The Language of Spells Books in Order

The series gathered here under The Language of Spells is really the Harper family story, told through a handful of linked books set in the fictional town of Pendleford. This is the cosy, romantic, slightly witchy side of Sarah Painter's work. The magic is close to the ground. It lives in herbs, gardens, lost objects, family habits, and old houses full of memory. The stakes matter, but they are mostly personal: belonging, trust, grief, and the mess left behind by family history.

In The Language of Spells, Gwen Harper returns to Pendleford after years away when an inheritance forces her back into the life she tried to escape. Gwen has a gift for finding lost things, but what really unsettles her is everything that cannot be found so easily: a secure place in the family, peace with her past, and a way to live openly with magic in a town that once branded her a witch. The novel mixes romance with small-town tension and makes everyday magic feel both useful and troublesome.

Nothing in Pendleford stays neatly buried for long.

The Secrets of Ghosts shifts the focus to Katie Harper, who turns twenty-one expecting the family magic to finally work the way she wants. Instead, her power arrives sideways. That change pulls her toward the dead and into a stranger, darker kind of mystery. The book keeps the warmth of the first novel, but adds a ghost story and a coming-of-age thread, showing that Harper magic is never quite as tidy as anyone hopes.

Then The Garden of Magic steps back to Iris Harper, the older witch whose death set the first novel in motion. As a prequel novella, it fills in the emotional roots of the series. Iris is aging, her once-beautiful garden is turning against her, and a young visitor brings a problem that wakes old memories of love and mistrust. It is a smaller story, but it gives the Harper books more depth, especially if Iris was the character who intrigued you from the start.

The tone across these books is gentle without being flimsy. There is romance, but there are also sharp edges: resentment between sisters, unease around inherited gifts, townsfolk who want magical help while pretending they do not believe in magic, and ghosts that refuse to stay quiet. If you like stories where the supernatural feels woven into domestic life, this series does that very well. You can begin with The Language of Spells for the clearest introduction, then move through the rest of Pendleford at your own pace.