Menna van Praag Books in Order
Explore Menna van Praag books in order, with quick summaries, series guides, and easy advice on where to start with her magical fiction and cozy mysteries.
Last updated: July 10, 2026
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Menna van Praag books in publication order
15 books
Men, Money and Chocolate
by Menna van Praag
2008
Maya longs for love, success, and the perfect life, but keeps ending up disappointed and adrift. After meeting a mysterious guide, she begins a more honest search for happiness, self-belief, and a life that actually fits.
Happier Than She's Ever Been
by Menna van Praag
2011
May is finally in love, living above a bookshop, and enjoying the success she once dreamed of. But fame, old fears, and silence between her and Ben begin to pull their hard-won happiness apart.
The House at the End of Hope Street
by Menna van Praag
2013
After a devastating personal blow, Alba Ashby finds refuge at 11 Hope Street, a mysterious Cambridge house that offers women ninety-nine nights to change their lives. Inside, living portraits, literary ghosts, and unexpected friendships help her begin again.
The Dress Shop of Dreams
by Menna van Praag
2014
Cora Sparks hides in her lab and her grandmother's dress shop, where the gowns seem to awaken women's deepest desires. When family secrets and buried grief resurface, magic pushes Cora toward love, courage, and a different future.
The Witches of Cambridge
by Menna van Praag
2016
A hidden circle of Cambridge witches meets to talk books, love, and magic, but rivalries and secrets start to split them apart. As new people enter their orbit, old desires and dangerous choices turn private longings into real trouble.
The Lost Art of Letter Writing
by Menna van Praag
2017
In a quiet Cambridge stationery shop, Clara Cohen writes anonymous letters that change strangers' lives. When she discovers her great-grandmother's wartime love letters, she follows them to Amsterdam and into a deeper search for healing and truth.
The Patron Saint of Lost Souls
by Menna van Praag
2018
Jude runs an unusual Cambridge antiques shop, matching people with the talismans they need most, while longing for love herself. When an unexpected niece enters her life and a chef named Viola faces her own crossroads, both women are pushed toward change.
The Sisters Grimm
by Menna van Praag
2020
Four half-sisters, separated in the real world but linked in the shadow realm of Everwhere, must reclaim their elemental powers before their eighteenth birthday. If they fail, their demonic father will decide which of them lives.
Night of Demons and Saints
by Menna van Praag
2022
Three years after a shattering battle, the Grimm sisters are pulled back together as Goldie's grief drives her toward dangerous magic. In Everwhere, old wounds, dark possession, and another looming fight threaten everything they have left.
A Body in the Graveyard
by Menna van Praag
2024
After Olive stumbles across a corpse on her morning walk, she follows the case through Cambridge with baked goods and quiet persistence. The police are closing in on the wrong man, and Olive is determined to prove it.
A Cold Case at Christmas
by Menna van Praag
2024
Olive's new detective agency finally gets its first client when a woman asks her to investigate her sister's disappearance decades earlier. With Christmas closing in, Olive and Hugo reopen a cold case that refuses to stay buried.
A Fatal Fall at King's College
by Menna van Praag
2024
When a King's College student dies in a fall that police call accidental, cafe owner Olive Crisp suspects murder. Armed with tarot, cakes, and stubborn curiosity, she starts asking questions the authorities would rather leave alone.
Death of a Businessman
by Menna van Praag
2024
A ruthless businessman is murdered, and Olive soon learns half of Cambridge had reason to hate him. As a strange kidnapping complicates the case, she must decide how far she really wants the truth to go.
The Rainbow Robberies
by Menna van Praag
2024
Two robberies strike the Fitzwilliam Museum at the same time while Olive and Hugo are visiting, and Olive cannot resist digging in. What looks like a small art heist quickly turns into a knot of motives, secrets, and divided loyalties.
A Pinch of Salt & a Drop of Poison
by Menna van Praag
2025
When a customer dies after eating one of Olive's scones, the case becomes painfully personal. With suspicion falling on her cafe, Olive has to clear her name before the real poisoner slips away.
Where to start with Menna van Praag
If you want magical Cambridge at its warmest: The House at the End of Hope Street → The Dress Shop of Dreams → The Witches of Cambridge
If you love bookish charm and second chances: The Lost Art of Letter Writing → The Patron Saint of Lost Souls
If you want dark fantasy and sisterhood: The Sisters Grimm → Night of Demons and Saints
If you want cozy crime with cake: A Fatal Fall at King's College → A Body in the Graveyard → Death of a Businessman
If you want the autobiographical beginning: Men, Money and Chocolate → Happier Than She's Ever Been
Menna van Praag sub-series and character series
The Biscuit Tin Murders books in order
Explore this series
A Body in the Graveyard
by Menna van Praag
2024The Biscuit Tin Murders, Book 2
A Cold Case at Christmas
by Menna van Praag
2024The Biscuit Tin Murders, Book 5
A Fatal Fall at King's College
by Menna van Praag
2024The Biscuit Tin Murders, Book 1
Death of a Businessman
by Menna van Praag
2024The Biscuit Tin Murders, Book 3
The Rainbow Robberies
by Menna van Praag
2024The Biscuit Tin Murders, Book 4
A Pinch of Salt & a Drop of Poison
by Menna van Praag
2025The Biscuit Tin Murders, Book 6
The Biscuit Tin Murders books in chronological order

A Fatal Fall at King's College
by Menna van Praag
2024The Biscuit Tin Murders, Book 1
A Body in the Graveyard
by Menna van Praag
2024The Biscuit Tin Murders, Book 2
Death of a Businessman
by Menna van Praag
2024The Biscuit Tin Murders, Book 3
The Rainbow Robberies
by Menna van Praag
2024The Biscuit Tin Murders, Book 4
A Cold Case at Christmas
by Menna van Praag
2024The Biscuit Tin Murders, Book 5
A Pinch of Salt & a Drop of Poison
by Menna van Praag
2025The Biscuit Tin Murders, Book 6
The Sisters Grimm books in order
Explore this seriesMenna van Praag collections, short stories, and related book types
Standalone Menna van Praag books

Happier Than She's Ever Been
by Menna van Praag
2011
The House at the End of Hope Street
by Menna van Praag
2013
The Dress Shop of Dreams
by Menna van Praag
2014
The Witches of Cambridge
by Menna van Praag
2016
The Lost Art of Letter Writing
by Menna van Praag
2017
The Patron Saint of Lost Souls
by Menna van Praag
2018
Author bio
Menna van Praag was born in Cambridge and, apart from her years at Oxford, has spent her life in the city she writes about so often. She studied Modern History at Balliol College, Oxford, then found her way back to Cambridge, where the colleges, cafes, and winding streets would become the backdrop for much of her fiction.
Her route into publishing was personal before it was polished. Her early book Men, Money and Chocolate grew out of her own life and became an autobiographical story about a waitress who dreams of becoming a writer. It was translated into 26 languages, and its follow-up, Happier Than She's Ever Been, stayed with the same emotional territory: love, ambition, self-doubt, and what success can do to a relationship.
Cambridge is really one of her main characters.
That comes through most clearly in the run of magical realism novels that followed. The House at the End of Hope Street imagines a hidden house that gives troubled women ninety-nine nights to turn their lives around. The Dress Shop of Dreams moves into a tiny dress shop where magic can tug buried desires to the surface. In The Witches of Cambridge, secret powers and everyday heartbreak share the same rooftops, kitchens, and college rooms.
She likes to place a little wonder inside ordinary life.
That same mix shapes The Lost Art of Letter Writing and The Patron Saint of Lost Souls, novels filled with stationery shops, antiques, family secrets, and people trying to build kinder lives than the ones they thought they were stuck with. Readers who come to van Praag for comfort usually stay for her warmth, her bookish settings, and the way her characters are pushed toward courage rather than perfection.
Later, she took a darker turn with the fantasy series that begins with The Sisters Grimm and continues in Night of Demons and Saints. These books keep her interest in female connection, identity, and healing, but place them in a more dangerous world, one shaped by elemental powers, old wounds, and the eerie otherrealm of Everwhere. Even when the stakes get bigger, the emotional center stays close to the sisters themselves.
Writing has never been the only part of her working life. She has worked as a reader for BBC Films and TV and as a script editor for independent production companies. She also teaches widely: at the University of Cambridge's Institute of Continuing Education, where she teaches the Certificate and Diploma, and with creative writing students at Cambridge and Anglia Ruskin. She was a Royal Literary Fellow in 2022-23 and was shortlisted for a teaching award in 2022.
These days, she is still based in Cambridge, still writing, and still helping other writers find their way through a draft. Her own site gives a neat sense of the person behind the books: someone who reads too many books, buys too much stationery, and eats too much cake. That sounds about right for a novelist whose stories are so often full of paper, ink, magic, and second chances.
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