Jodi Picoult Books in Order (Wish You Were Here, My Sister’s Keeper, Small Great Things)
All of Jodi Picoult’s books in Order!
Who is Jodi Picoult?
Jodi Picoult is an American writer and has published almost 30 novels, a few short stories, and even several issues of Wonder Woman. Her books have been translated into 34 languages, an
She writes what can be described as family sagas which center around moral dilemmas that pit family members against one another. She is known for covering a wide range of issues, including abortion, assisted suicide, race relations, eugenics, LGBT rights, and school shootings.
If you like Jodi Picoult’s books, you may also want to take a look at our Liane Moriarty reading order, or the books of Kristin Hannah.
How to read Jodi Picoult’s Books in Order?
Leaving Time Series in Order
- Where There’s Smoke – short story only available on ebook about Serenity Jones, an acclaimed medium and host of her own widely viewed TV show, where she delivers messages to the living from loved ones who have passed.
- Larger Than Life – novella only available on ebook about Alice, a researcher studying memory in elephants who must only observe and never interfere.
- Leaving Time – For more than a decade, Jenna Metcalf has never stopped thinking about her mother, Alice, who mysteriously disappeared in the wake of a tragic accident. Refusing to believe she was abandoned, Jenna enlists two unlikely allies in her quest: Serenity Jones, a psychic who rose to fame finding missing persons, and Virgil Stanhope, the jaded private detective who’d originally investigated Alice’s case along with the strange, possibly linked death of one of her colleagues. As the three work together to uncover what happened to Alice, they realize that in asking hard questions, they’ll have to face even harder answers.
Ruth Jefferson Series in Order
- Shine – a prequel and short story about Ruth Brooks, a third grade at Dalton, the prestigious institution on New York’s Upper East Side. Despite being the smartest girl in her grade, Ruth suspects that her classmates and teachers only see her dark skin. Ruth must navigate between two worlds, never losing sight of the dreams she has for herself – in hopes that someday someone will see her for who she really is.
- Small Great Things – Ruth Jefferson is a labor and delivery nurse at a Connecticut hospital with more than twenty years’ experience. But The parents of a newborn are white supremacists and don’t want Ruth, who is African American, to touch their child. The hospital complies with their request, but the next day, the baby goes into cardiac distress while Ruth is alone in the nursery. Does she obey orders or does she intervene? Ruth hesitates before performing CPR and, as a result, is charged with a serious crime.
Between the Lines Series in Order
- Between the Lines – Delilah is a bit of a loner who prefers spending her time in the school library with her head in a book-one book in particular. Between the Lines may be a fairy tale, but it feels real. Prince Oliver is brave, adventurous, and loving. He really speaks to Delilah. And then one day Oliver actually speaks to her. Turns out, Oliver is more than a one-dimensional storybook prince. He’s a restless teen who feels trapped by his literary existence and hates that his entire life is predetermined. He’s sure there’s more for him out there in the real world, and Delilah might just be his key to freedom.
- Off the Page – Delilah and Oliver shouldn’t be together. But they are together. And just as they’re getting used to the possibility that happily ever after may really, truly be theirs, the universe sends them a message they can’t ignore: they won’t be allowed to rewrite their story. Delilah and Oliver must decide how much they’re willing to risk for love and what it takes to have a happy ending in a world where the greatest adventures happen off the page.
Other recurring characters
While narratives do not cross between books, there are multiple characters that Jodi Picoult has used on different books, from a simple reference to a larger role (more info on those books below).
Jordan McAfee, his son Thomas, and his wife, Selena
- The Pact
- Salem Falls
- Nineteen Minutes
Patrick Ducharme, detective
- Perfect Match
- Nineteen Minutes
Ian Fletcher
- Keeping Faith
- Change of Heart (brief appearance)
Frankie Martine
- Salem Falls
- Second Glance
- Perfect Match
Nina Frost
- Perfect Match
- Nineteen Minutes (cameo)
Peter Houghton
- Nineteen Minutes
- House Rules (mentionned)
Stand-alone fiction novels by Jodi Picoult in Publication Order
- Songs of the Humpback Whale – For years, Jane Jones has lived in the shadow of her husband, renowned San Diego oceanographer Oliver Jones. But during an escalating argument, Jane turns on him with an alarming volatility. In anger and fear, Jane leaves with their teenage daughter, Rebecca, for a cross-country odyssey charted by letters from her brother Joley, guiding them to his Massachusetts apple farm, where surprising self-discoveries await.
- Harvesting the Heart – Paige has only a few vivid memories of her mother, who abandoned her at five years old. Now, having left her father behind in Chicago for dreams of art school and marriage to an ambitious young doctor, she finds herself with a child of her own. But her mother’s absence and shameful memories of her past force her to doubt whether she could ever be capable of bringing joy and meaning into the life of her child, gifts her own mother never gave.
- Picture Perfect – To the outside world, they seem to have it all. Cassie Barrett, a renowned anthropologist, and Alex Rivers, one of Hollywood’s hottest actors, met on the set of a motion picture in Africa. They shared childhood tales, toasted the future, and declared their love in a fairy-tale wedding. But when they return to California, something alters the picture of their perfect marriage. Torn between fear and something that resembles love, Cassie wrestles with questions she never dreamed she would face: How can she leave? Then again, how can she stay?
- Mercy – Police chief of a small Massachusetts town, Cameron McDonald makes the toughest arrest of his life when his own cousin Jamie comes to him and confesses outright that he has killed his terminally ill wife out of mercy. Now, a heated murder trial plunges the town into upheaval, and drives a wedge into a contented marriage: Cameron, aiding the prosecution in their case against Jamie, is suddenly at odds with his devoted wife, Allie — seduced by the idea of a man so in love with his wife that he’d grant all her wishes, even her wish to end her life.
- The Pact – Until now, the Golds and their neighbors, the Hartes, had been inseparable. It was no surprise to anyone when their teenage children, Chris and Emily, began showing signs that their relationship was moving beyond that of lifelong friends. But now seventeen-year-old Emily is dead-shot with a gun her beloved and devoted Chris pilfered from his father’s cabinet as part of an apparent suicide pact-leaving two devastated families stranded in the dark and dense predawn, desperate for answers about an unthinkable act and the children they never really knew.
- Keeping Faith – Faith talks to her “Guard”constantly; begins to recite passages from the Bible- a book she’s never read. Fearful for her daughter’s sanity, Mariah sends her to several psychiatrists. Yet when Faith develops stigmata and begins to perform miraculous healings, Mariah wonders if her daughter– a girl with no religious background– might indeed be seeing God. Is Faith a prophet or a troubled little girl? Is Mariah a good mother facing an impossible crisis- or a charlatan using her daughter to reclaim the attention her unfaithful husband withheld?
- Plain Truth – The discovery of a dead infant in an Amish barn shakes Lancaster County to its core. But the police investigation leads to a more shocking disclosure: circumstantial evidence suggests that eighteen-year-old Katie Fisher, an unmarried Amish woman believed to be the newborn’s mother, took the child’s life. When Ellie Hathaway, a disillusioned big-city attorney, comes to Paradise, Pennsylvania, to defend Katie, two cultures collide — and for the first time in her high-profile career, Ellie faces a system of justice very different from her own.
- Salem Falls – A handsome stranger comes to the sleepy New England town of Salem Falls in hopes of burying his past. Now, washing dishes for Addie Peabody at the Do-Or-Diner, he slips quietly into his new routine, and Addie finds this unassuming man fitting easily inside her heart. But amid the rustic calm of Salem Falls, a quartet of teenage target Jack with a shattering allegation. Now, Jack is forced once again to proclaim his innocence: to a town searching for answers, to a justice system where truth becomes a slippery concept written in shades of gray, and to the woman who has come to love him.
- Perfect Match – In the course of her everyday work, career-driven assistant district attorney Nina Frost prosecutes child molesters and works determinedly to ensure that a legal system with too many loopholes keeps these criminals behind bars. But when her own five-year-old son, Nathaniel, is traumatized by a sexual assault, Nina’s absolute truths and convictions are turned upside down, and she hurtles toward a plan to exact her own justice for her son — no matter the consequence, whatever the sacrifice.
- Second Glance – An old man puts a piece of land up for sale and unintentionally raises protest from the local Abenaki Indian tribe, who insist it’s a burial ground. When odd, supernatural events plague the town of Comtosook, a ghost hunter is hired by the developer to help convince the residents that there’s nothing spiritual about the property. Enter Ross Wakeman, a suicidal drifter who has put himself in mortal danger time and again…
- My Sister’s Keeper – Anna is not sick, but she might as well be. By age thirteen, she has undergone countless surgeries, transfusions, and shots so that her older sister, Kate, can somehow fight the leukemia that has plagued her since childhood. The product of preimplantation genetic diagnosis, Anna was conceived as a bone marrow match for Kate-a life and a role that she has never challenged…until now.
- Vanishing Acts – Delia Hopkins has led a charmed life. Raised in rural New Hampshire by her beloved, widowed father, she now has a young daughter, a handsome fiancé, and her own search-and-rescue bloodhound, which she uses to find missing persons. But as Delia plans her wedding, she is plagued by flashbacks of a life she can’t recall…until a policeman knocks on her door, revealing a secret about herself that changes the world as she knows it-and threatens to jeopardize her future.
- The Tenth Circle – Fourteen-year-old Trixie Stone is in love for the first time. She’s also a straight-A high school student, pretty and popular, and the light of her father’s life… Comic book artist Daniel Stone would do anything to protect his daughter. But when a single act of violence shatters her innocence, seemingly mild-mannered Daniel’s convictions are put to the test-while his own shockingly tumultuous past, hidden even from his family, comes to light. Now, everything Trixie’s ever believed about her hero, her father, seems to be a lie as Daniel ventures to hell and back, seeking revenge. Will the price be the bond they share?
- Nineteen Minutes – Sterling is an ordinary New Hampshire town where nothing ever happens–until the day its complacency is shattered by a school shooting. Josie Cormier, the daughter of the judge sitting on the case, should be the state’s best witness, but she can’t remember what happened before her very own eyes–or can she? As the trial progresses, fault lines between the high school and the adult community begin to show–destroying the closest of friendships and families.
- Change of Heart – One moment June Nealon was happily looking forward to years full of laughter and adventure with her family, and the next, she was staring into a future that was as empty as her heart. For Shay Bourne, life holds no more surprises. The world has given him nothing, and he has nothing to offer the world. In a heartbeat, though, something happens that changes everything for him. Now, he has one last chance for salvation, and it lies with June’s eleven-year-old daughter, Claire. But between Shay and Claire stretches an ocean of bitter regrets, past crimes, and the rage of a mother who has lost her child.
- Handle with Care – Charlotte and Sean O’Keefe’s lives are made up of sleepless nights, mounting bills, the pitying stares of “luckier” parents, and maybe worst of all, the what-ifs. What if their child had been born healthy? But it’s all worth it because Willow is, funny as it seems, perfect. She’s smart as a whip, on her way to being as pretty as her mother, kind, brave, and for a five-year-old an unexpectedly deep source of wisdom. Everything changes, though, after a series of events forces Charlotte and her husband to confront the most serious what-ifs of all. What if Charlotte had known earlier of Willow’s illness? What if things could have been different? What if their beloved Willow had never been born? To do Willow justice, Charlotte must ask herself these questions and one more. What constitutes a valuable life?
- House Rules – Jacob Hunt is a teen with Asperger’s syndrome. He’s hopeless at reading social cues or expressing himself well to others, though he is brilliant in many ways. But he has a special focus on one subject-forensic analysis. A police scanner in his room clues him in to crime scenes, and he’s always showing up and telling the cops what to do. But when Jacob’s small hometown is rocked by a terrible murder, law enforcement comes to him. Suddenly the Hunt family, who only want to fit in, are directly in the spotlight. And over this small family, the soul-searing question looms: Did Jacob commit murder?
- Leaving Home: Short Pieces – Leaving Home brings together three, previously published short pieces, each dealing with a variation on the theme of leaving home. The first, “Weights and Measures,” deals with the tragic loss of a child; the second is a non-fiction letter Picoult wrote to her eldest son as he left for college; and, “Ritz” tells the story of a mother who takes the vacation all mothers need sometime.
- Sing You Home – In the aftermath of a series of personal tragedies, Zoe throws herself into her career as a music therapist. When an unexpected friendship slowly blossoms into love, she makes plans for a new life, but to her shock and inevitable rage, some people-even those she loves and trusts most-don’t want that to happen.
- Lone Wolf – Cara, once protected by her father, Luke, is tormented by a secret that nobody knows. Her brother, Edward, has secrets of his own. He has kept them hidden, but now they may come to light, and if they do, Cara will be devastated. Their mother, Georgie, was never able to compete with her ex-husband’s obsessions, and now, his fate hangs in the balance and in the hands of her children. With conflicting motivations and emotions, what will this family decide? And will they be able to live with that decision, after the truth has been revealed?
- The Storyteller – Sage Singer is a baker. She works through the night, preparing the day’s breads and pastries, trying to escape a reality of loneliness, bad memories, and the shadow of her mother’s death. When Josef Weber, an elderly man in Sage’s grief support group, begins stopping by the bakery, they strike up an unlikely friendship. Everything changes on the day that Josef confesses a long-buried and shameful secret and asks Sage for an extraordinary favor.
- A Spark of Light – The warm fall day starts like any other at the Center-a women’s reproductive health services clinic-its staff offering care to anyone who passes through its doors. Then, in late morning, a desperate and distraught gunman bursts in and opens fire, taking all inside hostage. Fifteen-year-old Wren is inside the clinic with a nurse who calms her own panic in order to save the life of a wounded woman. A doctor who does his work not in spite of his faith but because of it, and who will find that faith tested as never before. A pro-life protester, disguised as a patient, who now stands in the crosshairs of the same rage she herself has felt. A young woman who has come to terminate her pregnancy. And the disturbed individual himself, vowing to be heard.
- The Book of Two Ways – Everything changes in a single moment for Dawn Edelstein. She’s on a plane when the flight attendant makes an announcement: Prepare for a crash landing. She braces herself as thoughts flash through her mind. The shocking thing is, the thoughts are not of her husband but of a man she last saw fifteen years ago: Wyatt Armstrong. Dawn, miraculously, survives the crash, but so do all the doubts that have suddenly been raised. After the crash landing, the airline ensures that the survivors are seen by a doctor, then offers transportation to wherever they want to go. The obvious destination is to fly home, but she could take another path: return to the archaeological site she left years before, reconnect with Wyatt and their unresolved history, and maybe even complete her research on The Book of Two Ways-the first known map of the afterlife.
- Wish You Were Here – Diana O’Toole is perfectly on track. She will be married by thirty, done having kids by thirty-five, and move out to the New York City suburbs, all while climbing the professional ladder in the cutthroat art auction world. She’s an associate specialist at Sotheby’s now, but her boss has hinted at a promotion if she can close a deal with a high-profile client. She’s not engaged just yet, but she knows her boyfriend, Finn, a surgical resident, is about to propose on their romantic getaway to the Galápagos-days before her thirtieth birthday. Right on time. But then a virus that felt worlds away has appeared in the city, and on the eve of their departure, Finn breaks the news: It’s all hands on deck at the hospital. He has to stay behind. You should still go, he assures her, since it would be a shame for all of their nonrefundable trip to go to waste. And so, reluctantly, she goes.
- Mad Honey (with Jennifer Finney Boylan) – Olivia McAfee knows what it feels like to start over. Her picture-perfect life was upended when her husband revealed a darker side. She never imagined that she would end up back in her sleepy New Hampshire hometown, living in the house she grew up in and taking over her father’s beekeeping business. Lily Campanello is familiar with do-overs, too. When she and her mom relocate to Adams, New Hampshire, for her final year of high school, they both hope it will be a fresh start. And for just a short while, these new beginnings are exactly what Olivia and Lily need. Their paths cross when Asher falls for the new girl in school, and Lily can’t help but fall for him, too. With Ash, she feels happy for the first time. Yet at times, she wonders if she can trust him completely. . . .
Short Stories
You can find the short stories Shine, Larger than Life and Where There’s Smoke listed above, as those stories are connected to other Jodi Picoult’s books.
- The Color War – All Raymond wants to do is hang out with his best friend, Monroe, but life has other plans. This summer, his mother has decided to send him to Bible camp for inner-city kids. Will Raymond manage to connect to anyone when he’s so far from what he’s known and loved? Or will he discover that sometimes the road to hell is paved with good intentions?
- Mermaid – Once, Hope Payne was a mermaid, performing at the local theme park and captivating audiences young and old. Today, she’s married to a pragmatic marine biologist who has filled the pool in their backyard with flounder for a special study. Before he begins, the fish vanish -echoing a loss Hope alone can understand. She senses there’s something underwater, something alive and hungry for more, but is she in too deep to ever resurface?
Graphic Novel
- Wonder Woman: Love and Murder – Wonder Woman, in her disguise as Diana Prince, a special agent of the Department of Metahuman Affairs, takes on an assignment to track down Wonder Woman, an impossible task that risks revealing her secret identity. Collects Wonder Woman #6–10 from 2007.