Whiskey Islands Books in Order

The Whiskey Islands books are family sagas with a strong mystery thread, anchored by the Donaghue sisters and their Irish-American saloon on Lake Erie. The first novel, Whiskey Island, introduces a Cleveland setting that feels specific and lived in, old neighborhoods, immigrant history, working bars, family loyalties, and grudges that have had a very long time to ferment.

At the center is the Whiskey Island Saloon, run by the Donaghue sisters. It is more than a business. It is inheritance, burden, gathering place, and emotional battleground. The sisters carry different versions of the same family past, and when violence forces old questions back into the open, they have to figure out what really happened long ago and what it has cost them ever since.

That past refuses to stay buried.

Richards gives the series a nice blend of moods. There is romance here, certainly, but there is also murder, historical fallout, and the push and pull of sisters who love each other without always agreeing on anything. The books have the broader feel of women's fiction, even when the suspense plot is moving fast.

The sequel, The Parting Glass, expands the story beautifully by reaching back across the Atlantic. A letter from Ireland sends the Donaghues toward a hidden family legacy and an older tale of star-crossed lovers and violence. That move into Ireland makes sense, because the series has always been interested in what families carry across generations and across oceans.

Readers who like richly peopled fiction usually do well here. Richards gives even side characters enough texture to make the pub and its orbit feel full. The saloon regulars, relatives, lovers, and ghosts of the past all matter.

If you are coming for a simple romance, this is not quite that. If you want a story about sisters, history, class, identity, and the way one old crime can keep shaping a family, it is a very good fit. Read the two books in order, because the second deepens the first and gives the Donaghues the wider history they need.