Susan Meissner Books in Order

In 1956 Malibu, blacklisted actress Melanie Cole, her reserved housekeeper Eva, and anxious neighbor June all feel trapped on sun-drenched Paradise Circle. When their reclusive screenwriter neighbor vanishes, the three women are drawn into each other’s lives, exposing dangerous secrets and a fragile pact tested by wildfire.

Set to the rhythm of a familiar holiday song, this picture book follows families traveling by car, plane, train, and more to celebrate Christmas at Grandma’s. Along the way, kids see different places and traditions, but every journey ends with the same thing: food, laughter, and Mimi’s warm welcome.

Once a year, truckloads of pumpkins arrive at the zoo, and every animal gets in on the crunchy, squishy fun. Told in bouncy rhyme with bright art, this picture book celebrates fall, generosity, and the joy of watching creatures chomp, toss, and play with their seasonal treats.

In 1930s California, orphaned Rosanne is taken in by a vineyard family who will not tolerate her secret ability to see color when she hears sound. Her unplanned pregnancy sends her into a brutal eugenics program, while years later family friend Helen uncovers what was done and fights to set things right.

In the Philippines of 1941, Navy nurse Eleanor, Army nurse Penny, and Filipina nurse Lita believe they’ve landed in paradise—until war crashes over the islands. Based on the true “Angels of Bataan,” their intertwined stories follow friendship, captivity, and courage under unthinkable conditions.

Desperate to escape a New York tenement, Irish immigrant Sophie Whalen becomes a mail-order bride to a widower in San Francisco and quickly loves his silent little daughter. On the eve of the 1906 earthquake, a stranger’s arrival exposes dangerous secrets and binds three women to one another’s fate.

German American teen Elise Sontag is sent with her family to a Texas internment camp during World War II, where she befriends Japanese American girl Mariko Inoue. Their bond sustains them—until Elise’s family is repatriated to a devastated Germany and both young women must fight for the futures they imagined.

In 1918, the Bright family moves to booming Philadelphia to run a funeral home, hoping for a fresh start after losing an infant son. When the Spanish flu sweeps the city, Pauline and her three daughters must navigate grief, impossible choices, and the fragile gift of a second chance.

After World War II, German ballerina Annaliese and French Resistance daughter Simone sail to America as war brides aboard the Queen Mary, each hiding dangerous secrets. In the present, Brette Caslake’s visit to the famously haunted ship pulls her into a decades-old mystery linking love, betrayal, and survival.

In 1938, Violet Mayfield takes a secretarial job on the set of Gone With the Wind and befriends glamorous Audrey Duvall, a former starlet with big dreams. Decades later, an iconic green velvet hat surfaces in a vintage boutique, carrying the tangled history of their intense, complicated friendship.

In modern-day Oxford, student Kendra Van Zant interviews elderly artist Isabel McFarland, who finally shares the truth about her youth in wartime London. As teen sisters Emmy and Julia Downtree are evacuated during the Blitz, ambition, duty, and one fateful choice tear their lives apart.

On Ellis Island in 1911, nurse Clara Wood hides from grief after the Triangle Shirtwaist fire until a patient’s marigold scarf and secret force her to face the past. A century later, 9/11 widow Taryn Michaels confronts her own loss when the same scarf resurfaces in a haunting photograph.

Longing to finally see Florence, Meg Pomeroy travels to Italy when her unreliable father sends a ticket instead of himself. There she meets memoirist Sophia Borelli, who believes a Medici princess speaks through Renaissance art, and Meg begins to wonder what her own second chance might look like.

Newly married Marielle Bishop moves into Holly Oak, her husband’s family mansion in Virginia, only to hear whispers that the house dooms the women who live there. As she digs into Civil War rumors about ancestor Susannah Page, Marielle must decide which stories of guilt and grace to believe.

Antique-store owner Jane Lindsay is reeling after her husband walks out, then finds an old ring engraved with her own name. Her search into its origin intertwines with the story of Lady Jane Grey and her dressmaker Lucy Day, revealing how women in any century wrestle with choice and calling.

When her wayward brother disappears, Amanda Janvier takes in his sixteen-year-old daughter, hoping to offer Tally the stability she’s never had. As Tally and cousin Chase interview Holocaust survivors for a school project, buried family secrets and a haunting house fire threaten the Janviers’ picture-perfect life.

College student Lauren Durough rebels against her privileged upbringing by taking a job transcribing the 17th-century diary of Mercy Hayworth, a young woman caught up in the Salem witch trials. As Mercy’s voice grows more vivid, Lauren must confront her own assumptions about judgment, grace, and mercy.

Left at the altar, Daisy Murien pours her heartbreak into a secondhand bridal shop, sewing a tiny blue heart into every rescued gown. When the kindly priest who blesses those dresses falls ill, his brooding son’s arrival upends Daisy’s careful routines and long-guarded hope.

A chilling anonymous letter warns that a body will be found at a construction site and hints the death was an accident gone wrong. When a teen’s decades-old remains surface, Rachael Flynn and Detective Will Pendleton dig into a small town’s past, where bullying and long-kept secrets collide.

A newborn is discovered in a trash bin, and a frightened young mother insists her baby was abducted. While police doubt her story, prosecutor Rachael Flynn’s disturbing dreams and instincts say otherwise, drawing her into a race to save a missing child before it’s too late.

Attorney Rachael Flynn thinks her idealistic younger brother has simply pushed the law too far—until he confesses to murder. Convinced he’s protecting someone, Rachael investigates on her own, drawing in her artist husband’s circle and uncovering a web of exploitation and sacrifice.

Successful mystery writer Luke Foxbourne seems to have it all until his father’s stroke pulls him back to small-town Iowa and the family newspaper. Nights alone in his childhood home stir memories of Norah, the wounded neighbor girl he never forgot—and a story he’s finally ready to tell.

Alexa Poole plans a quiet week of recovery after minor surgery, but a fall from her roof brings gentle carpenter Stephen crashing into her life instead. When Alexa’s brain-injured sister disappears from a group home, buried family pain and fragile new love are pushed to the breaking point.

Tess Longren has the job she wants and a man who loves her, yet her mother’s long-ago death still colors every choice. A trip home with an old friend stirs up hidden memories and forces Tess to confront what healing and forgiveness truly require.

Eight-year-old Megan Diamond watches her best friend vanish during a sunny bike ride, a trauma that shadows her faith and relationships into adulthood. When Jen resurfaces years later, Megan must face buried guilt and decide what trusting God really looks like.

Claire Holland is a happily married Minneapolis mother whose life shatters after a brutal assault leaves her unexpectedly pregnant. Years later, the daughter she gave up forces Claire and her family to revisit the heartbreaking choice that reshaped them all.