Sarah Painter Books in Order
Explore Sarah Painter's books in order, with short summaries, reading order help, series overviews, book-by-book notes, and clear tips on where to start.
Last updated: June 9, 2026
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Publication Order
20 books
The Language of Spells
by Sarah Painter
2013
Gwen Harper returns to Pendleford after an inheritance throws her back into the magic she tried to leave behind. In a town that once branded her a witch, she must face old hurts, buried secrets, and a gift that never stopped causing trouble.
The Garden of Magic
by Sarah Painter
2015
As Iris Harper feels her strength fading, her beloved garden begins to turn strange and hostile. When a young woman comes to her for help, Iris is forced to revisit an old love and the trust she once lost.
In the Light of What We See
by Sarah Painter
2016
In 1938, nurse Grace Kemp begins seeing strange warnings inside a Brighton hospital. Decades later, amnesiac Mina Morgan wakes in the same building after a car crash, and the two women's lives begin to echo across time.
Stop Worrying; Start Writing
by Sarah Painter
2017
Sarah Painter's practical guide tackles the fears that stop writers from getting words on the page. Drawing on her own experience and podcast conversations, she offers clear help for self-doubt, procrastination, and the daily work of writing.
Beneath the Water
by Sarah Painter
2018
After a broken engagement, Stella Jackson flees to rural Scotland and takes a job at the remote Munro House. As she uncovers unsettling Victorian letters, the house's dark history begins to mirror the dangers gathering around her.
The Night Raven
by Sarah Painter
2018
Private investigator Lydia Crow returns to London to look into her cousin's disappearance and gets dragged back into her magical family's orbit. A homicidal ghost, a shaky truce, and rising tension between the old families make the case far more dangerous than it first looks.
The Fox's Curse
by Sarah Painter
2019
Paul Fox blackmails Lydia into investigating a suspicious death in a disused Underground tunnel. The case strains her bond with Fleet and leaves her caught between old enemies, shifting alliances, and a choice she can no longer avoid.
The Lost Girls
by Sarah Painter
2019
Rose MacLeod has spent her life losing time and waking to gaps in her memory. When demon hunter Mal Fergusson is ordered to capture her, both are pulled into a dark Edinburgh struggle that is stranger, and far more personal, than it seems.
The Silver Mark
by Sarah Painter
2019
When a man is found hanged under Blackfriars Bridge, Lydia Crow takes the case personally. Her search for the truth pulls her toward the persuasive Silver family, family pressure, and a London heatwave that makes everything more dangerous.
The Copper Heart
by Sarah Painter
2020
Now head of the Crow family, Lydia is trying to keep order when Alejandro Silver drops dead. Surrounded by enemies and running out of luck, she must work out whether it was murder before the next strike lands on her.
The Pearl King
by Sarah Painter
2020
Uncle Charlie drags Lydia deeper into Crow business just as a girl vanishes from Highgate Woods. With Fleet on shaky ground and the Pearl family stepping into the open, Lydia has to stop a wider magical war without losing herself.
The Secrets of Ghosts
by Sarah Painter
2020
On her twenty-first birthday, Katie Harper wants nothing more than to inherit the family magic properly. What she gets instead links her to the dead, and to secrets that were meant to stay buried.
The Shadow Wing
by Sarah Painter
2021
After the fallout of The Copper Heart, Lydia faces a secret service operative, an assassin sent by Mr Smith, and a threat uncomfortably close to home. To survive, she has to dig into Crow family lore and decide how far she is willing to go.
The Broken Cage
by Sarah Painter
2022
A locked-room murder leaves a message in blood, and Lydia Crow is pulled into a case that could destroy her. While Fleet hunts a missing actor, Lydia fights to protect her place in the Crow family and stay out of prison.
The Magpie Key
by Sarah Painter
2022
Something deadly is moving through London's waterways, while Fleet can no longer trust his own senses. With Uncle Charlie scheming from prison and the truce between the magical families in ruins, Lydia faces a reckoning that could cost her everything.
The Ward Witch
by Sarah Painter
2023
Luke Taylor arrives on a remote tidal island looking for his missing twin and walks straight into a murder case. Esme Gray, the island's Ward Witch, is drawn to him, but with a storm coming and secrets everywhere, trust could be fatal.
The Book Keeper
by Sarah Painter
2024
Luke has found a new life running a quirky island bookshop, until strange customers, hexed books, and the shop's own will make things dangerous. As his bond with Esme deepens, both have to decide what they are willing to risk.
The Island God
by Sarah Painter
2024
When Unholy Island's mayor disappears, the community's wards and secrets begin to fray. What once seemed like a hidden refuge starts to reveal much bigger stakes, pushing the island toward a final reckoning.
The Gilded Nest
by Sarah Painter
2025
Lydia is trying to settle into life after losing her home when a new killer starts stalking Whitechapel. With the magical families only briefly at peace, she and Fleet race to stop a modern nightmare before London erupts again.
The Crow Moon
by Sarah Painter
2026
Lydia thought the killer was finished, but London's ghosts have other ideas. As the undead close in, a child goes missing and old Crow secrets surface, forcing Lydia to question the family that rules her city.
Where should I start?
If you want magical London mysteries: The Night Raven → The Silver Mark → The Fox's Curse
If you want cosy small-town magic: The Language of Spells → The Secrets of Ghosts → The Garden of Magic
If you want an island-set fantasy mystery: The Ward Witch → The Book Keeper → The Island God
If you want dual-timeline, atmospheric drama: In the Light of What We See → Beneath the Water
If you're a writer looking for a boost: Stop Worrying; Start Writing
Author bio
Sarah Painter writes the kind of stories where everyday life sits right beside the uncanny. Her books move between contemporary fantasy, magical realism, suspense, and historical fiction, but they tend to share the same pull: ordinary people pushed toward strange truths. She is based in rural Scotland, where she lives with her husband and a very serious notebook collection.
She came to fiction later than she expected.
For years, fear and self-doubt got in the way of a lifelong wish to write novels. As she has said elsewhere, it was only when she was nearing thirty, and dealing with anxiety after the birth of her second child, that she finally managed to write the first book she felt she could send out into the world. That late start matters because it still shapes the tone of her work and her nonfiction: practical, honest, and very alert to the ways people talk themselves out of making art.
Before publication, she worked as a freelance nonfiction writer and magazine journalist, and later studied English Literature before completing an MLitt in Creative Writing at the University of St Andrews. The road to a book deal was not quick. After several years, four completed books, and a lot of persistence, she signed with an agent and went on to publish with Carina UK. She has since built a career that spans both traditional and independent publishing.
Her debut, The Language of Spells, introduced one side of her fiction very clearly: small-town settings, family knots, romance, and a thread of magic that feels woven into daily life rather than dropped in from nowhere. The Harper family books, including The Secrets of Ghosts and The Garden of Magic, lean into hidden gifts, old hurts, and the way a place can remember you even when you would rather stay gone.
Then she swerved into magical crime.
The Night Raven opened the Crow Investigations series and brought in Lydia Crow, a private investigator navigating London's old magical families, difficult loyalties, and a city full of secrets. Books like The Silver Mark and later Crow novels keep that detective engine running while widening the world around Lydia. Readers who enjoy Painter often talk about the mix of mystery, dry humour, family politics, ghosts, and a version of magic that feels both dangerous and oddly practical.
She has never stayed in one lane for long. In the Light of What We See links two women in the same hospital across decades, while Beneath the Water pairs a Scottish gothic setting with a historical strand about medicine and obsession. The Lost Girls goes darker, leaning into supernatural thriller territory. Across all of them, Painter returns to questions of identity, memory, inheritance, and the private bargains people make to keep going.
She also writes for writers. Through her Worried Writer podcast and books such as Stop Worrying; Start Writing, she has shared what she has learned about fear, procrastination, productivity, and the emotional mess that can come with creative work. That side of her career fits neatly with the fiction. Even in very different genres, she tends to write about people trying to do brave things while scared, which is probably one reason her books feel so human.
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