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Kris Calvert Books in Order

Browse Kris Calvert books in order, with quick summaries, series guides, and where-to-start tips for Sex and Lies, Jane Doe, Divine Darkness, and more.

Last updated: July 3, 2026

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19 books

Sex, Lies & Sweet Tea

by Kris Calvert

2013

FBI agent Mac Callahan comes home to Alabama to break a white-collar crime ring and expects a quick job. Then he meets Samantha Peterson, the woman who may hold the evidence he needs and the power to derail his clean exit.

Be Mine

by Kris Calvert

2014

As Valentine's Day approaches, three connected couples fumble toward love in this short ensemble romance. It is a lighter stop in Calvert's world, focused on timing, choice, and taking the leap.

Sex, Lies & Lipstick

by Kris Calvert

2014

Mac and Samantha are settling into life at Lone Oak when Mac's violent past catches up with them. A stalker with an old grudge turns their Southern dream into a deadly game.

Sex, Lies & Pearls

by Kris Calvert

2014

Leo Xanthus invites Polly Benson to his New Orleans family home, hoping romance can survive the truth about who he is. Mafia ties, FBI secrets, and old lies put both of them in danger.

Sparks Fly

by Kris Calvert

2014

Set over the Fourth of July, this short follow-up tracks three intertwined romances as holiday plans and old feelings collide. Fireworks, misunderstandings, and summer heat push everyone closer to the truth.

Beauty

by Kris Calvert

2015

Novelist Eliza Lovelace buys an old Baltimore house and hopes the move will steady her life and relationship. Instead she uncovers a brutal history that turns the renovation into a haunting fight for survival.

Lead Me From Temptation

by Kris Calvert

2015

Burned out and grieving, hospice nurse Indie Luce takes a new job and walks into a hidden spiritual war. Her strange gifts and buried past make her a target in a fight between light and darkness.

Roses are Wrong, Violets Taboo

by Kris Calvert

2015

On the night before Valentine's Day, grieving florist Chase Tabeau meets Rose Westwood and finds an instant connection. When she disappears the next morning, he has to decide how far he will go for a second chance.

Fate, Snow & Mistletoe

by Kris Calvert

2016

Snowed in at a North Carolina lodge in December 1941, Marilyn Richardson and Private First Class Cecil Winterbourne share a brief Christmas before war pulls them apart. It is a short, nostalgic love story wrapped in uncertainty and hope.

Sex, Lies & Black Tie

by Kris Calvert

2016

Retired from the FBI, Mac agrees to handle security for a glittering gala at Lone Oak. A missing girl pulls him into a trafficking case that reaches from the dark web to the political elite.

Sex, Lies & Bourbon

by Kris Calvert

2016

Win Holloway returns to Kentucky after his father is murdered at the family distillery. With Special Agent Ginny Grace on the case, he has to face buried family history and questions surrounding his mother's unsolved death.

Sex, Lies & Lace

by Kris Calvert

2016

Doctor King Giles balances medicine with a hidden life as a covert operative. When a murdered ex turns up on his lawn, rookie FBI agent Reagan Weatherford starts digging, and both a case and an attraction turn complicated fast.

Witchin' in the Kitchen

by Kris Calvert

2016

Set in the Magic and Mayhem universe, this short paranormal story follows a heroine with a rough past as she tumbles into witchy trouble. It mixes supernatural chaos with a quick-hit romantic spark.

Alice

by Kris Calvert

2017

Jane heads to New York for her next assignment and discovers a terrifying plot aimed at Times Square. Working alongside Kelly Casey and crossing paths with Matt Matthews again, she edges closer to the man called Three.

Catherine

by Kris Calvert

2017

In Washington, Jane hunts both a target and the truth behind the secret Coywolf project. With Matt back in her orbit and a planned attack looming over Capitol Hill, every alliance feels shaky.

Scarlett

by Kris Calvert

2017

Raised without a name or family, Jane Doe becomes a government assassin sent to Atlanta to eliminate a terrorist target. A reporter asking dangerous questions threatens both her mission and the walls she lives behind.

Sex, Lies & Champagne

by Kris Calvert

2018

Undercover agent Tristan Bleu is tracking a dangerous broker when a trip to France brings him face to face with the father he never knew. Family secrets, espionage, and his growing bond with Henry Tribolet make the mission even riskier.

Sex, Lies & Diamonds

by Kris Calvert

2018

Polly and Leo return from hiding when a diamond tied to the Xanthus family draws the mob back into their lives. What looks like stolen jewelry turns out to unlock a far bigger criminal scheme.

Sex, Lies & Leather

by Kris Calvert

2019

In Washington for a funeral, Mac Callahan ends up with a dead woman falling out of a senator's closet and his own name on the hook. To clear him, Mac and Samantha have to unravel a coded scandal built on corruption, secrets, and sex.

Where should I start?

For Southern romantic suspense: Sex, Lies & Sweet TeaSex, Lies & LipstickSex, Lies & Pearls
For the bigger connected cast: Sex, Lies & BourbonSex, Lies & Black TieSex, Lies & DiamondsSex, Lies & Leather
For darker thriller energy: ScarlettAliceCatherine
For paranormal or eerie suspense: Lead Me From TemptationBeauty

Author bio

Kris Calvert was born in Lexington, Kentucky, and her work makes it pretty clear she knows the rhythms of the South from the inside. Before fiction, she worked as a copywriter and in public relations, which helps explain the snap in her dialogue and the way she likes a clean, punchy setup.

Her path into novels started with a bluff.

Calvert has said she wrote her first novel after fibbing in a pitch session and claiming she was already writing one. That kind of origin story fits her books, which tend to move with confidence and a little mischief. She also wrote a screenplay, and across her fiction you can feel her comfort with scene, momentum, and strong hooks.

A lot of readers first meet her through Sex, Lies & Sweet Tea, the 2013 opener to the connected romantic suspense world also known as Moonlight and Magnolias or Sex and Lies. It starts with FBI agent Mac Callahan heading back to Alabama for a case and getting pulled into something messier and more personal than he planned. Books like Sex, Lies & Lipstick, Sex, Lies & Bourbon, and Sex, Lies & Black Tie keep building that world with more agents, more family history, and more trouble in expensive clothes.

She likes pressure.

That shows up again in the Jane Doe books, beginning with Scarlett. Here Calvert shifts closer to thriller territory and follows a government assassin with no real name and almost no safe place to stand. The follow-ups, Alice and Catherine, keep the pace high while digging deeper into questions of identity, loyalty, and what a person owes to the life she was pushed into.

She also has a darker, more supernatural side. Lead Me From Temptation leans into spiritual warfare and paranormal suspense through the story of Indie Luce, a hospice nurse carrying grief, strange gifts, and a past she does not fully understand. Beauty goes another direction, using a Baltimore house and the real history behind the Rosewood Asylum case to build an eerie story about haunting, memory, and evil that does not stay buried.

Across all of these books, certain things keep returning. Calvert likes strong women, high emotional stakes, and plots where love has to survive real danger, not just misunderstandings. She moves easily from Alabama plantations and bourbon dynasties to covert task forces, haunted houses, and Washington intrigue, but the common thread is usually the same: people under strain, secrets coming loose, and a heroine who has to decide what she can live with.

Off the page, Calvert's life seems every bit as busy. She lives in Kentucky, is married to composer Rob Pottorf, and is the mother of two grown children. She has also hosted a true crime podcast with her husband, which makes sense once you notice how comfortable she is writing about killers, corruption, and the lies people tell to protect themselves.

And yes, some of the small details people remember about her are the fun ones.

She has described herself as a tea drinker, a lover of alliteration and pearls, and someone who bakes gluten-free cupcakes when she is not writing. Those details do not make the books, but they do make the author behind them a little easier to picture. Kris Calvert comes across as someone who understands both polished surfaces and the mess underneath, which is a pretty good summary of her fiction too.

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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