Patricia Gaffney Books in Order
Explore Patricia Gaffney books in order, from the Wyckerley Trilogy to her later novels, with quick summaries, series notes, and help choosing where to start.
Last updated: July 6, 2026
As an Amazon Associate, we earn from qualifying purchases (at no extra cost to you).
Publication Order
17 books
Fortune's Lady
by Patricia Gaffney
1989
Cassandra Merlin, branded a traitor's daughter, becomes entangled with zealous patriot Riordan while a plot against the king gathers force. Suspicion, divided loyalties, and fierce attraction push them together before either can fully trust the other.
Sweet Treason
by Patricia Gaffney
1989
Fiery Highlander Katherine McGregor poses as a prostitute to help the Scottish cause, only to be captured by Major James Burke. Their battle of wits turns personal fast, leaving Katherine to protect both her mission and her heart.
Lily
by Patricia Gaffney
1991
Reduced from gentle birth to servitude, Lily Trehearne arrives at Darkstone Manor with nothing but secrets and pride. The brooding Devon Darkwell unsettles her from the start, and their growing desire threatens to expose everything she is hiding.
Another Eden
by Patricia Gaffney
1992
Sara Cochrane lives in luxury with a brutal husband and too many lies. When architect Alex McKie enters her world, their forbidden connection offers escape, but acting on it could destroy the fragile life she has been forced to maintain.
Thief of Hearts
by Patricia Gaffney
1992
Sheltered Anna Jourdaine must pose as the wife of her late husband's rough-edged twin, John Brodie, to clear the dead man's name. The masquerade pulls her into scandal, danger, and a troubling attraction she never expected.
Sweet Everlasting
by Patricia Gaffney
1993
Shy Carrie Wiggins hides a wound from girlhood and feels safest far from town gossip. In Wayne's Crossing, doctor Tyler Wilkes is trying to outrun his own past, and their unlikely bond becomes a chance for healing and love.
Crooked Hearts
by Patricia Gaffney
1994
Con man Reuben Jones and vineyard owner Grace Russell meet while both are pretending to be someone else, and neither is easy to fool. Their chase through 1880s San Francisco mixes schemes, danger, and a romance built on crooked beginnings.
To Have and To Hold
by Patricia Gaffney
1995
Fresh from prison after her husband's violent death, Rachel Wade takes work in Wyckerley as housekeeper to the cynical Viscount D'Aubrey. Gossip, class tension, and dangerous attraction turn their uneasy bargain into a hard-won chance at love.
To Love and to Cherish
by Patricia Gaffney
1995
Trapped in an unhappy marriage, Anne Verlaine finds hope in Christy Morrell, the local vicar whose kindness unsettles her heart. When scandal and desire close in, loving the right man may still ruin them both.
Forever & Ever
by Patricia Gaffney
1996
Independent Sophie Deene takes over her father's copper mine and clashes with Connor Pendarvis, the proud Cornishman she hires as foreman. He has his own reasons for wanting to hurt her, which makes their growing attraction risky for them both.
Outlaw in Paradise
by Patricia Gaffney
1997
Cady McGill runs a saloon in Paradise, Oregon, and has no patience for charming strangers. Then Jesse Gault rides into town in black, carrying secrets and trouble, and Cady must decide whether his danger is real or staged.
Wild at Heart
by Patricia Gaffney
1997
A wild man raised beyond civilization is captured and treated like a specimen, but Sydney, an anthropologist's daughter, sees the person beneath the legend. As she teaches him the human world, compassion deepens into a complicated, dangerous love.
The Saving Graces
by Patricia Gaffney
1999
Emma, Rudy, Lee, and Isabel have spent a decade carrying one another through everyday disappointments and private hurts. When a serious crisis hits their circle, the friendship they trust most is tested in ways none of them saw coming.
Circle of Three
by Patricia Gaffney
2000
Newly widowed Carrie is trying to hold together her own grief, her teenage daughter Ruth, and her demanding mother, Dana. When first love Jess returns, she gets a second chance at happiness, but the people around her are not ready for the change.
Flight Lessons
by Patricia Gaffney
2002
After a lover's betrayal, Anna returns to her family's restaurant on Maryland's Eastern Shore and the aunt she has spent years avoiding. Old wounds, clashing loyalties, and a possible new love force her to reckon with the past.
The Goodbye Summer
by Patricia Gaffney
2004
Thirty-two-year-old Caddie Winger has built a safe, quiet life around her grandmother and neighborhood piano students. One disruptive summer pushes her out of that cocoon, uncovering old family truths and forcing her to imagine a different future.
Mad Dash
by Patricia Gaffney
2007
After one argument too many, Dash walks out of her twenty-year marriage with a stray puppy and a head full of doubts. Living on her own forces her to rethink grief, family, and whether leaving her husband is freedom or a detour home.
Where should I start?
If you want the full Wyckerley trilogy: To Love and to Cherish → To Have and To Hold → Forever & Ever
If you want a historical romance sampler: Fortune's Lady → Lily → Crooked Hearts
If you want friendship and family drama: The Saving Graces → Circle of Three → Flight Lessons
If you want her later contemporary novels: The Goodbye Summer → Mad Dash
Author bio
Patricia Gaffney was born in Tampa, Florida, and grew up in Bethesda, Maryland, outside Washington, D.C. She studied English and philosophy at Marymount College in Tarrytown, New York, and also did further literature study in London, at George Washington University, and at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Books were always in the picture, but publishing came later.
After college she taught twelfth-grade English in Charlotte for a year, then spent about fifteen years working as a freelance court reporter in North Carolina, Pittsburgh, and Washington, D.C. It was demanding, precise work, and it put her close to the sounds of real argument, hesitation, and human mess.
A health scare changed the plan.
In 1984, after finding a malignant breast lump, Gaffney took stock of the life she wanted. She decided it was time to write books and live in the country. In 1986 she and her husband left Washington for rural southern Pennsylvania. There, she began the run of historical romances that first made her name with readers.
Her early books showed real range within the genre. In the space of a few years she published titles such as Sweet Treason, Fortune's Lady, Lily, Another Eden, Crooked Hearts, Outlaw in Paradise, and Wild at Heart. The settings shift from Scotland to the American West to nineteenth-century San Francisco, but the appeal stays similar: strong feeling, difficult choices, and characters who never seem entirely safe from their own pasts.
Then came the Wyckerley books, To Love and to Cherish, To Have and To Hold, and Forever & Ever. Linked by one English village, they let Gaffney build a whole social world instead of just a single couple. Church, manor house, and copper mine all matter. So do gossip, class, reputation, and the question of whether damaged people can make new lives for themselves.
Then she changed course.
By the late 1990s she felt she had run out of courtship stories she wanted to tell in historical romance and wanted to bring more of real life into the work. The Saving Graces, her 1999 hardcover fiction debut, became a bestseller and opened a new phase of her career. Circle of Three, Flight Lessons, The Goodbye Summer, and Mad Dash followed.
Those later books widened the frame. Friendship, mothers and daughters, long marriages, grief, forgiveness, and midlife restlessness moved closer to the center. The Saving Graces was shaped in part by a women's group Gaffney had belonged to for years and by the loss of one of its members, which helps explain the warmth and emotional weight readers find in it.
One thread runs through almost everything she writes, forgiveness. Her heroines often need to rebuild a life, not just fall in love, and even the romances pay attention to ordinary pressures like work, money, family strain, and community judgment. Gaffney has also written novellas, and she still lives in southern Pennsylvania with her husband. If you start anywhere in her backlist, you will quickly see what ties it together: flawed people, high stakes, and feelings that have to be earned the hard way.
Edited by
Software engineer whose passion for tracking book recommendations from podcasts inspired the creation of MRB.
Lead investor at 3one4 Capital whose startup expertise and love for books helped shaped MRB and its growth.

































Comments
Did we miss something? Have feedback?
Help us improve this page by sharing your thoughts