Nicole Glover Books in Order

Nicole Glover grew up in Virginia, surrounded by the kind of history that can make the past feel close at hand. That sense of place later helped shape her fiction, especially her interest in the Reconstruction era and the many stories that standard history lessons tend to rush past.

She was a serious bookworm from early on and read widely across genres. Mysteries, historical fiction, fantasy, and stories with a little strangeness all found their way onto her shelves. She also began writing as a child, long before she published a novel.

Her route to publication wasn't a straight line. Before The Conductors, Glover wrote several other projects, including stories involving superheroes, steampunk, contemporary young adult characters, and reworked fairy tales. Those manuscripts gave her room to practice plotting, develop characters, and learn how publishing works.

Research is a big part of her process. Glover has said she enjoys the hunt for odd facts and useful details as much as the writing itself. For her first novel, she looked at the broad history from the early 1800s through 1877, then narrowed her focus to Philadelphia, contemporary accounts, books, newspapers, and museum resources.

A few drafts later, The Conductors became her debut novel in 2021. It introduces Hetty and Benjy Rhodes, former Underground Railroad conductors who use celestial magic and sharp detective work to help their Philadelphia community after the Civil War. The book brings together historical fantasy, murder mystery, romance, and questions about whose safety the authorities are willing to protect.

Glover returned to Hetty and Benjy in The Undertakers, where strange fires and two deaths pull the couple into another case with roots in their past. The earlier books stay close to 1871 Philadelphia, with a marriage at the center of the investigation and a community full of old ties, hard choices, and secrets.

Then the series opened up. The Improvisers moves to 1931 and follows Velma Frye, a pilot, jazz pianist, former magic bootlegger, and investigator of dangerous enchanted objects. The Starseekers jumps again, this time to 1964, where NASA arcane engineer Cynthia Rhodes is drawn into a murder investigation amid the space race.

The decades change, but the family connection remains.

Glover's stories often use magic to look at history from a slightly different angle. Her characters solve crimes, chase down curses, and deal with the everyday pressures of work, family, love, and community. The mysteries give the books momentum, while the historical settings make room for questions that don't have easy answers.

Outside fiction, Glover has a psychology degree and works as a UX researcher in Virginia. She has also shared her fondness for libraries, bicycles, video games, cooking, and baking. It fits her work well: curious, practical, and always ready to follow an interesting thread a little further.