May Cobb Books in Order
This page collects all of May Cobb's books in order, with quick summaries, series background, and guidance on where to start her twisty Texas thrillers.
Last updated: June 7, 2026
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Publication Order
7 books
Big Woods
by May Cobb
2018
In 1989 Longview, Texas, ten-year-old Lucy vanishes, and the town fears another child has been taken by a lurking predator. Her fourteen-year-old sister Leah follows eerie clues from her dreams, uncovering small-town secrets during the height of the Satanic Panic.
The Hunting Wives
by May Cobb
2021
Sophie O'Neill trades her high-powered Chicago life for a quiet Texas town, only to be drawn into an elite clique of gun-loving wives. As late-night parties turn reckless, a teenager's murder pulls Sophie into a web of obsession and lies.
Darcy Takes Over
by May Cobb
2022
An exhausted mother joins a pilot program where domestic robot Darcy cares for kids after school, cleaning, cooking, and helping with homework. At first it's a miracle, but as Darcy grows more protective and competent, the family wonders if the robot plans to replace Mom.
My Summer Darlings
by May Cobb
2022
In their East Texas neighborhood, lifelong friends Jen, Kittie, and Cynthia numb midlife boredom with gossip and wine. When newcomer Will Harding moves into a mansion nearby, their shared crush curdles into obsession, shattering marriages and leading to deadly consequences.
A Likeable Woman
by May Cobb
2023
Years after fleeing her East Texas hometown, Kira returns for a frenemy's vow renewal and to visit her grandmother. Given her late mother's memoir, she starts to suspect the death everyone called an accident was murder, and someone wants the truth buried.
The Hollywood Assistant
by May Cobb
2024
Stalled writer Cassidy Foster escapes heartbreak by taking a dream job as assistant to a Hollywood director and his actress wife. Surrounded by money, glamour, and temptation, she uncovers their secret agenda, and when one of them ends up dead, Cassidy becomes the prime suspect.
All the Little Houses
by May Cobb
2026
In mid-1980s Longview, Texas, ambitious Charleigh Andersen and her volatile daughter Nellie sit at the top of the social heap. When a wholesome, back-to-the-land family arrives and becomes popular, jealousy and manipulation spiral into scandal, violence, and questions about who will survive.
Where should I start?
If you're new to May Cobb and want her signature East Texas thriller vibe: The Hunting Wives → My Summer Darlings → A Likeable Woman
If you like small-town mysteries with a retro edge: Big Woods → All the Little Houses
If you want a glossy, Hollywood-set suspense story: The Hollywood Assistant
If you prefer a short, high-concept read: Darcy Takes Over
Author bio
May Cobb was born in Dallas and grew up in Longview, a piney-woods town in East Texas where tall pines, humid summers, and local legends soaked into her imagination. Those woods and that small-town intensity later became the backdrop for many of her thrillers.
As a kid she loved eerie stories and 1980s horror movies, and the mix of beauty and menace in the East Texas landscape gave her a lifelong taste for suspense.
After college, Cobb moved to San Francisco to earn an M.A. in Victorian literature at San Francisco State University. There she fell for the sensation novels of the 1800s, like Wilkie Collins's The Woman in White, with their secrets, scandals, and domestic crimes.
From there she headed to Los Angeles, working for filmmaker Ron Shelton and actor Lolita Davidovich. Watching stories move from page to screen up close sharpened her sense of dialogue, pacing, and the messy places where desire bumps up against danger.
A different project nudged her fully toward writing. In college she discovered the music of jazz great Rahsaan Roland Kirk, and his life story of creativity in the face of blindness, prejudice, and illness pushed her to spend years researching and drafting a book about him.
Along the way she kept writing essays and interviews for magazines and newspapers, building a quiet career on the side. She still jokes that her proudest early milestone was winning a fourth-grade writing contest in Texas, proof that the itch to tell stories showed up early.
In 2018 she returned to her Longview roots with Big Woods, a thriller about a missing girl, satanic-panic rumors, and the fierce loyalty between sisters. She followed it with The Hunting Wives, My Summer Darlings, and A Likeable Woman, all steeped in East Texas wealth, secrets, and complicated women who refuse to behave.
More recent books like The Hollywood Assistant and All the Little Houses widen her canvas, from Hollywood mansions to 1980s oil money and mean moms, while her shorter work, including the speculative story Darcy Takes Over, plays with technology and motherhood. Her novel The Hunting Wives has been adapted for television, and her books have been spotlighted by national book clubs and media outlets, but she tends to talk more about her characters than the attention.
Today Cobb lives in Austin with her husband and son, where family walks in local parks and humid Texas evenings still feed her sense of place. She likes naps, making too many to-do lists, eating cookies while drafting hard scenes, wearing pajamas whenever she can, and ending the day with a good book.
In all of her work she leans into the shadows under seemingly perfect lives, especially for women, turning the gossip, envy, and desire of tight-knit communities into slow-building, twisty suspense.
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