practical solutions, Alice starts questioning the life she has built.
Size Matters
by Judy Astley
2004
Jay, busy with three teenagers and a cleaning business, has spent years comparing herself to polished cousin Delphine. When Delphine reappears, Jay's diet and self-doubt spiral into a funny, pointed look at body image and family rivalry.
All Inclusive
by Judy Astley
2005
Beth and Ned return to their favorite Caribbean hotel, hoping sunshine will smooth over old problems. But with an affair buried in the group and their teenage daughter along for the trip, the holiday is anything but restful.
Blowing It
by Judy Astley
2006
Three grown children would love their parents to sell the big, shabby house and hand over the inheritance now. Instead, Mum and Dad plan to spend it, setting off a sharp family comedy about money, entitlement, and growing up.
Laying The Ghost
by Judy Astley
2007
Left by her husband and robbed on the way to a holiday, Nell decides to learn self-defence and track down Patrick, the man she once thought was The One. It is a second-chance story about old choices and messy new freedom.
Other People's Husbands
by Judy Astley
2008
Sara is twenty-five years younger than her husband Conrad, a famous painter who seems preoccupied with getting old and dying. Then one friendship starts to feel less innocent, and she has to face what loyalty and desire really mean.
The Look of Love
by Judy Astley
2011
Divorced Bella rents out the family home to a reality TV makeover show when her ex wants to sell. The chaos behind the cameras pushes her to rethink money, family, and the possibility of love after forty.
I Should Be So Lucky
by Judy Astley
2012
At thirty-five, unlucky-in-love Viola is back living with her mother after two disastrous marriages. With a teenage daughter and an overprotective family crowding her, she sets out to reclaim her life and choose her own future.
In the Summertime
by Judy Astley
2013
Twenty years after a life-changing Cornish holiday, Miranda returns with her mother Clare to scatter Jack's ashes near the old cove. The trip stirs grief, memory, and questions about what home still means.
It Must Have Been the Mistletoe
by Judy Astley
2014
Newly single Thea heads to a big family Christmas in Cornwall just as her parents are splitting up. When their new partners turn up and snow traps everyone in place, the holiday becomes messy, funny, and unexpectedly romantic.
A Merry Mistletoe Wedding
by Judy Astley
2015
Nearly a year after meeting, Thea and Sean plan a simple Christmas Day wedding in Cornwall, but family tensions, old flames, and long-distance strain keep derailing it. A warm sequel about love, nerves, and getting to the altar.
Where should I start?
If you want the Cornwall books: Just For The Summer → In the Summertime → Away From It All
If you want festive family chaos: It Must Have Been the Mistletoe → A Merry Mistletoe Wedding
If you want funny midlife reinventions: The Look of Love → Laying The Ghost → I Should Be So Lucky
If you want sharp domestic comedy: Pleasant Vices → Muddy Waters → No Place For A Man
Author bio
Judy Astley was born in Blackburn, Lancashire, and has spent most of her life in Twickenham. Before she became a novelist, she worked as a dress designer and dressmaker, painted, and illustrated. That practical, observant background suits her fiction, which is full of homes, families, clothes, money worries, and the small dramas of everyday life.
Writing started early.
She has said she was a childhood scribbler, the kind of child who happily made up stories, and that habit stayed with her. Later she studied English, but the writers on the syllabus left her feeling a bit overawed, so she put serious writing aside for a while. She came back to it in her thirties, when her children were at school and real life pushed her toward finding work she actually wanted to do.
Before the novels, she wrote and illustrated a children's counting book, When One Cat Woke Up, published in 1990. Her first adult novel, Just For The Summer, followed in 1994. She sent the manuscript to a Transworld competition, it did not win, but an editor called to say the publisher wanted the book anyway. That was the break, and it set up a long run of novels that appeared with impressive regularity over the years.
She stuck with it.
Astley's books are usually standalones, but they often speak to each other through mood, setting, and the kinds of lives they watch closely. In Pleasant Vices, Muddy Waters, and No Place For A Man, she writes about marriage, neighbors, teenagers, and the quiet chaos that can sit behind a respectable front door. In Size Matters and Blowing It, she takes ordinary anxieties, about bodies, inheritance, status, and turns them into sharp, funny stories without losing sympathy for the people making a mess of things.
She is especially good at characters who are no longer very young and know that life is not going to arrange itself neatly for them. The Look of Love, I Should Be So Lucky, and Laying The Ghost all lean into that territory, with women trying to rebuild, rethink, or simply get on with it after disappointment. Readers who like her work tend to come for the humor, then stay for the way she notices family tension, class signals, awkward loyalty, and the odd things people do when they want to be loved.
Cornwall matters in her work too.
It is there in Just For The Summer, returns in In the Summertime, and shapes the festive pair It Must Have Been the Mistletoe and A Merry Mistletoe Wedding. Holiday houses, seaside villages, and family gatherings give her plenty of room for comedy, but they also let her write about memory, belonging, and the way a place can hold different versions of a life.
Outside the novels, she has also written journalism and short fiction, including articles for The Times and stories for My Weekly and Woman. In interviews she comes across as funny, chatty, and clear-eyed about the writing life. She has talked about procrastinating, listening to other people's conversations, and loving the point in a story when it suddenly reveals where it really wants to go.
There are a few nice clues to the rest of her creative life as well. She once had clothes she designed and made displayed in a Liberty window, and she has spoken proudly about having a painting accepted for the Royal Academy Summer Exhibition. Those details make sense once you know her fiction. Her books are written by someone who notices how people present themselves, and what those surfaces do and do not hide.
For much of her career, Astley has been associated with life in Twickenham and Cornwall. She has two grown-up daughters and lives with her husband. If you start anywhere in her backlist, you will quickly see the through line, warm, dry, observant stories about love, muddle, family, and the comic side of being human.
Edited by
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