The Grimm Brotherhood Books in Order
Part ofKel Carpenter Books in OrderFind every Grimm Brotherhood book by Kel Carpenter in order, with light spoilers, world background, and tips on how to read this reaper-filled urban fantasy.
Last updated: December 23, 2025
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Publication Order
3 books
Reaping Havoc
by Kel Carpenter
2020
Finding her brother’s killer should have brought Salem peace. Instead dying a second time only raises more questions about why she keeps coming back. As ghosts whisper that she’s something more than a reaper, she hunts a murderer who might know exactly what she really is.
Reaper Reborn
by Kel Carpenter
2020
In the final Grimm Brotherhood book, Salem’s bond to death and the Brotherhood’s darkest secrets collide. To protect the people she loves and stop a rising threat, she has to embrace what she has become, even if it means changing the world of reapers forever.
Reaper's Blood
by Kel Carpenter
2019
Salem died for Hostess cupcakes and came back without an explanation, or her snack. Guided by a tall, infuriating reaper named Graves, she discovers that monsters are real, her hometown hides a secret society, and her brother’s death was no accident.
Series background & context
The Grimm Brotherhood trilogy takes the classic grim reaper myth and runs it through a cupcake-fueled, small-town filter. These books follow Salem, a young woman who dies for Hostess cupcakes and wakes up to find out death is not nearly as simple as she thought.
In Reaper's Blood Salem returns to her hometown after her twin brother's mysterious death, only to be killed in a bizarre accident on the way there. Instead of moving on, she wakes up half-alive and in the care of Graves, a sardonic reaper with blue-fire eyes who introduces her to the secret society her brother belonged to. The Grimm Brotherhood polices monsters hiding in plain sight, and they may know much more about her brother's murder than they are willing to admit.
Reaping Havoc (re-released as Stalking Reapers and Other Failed Dates in some editions) digs deeper into both the conspiracy and Salem's own nature. She has now cheated death twice, and even the ghosts agree that whatever she is, she is not a standard reaper. While she hunts the person who killed her brother, Salem navigates succubus sorority parties, dangerous magic and an attraction to Graves that refuses to stay neatly in the background.
By the time you reach Reaper Reborn, the stakes have outgrown one town. Salem's connection to death itself, and to the Grimm Brotherhood's origins, comes into focus as enemies close in from within and outside the organization. Saving the people she still has left means facing what she has become and deciding whether to embrace it or risk losing everything a third and final time.
Tonally the series blends mystery, action and romance with a lot of irreverent humor. Salem is blunt, food-obsessed and constantly in over her head, which keeps the story light even when the subject matter leans into grief, trauma and questions about free will. The romance with Graves is slow burn and snark-filled, more about two stubborn people learning to trust each other than instant soulmate bliss.
Grimm Brotherhood stands on its own, but it also lays the groundwork for the later Reapers of the Grimm Brotherhood spin-off, which picks up new characters and fresh chaos in the same world. If you like urban fantasy with reapers, secret societies and a heroine who copes with near-constant death by cracking jokes, start here.
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