Max Holt (Charlotte Hughes) Books in Order

The Max Holt books are better known as the Full series, written by Charlotte Hughes with Janet Evanovich. The naming can be a little confusing, because Full House opens with Billie Pearce and Nick Kaharchek, while the later books settle into the Beaumont, South Carolina adventures of newspaper editor Jamie Swift and wealthy trouble magnet Max Holt. Once the series finds that groove, it sticks.

From Full Tilt on, Jamie is really the center of things. She is trying to keep the Beaumont Gazette alive with more determination than money, and Max is her silent partner, a rich, elusive charmer who seems to appear whenever a situation gets complicated. Their attraction powers the series, but so do the town's scams, local politics, missing money, gossip, and murders.

Beaumont is never quiet for long.

Each book starts with a local mess and lets it snowball. A mayoral race exposes missing tax dollars in Full Tilt. A fake-marriage setup and fresh danger push Jamie and Max together in Full Speed. A personals section sends the whole town sideways in Full Blast. Even when side couples step further into the spotlight in Full Bloom and Full Scoop, Jamie, Max, and the larger Beaumont cast keep the series tied together.

The tone is comic romantic suspense, not hardboiled crime. These books like oddball locals, family drama, bad decisions, flirtation, and the kind of escalating trouble that begins with something silly and ends with bullets or a body. Hughes brings a lived-in Southern small-town feel, and the pacing keeps everything moving fast.

The danger is real, but the mood stays playful.

What readers usually come for is the mix. You get unresolved attraction, newsroom headaches, town scandals, and a heroine who refuses to stop chasing a story. Max is part flirt, part mystery, and part rescuer, but Jamie never fades into the background. If you want a series that blends romantic sparks, small-town crime, and newspaper chaos, this one knows exactly what kind of fun it wants to have.