Nancy J Parra Books in Order
Browse Nancy J. Parra books in order, with series guides, short summaries, background on each mystery series, and help choosing where to start.
Last updated: July 7, 2026
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Nancy J Parra books in publication order
20 books
A Wanted Man
by Nancy J Parra
2002
Brianna McGraw travels west to rescue her kidnapped brother and decides the fastest way to raise money is to collect a bounty. Arresting Trey Morgan is the easy part. Surviving the journey with him is harder.
Saving Samantha
by Nancy J Parra
2002
Reporter Samantha Herrington heads to Wyoming hunting a career-making story and collides with protective cowboy Matthew Morgan. As murder and mayhem build around them, both have to decide what matters more, duty or love.
Loving Lana
by Nancy J Parra
2003
Lana Tate wants to escape Wyoming and chase an opera career, while Taggart Morgan wants the reward for a legendary wild stallion. Forced into an uneasy partnership, they discover bigger dreams, and bigger risks, along the way.
The Marryin' Kind
by Nancy J Parra
2004
To stop a parade of suitors, Maddie Morgan's family invents a lost fiance and hands her a run-down ranch. Then the wrong Montgomery brother comes home, and the harmless lie turns into a risky romance.
Wyoming Wedding
by Nancy J Parra
2004
Charming Shay Morgan rides out to bring stubborn doctor Jenny Edwards home to her dying father. Instead he finds a woman who distrusts men, an epidemic to fight, and feelings that complicate his simple wager.
The Bettin' Kind
by Nancy J Parra
2005
Amelia Morgan gambles that a threat of marriage will scare off the card shark who won her prized stallion. Instead Alex Laird calls her bluff, and their battle over a horse becomes a battle over the heart.
The Lovin' Kind
by Nancy J Parra
2006
Beth Morgan bolts from her own wedding and is hauled back by the one man she cannot stand. A rough trip west with Quaid Blair forces both of them to look past pride, gossip, and first impressions.
Dream Man
by Nancy J Parra
2009
Dr. Eva Stanford wants to help an elderly patient sleep, not step into a thirty-year-old political mystery. But when FBI agent Nate Cancaid's recurring dreams begin matching real clues, Eva can't ignore the danger.
Mr. Charming
by Nancy J Parra
2009
Single mother Jennifer Sumner agrees to hide a wealthy playboy who is supposed to be dead, thanks to her brother's investigation. The arrangement puts her past, her heart, and her life in a killer's sights.
The Counterfeit Bride
by Nancy J Parra
2011
In 1870s Colorado, Lillian Picken invents a husband so she can run her business in peace. When a Secret Service agent takes over the role to hunt counterfeiters, the lie turns into real trouble, and real attraction.
Gluten for Punishment
by Nancy J Parra
2013
Opening a gluten-free bakery in wheat country is hard enough before a farmer is murdered outside Toni Holmes's shop. With suspicion and vandalism closing in, she has to find the killer before Baker's Treat is finished.
Engaged in Murder
by Nancy J Parra
2014
Out-of-work event planner Pepper Pomeroy helps stage her sister's dream proposal on a private jet, then finds a corpse in the hangar restroom. To protect her sister's new fiance, Pepper starts asking dangerous questions.
Murder Gone A-Rye
by Nancy J Parra
2014
When Grandma Ruth is arrested for killing her longtime enemy, Toni Holmes knows the police have the wrong woman. Their hunt for the truth turns up old grudges, town secrets, and fresh danger in Oiltop.
Bodice of Evidence
by Nancy J Parra
2015
Pepper Pomeroy's new proposal business is taking off, but wedding dress shopping for her sister ends with a murdered boutique owner. Untangling the case may be even harder than finding the perfect gown.
Flourless to Stop Him
by Nancy J Parra
2015
Toni Holmes is busy baking holiday treats when a dead man is found in a local inn room rented under her brother's name. To clear him, she and Grandma Ruth dig into secrets that someone wants buried.
Newlywed Dead
by Nancy J Parra
2016
At her sister's country club wedding, Pepper Pomeroy befriends the bartender just before the woman dies from a poisoned drink. The deeper Pepper digs, the more high-society secrets and old crimes surface.
A Case of Syrah, Syrah
by Nancy J Parra
2017
Sonoma tour guide Taylor O'Brian launches her wine-country business just as a client turns up dead with Taylor's corkscrew in her neck. Clearing her name means uncorking a tangle of secrets, grief, and suspicious new marriages.
Seven Deadly Zins
by Nancy J Parra
2019
When an FDA inspector is found dead in a vat of crushed grapes, Taylor O'Brian rushes to help winery owner Tim Slade. Then a second body appears, and loyalty starts to look dangerous.
Death Bee Comes Her
by Nancy J Parra
2021
On the Oregon coast, honey shop owner Wren Johnson finds a dead woman on the beach with one of Wren's lip balm labels in her hand. Now Wren, helped by her cat Everett, must clear her name and find the killer.
A Matter of Hive and Death
by Nancy J Parra
2022
Wren heads out to meet a local bee wrangler for honey, only to find him murdered among smashed hives. With Oceanview buzzing over its UFO festival, she and Aunt Eloise set a trap for the killer.
Where to start with Nancy J Parra
If you want long-running Mackinac Island cozies: All Fudged Up → To Fudge or Not to Fudge → Oh Say Can You Fudge
If you want a shorter coastal mystery: Death Bee Comes Her → A Matter of Hive and Death
If you want gluten-free bakery sleuthing: Gluten for Punishment → Murder Gone A-Rye → Flourless to Stop Him
If you want wine-country mysteries: A Case of Syrah, Syrah → Seven Deadly Zins
If you want historical western romance: The Marryin' Kind → Saving Samantha → Wyoming Wedding
Nancy J Parra sub-series and character series
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Author bio
Nancy J. Parra has built a career by moving easily between cozy mystery, romantic suspense, and historical romance. She has published more than thirty-five novels, and she also writes as Nancy Coco and Nell Hampton, which tells you a lot about her range before you even open a book.
She studied journalism at the University of Kansas, and that practical training still shows in her fiction. Her books pay attention to jobs, schedules, money, gossip, and the everyday details that make a story world feel solid. She has said that fiction won out because it was more fun to interview the people in her head.
Her early fiction leaned toward romance. Books like Saving Samantha, A Wanted Man, Loving Lana, and Wyoming Wedding drop strong-willed characters into western settings where weather, distance, and family duty all matter. Later standalones like Mr. Charming and Dream Man brought in more suspense, but she kept the same interest in smart heroines under pressure.
Then came the cozy mysteries, and that side of her writing has been especially easy for readers to settle into. Gluten for Punishment introduced Toni Holmes, a gluten-free baker opening a storefront in Kansas wheat country. Engaged in Murder followed with Pepper Pomeroy, an event planner whose new proposal business keeps colliding with dead bodies. Both series show one of Parra's favorite moves, putting a capable woman at work and then making that work impossible to separate from the mystery.
Under the Nancy Coco name, she leaned even further into food, place, and community. All Fudged Up starts the Mackinac Island series around Allie McMurphy, the Historic McMurphy Hotel, and a fudge shop that is never just background. Later, the Oregon-set Death Bee Comes Her gave her another working heroine, Wren Johnson, whose honey shop places her right in the path of suspicion and trouble.
Under the name Nell Hampton, she took the same working-woman appeal somewhere much grander.
Kale to the Queen puts American chef Carrie Ann Cole inside the royal kitchen at Kensington Palace, where deadlines, egos, and murder all arrive at once. Even with the palace setting, the core interest is familiar: a woman trying to do her job well while chaos keeps breaking through the door.
Work matters in her fiction.
That is part of what ties all these books together. Whether the setting is Mackinac Island, Kansas wheat country, Sonoma wine country, the Oregon coast, or a palace kitchen, Parra likes communities with long memories and heroines who cannot simply walk away. Her characters have businesses to protect, events to pull off, families to manage, and reputations that can be wrecked by one bad rumor. The mystery or romance grows out of those pressures instead of floating above them.
She also has a good eye for comfort without making things weightless. There are recipes, weddings, sweets, pets, flirtation, and plenty of small-town or workplace routine, but the stakes stay personal. If a case goes wrong, someone loses a shop, a client, a future, or a hard-won sense of belonging.
These days she lives near Dallas, Texas and keeps writing across her different names. If you like stories with strong working heroines, clear prose, lively settings, and a little warmth mixed in with the trouble, Nancy J. Parra gives you several good doors to walk through.
Edited by
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