Nature Of Desire Books in Order

The Nature of Desire series is Joey W. Hill's big contemporary BDSM canvas. The books are linked by shared characters, recurring clubs, and a common emotional focus, but each one tells its own romance. What ties them together is Hill's interest in the many ways people seek connection, whether they are dominant, submissive, uncertain, wounded, or still figuring out what they need.

The series opens with Holding the Cards and Natural Law, and from there it builds a world that feels broad without getting scattered. You meet cops, businesspeople, artists, theater managers, caretakers, and people who walk into BDSM spaces with confidence or fear, sometimes both at once. The Zone, a private club, becomes an important part of that world, not just as a setting for sex scenes, but as a place where people test boundaries, discover truths, and occasionally collide with the last thing they expected.

That emotional discovery is really the center of the series.

Some books lean into suspense, like Natural Law, where a homicide investigation brings Mac and Violet together. Some are more inward and relationship-driven, like Ice Queen and Mirror of My Soul, which dig deep into power, pain, and vulnerability. Others widen the emotional range by exploring triad relationships, same-sex romance, disability, middle-aged reinvention, or late-blooming curiosity about BDSM. Hill is not interested in one kind of couple repeating forever. She keeps asking how different people might understand surrender, trust, and care.

The setting is contemporary, but the stakes do not feel small. Characters come into these books carrying grief, trauma, bad habits, loneliness, or a lifetime of pretending they want less than they do. The romances matter because they force change. A lover might also become a protector, a witness, a challenge, or the first person who ever reads someone clearly.

It is also one of Hill's most varied series.

You can move from a murder case to an artist's reunion, from club legends like Marguerite and Tyler to quieter stories about healing and self-acceptance. The connective tissue is always strong characterization and a belief that erotic power exchange only works when it reveals something honest about the people involved.

If you are new to Hill's contemporary work, this is a very good place to start. Read in order if you enjoy watching a wider social circle deepen over time. If you prefer to sample, many of the books can stand alone. Either way, expect explicit romance with a lot of feeling behind it, plus characters who have to work hard to believe they deserve the kind of love being offered to them.