Shana Abe Books in Order
Browse Shana Abe books in order, with Drakon and The Sweetest Dark series guides, short summaries, and straightforward advice on where to start.
Last updated: June 10, 2026
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Publication Order
18 books
A Rose in Winter
by Shana Abe
1998
Lady Solange once drove Damon Wolf away to save his life, only to spend years trapped in a brutal marriage. When Damon returns, older and angrier, their unfinished love collides with danger, escape, and a reckoning long delayed.
The Promise of Rain
by Shana Abe
1998
Roland Strathmore is ordered to hunt down his former fiancée, Lady Kyla Warwick, and bring her family back to face justice. As the chase grows darker and more personal, Kyla must clear her father's name while traveling with the man she blames for everything.
The Truelove Bride
by Shana Abe
1999
Avalon d'Farouche was born with second sight and tied to a century-old Highland curse. When Marcus Kincardine returns from crusade to claim the bride promised to him since birth, legend, danger, and desire close in around them both.
A Kiss at Midnight
by Shana Abe
2000
As the year 999 draws to a close, mercenary Rafael of Leonhart returns to claim Alderich and finds a land gripped by fear of the world's end. His only hope for peace may be Serath Rune, the fiercely intelligent woman standing against him.
Intimate Enemies
by Shana Abe
2000
Northmen threaten the Isle of Shot, and clan leader Lauren MacRae makes a desperate bargain with her oldest enemy, Arion du Morgan. Their uneasy alliance could save their home, but the attraction growing between them may be even more dangerous.
The Secret Swan
by Shana Abe
2001
Amiranth St. Clare spent years loving Tristan Geraint from the shadows, and marriage seems like an impossible dream come true. Then war takes him away, and when he returns years later, he believes his shy young bride is dead.
The Last Mermaid
by Shana Abe
2004
This standalone volume gathers three connected romances set in 531, 1721, and the present day. Each story circles the magical island of Kell, where descendants of a legendary couple are drawn into love, danger, and the pull of old myth.
The Smoke Thief
by Shana Abe
2005
In eighteenth-century London, Rue Hawthorne survives as a jewel thief who can vanish into smoke. When drakon leader Christoff Langford is sent to bring her home, old desire and clan politics turn the hunt into something far riskier.
The Dream Thief
by Shana Abe
2006
Lia Langford can see the future, and her visions point to a singing diamond that could enslave her people. To stop disaster, she must trust Zane, the mortal thief fated to change her life and possibly destroy her world.
Queen of Dragons
by Shana Abe
2007
Maricara, hidden princess of the Carpathian drakon, arrives in England bearing terrible news: human hunters are back. To save their species, she and English alpha Kimber must survive suspicion, politics, and a marriage neither one wants.
The Treasure Keeper
by Shana Abe
2009
When her fiancé disappears and human hunters close in, quiet Zoe Lane finally unleashes the strange gifts she has hidden for years. Her search leads to Paris, a dangerous plot, and Rhys, the childhood love who may already be a ghost.
The Time Weaver
by Shana Abe
2010
Honor Carlisle has always felt small beside her powerful kin, until a letter from her future self changes everything. As she begins slipping through time toward Prince Alexandru, love and destiny threaten the survival of every drakon.
The Sweetest Dark
by Shana Abe
2012
In 1915 England, orphan Lora Jones hears strange songs no one else can hear and dreams of smoke and flight. A scholarship to the eerie Iverson School brings her face to face with hidden power, buried history, and two boys with dangerous secrets.
The Deepest Night
by Shana Abe
2013
Lora now knows she is drakon, but that truth brings duty as well as wonder. At Armand's estate, turned into a wartime hospital, she must face grief, growing love, and a mission that could change the war and her future.
The Fiercest Joy
by Shana Abe
2017
As autumn 1915 deepens, Lora moves closer to the life she was meant to claim. Then another female drakon appears at Iverson, old secrets come loose, and an army arrives determined to take Lora and destroy anyone who resists.
The Second Mrs. Astor
by Shana Abe
2021
Madeleine Force falls for John Jacob Astor IV and becomes a sensation long before she ever steps aboard the Titanic. Their brief marriage unfolds under fierce public scrutiny, then heads toward one of history's most famous disasters.
An American Beauty
by Shana Abe
2023
Arabella Yarrington survives war and poverty with wit, nerve, and beauty, then rises into Gilded Age Manhattan beside railroad titan Collis Huntington. Wealth brings power, scandal, blackmail, and the chance at a life Belle might finally choose for herself.
A Crown of Stars
by Shana Abe
2026
Actress Rita Jolivet builds a dazzling career on stage and screen just as Europe moves toward war. When family duty puts her aboard the Lusitania, survival becomes only part of the reckoning waiting ahead.
Where should I start?
If you want dragon romance and hidden magic: The Smoke Thief → The Dream Thief → Queen of Dragons
If you want gothic YA with war in the background: The Sweetest Dark → The Deepest Night → The Fiercest Joy
If you want medieval historical romance: A Rose in Winter → The Promise of Rain → The Truelove Bride
If you want a standalone set on the eve of the year 1000: A Kiss at Midnight
If you want true-story historical fiction: The Second Mrs. Astor → An American Beauty → A Crown of Stars
Author bio
Shana Abe was born in Texas and spent much of her childhood in Colorado. She also had a brief stretch in Mexico as a foreign exchange student, and at seventeen she lived in Japan as a model. Long before publication, she was already filling spare moments with stories.
She has said that during modeling breaks she wrote what she later called silly romance novels. That detail tells you a lot about how her career started: not through some grand plan, but through habit, curiosity, and a real love of romantic fiction.
After Japan, she went to college in Los Angeles and earned a BFA in drama from the University of Southern California. At first, she tried contemporary romance.
One early manuscript placed in a writing contest, which gave her a push, but the responses she got from agents also showed that her voice did not fit neatly into the expectations of that market. Instead of forcing it, she turned toward historical romance, where she had more room to follow mood, character, and a stronger sense of story.
That move changed everything.
Newly married, she wrote A Rose in Winter by reshaping the bones of her own love story into a medieval setting. The book launched her career and pointed toward the mix readers still come to her for: deep feeling, high stakes, old-world atmosphere, and women fighting for room to choose their own lives.
Then the canvas got bigger.
In books like The Truelove Bride, The Smoke Thief, and The Sweetest Dark, Abe brings together romance, history, and a strong streak of the uncanny. Her medieval novels pair castles, curses, and clan politics with emotionally bruised characters. The Drakon books shift into fantasy romance, with shape-shifting dragon people, hidden societies, and a surprising amount of tenderness beneath all the smoke, jewels, and danger. Along the way, her books landed on bestseller lists and picked up major romance honors.
Her more recent historical fiction works in a different register, but the pull is similar.
The Second Mrs. Astor, An American Beauty, and A Crown of Stars focus on real women caught inside wealth, fame, class, and disaster. Even when she is writing about the Titanic or the Lusitania, she keeps the emotional center close to the ground: what it feels like to be watched, judged, desired, boxed in, and still trying to make a life. Across all her books, hidden identities, old promises, dangerous inheritance, and the pressure of history keep turning up. She lives in the mountains of Colorado now, and has mentioned a very patient husband, plenty of animals, and, refreshingly, that she is a terrible skier.
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