Mary Ellen Taylor Books in Order (Union Street Bakery, Alexandria,…)

All of Mary Ellen Taylor’s Books in Order!

Who is Mary Ellen Taylor?

Mary Ellen Taylor is an American best-selling author from Virginia who specializes in writing contemporary women’s fiction, exploring issues of family, home, love, and belonging.

She published her first book “The Union Street Bakery” in 2013. Since then, she wrote almost ten new books like Winter Cottage and Honeysuckle Season.

In most of her books, as she explains on her website, she interweaves settings, history, and mysteries that span past and present.

Mary Ellen Taylor Books in Order

Most of Mary Ellen Taylor’s books are standalone, but she also worked on two short series.

The Union Street Bakery Series

1. The Union Street Bakery (2013) – Suddenly without a job or a boyfriend, Daisy now lives in the attic above her family’s store, the Union Street Bakery, while she learns the business. It doesn’t help that, as the only adopted daughter, her relationship with her sisters has never been easy. When an elderly customer dies, Daisy is surprised to inherit a journal from the 1850s, written by a slave girl named Susie. As she reads, Daisy learns more about her family-and her own heritage-than she ever dreamed. Haunted by dreams of the young Susie, who beckons Daisy to “find her,” she is compelled to explore the past more deeply. What she finds are the answers she has longed for her entire life.
2. Sweet Expectations (2013) – Running the family bakery and living in the store’s attic might not be Daisy’s dream life, but she’s beginning to understand what being content feels like. And then she gets some unexpected news. In one moment, Daisy’s calm existence turns into chaos. Now she’s struggling to keep it together, especially with renovations at the bakery spiraling out of control. But when a box of recipes and mementos is found hidden behind a wall in the bakery, Daisy suddenly has something to cling to-a mystery that echoes her own troubles and gives her the opportunity to figure out what she really wants out of life…

The Alexandria Series

1. At the Corner of King Street (2015) – After a childhood filled with conflict and loss, Addie Morgan is determined to live a very different kind of life, she deserves stability and happiness, doesn’t she? Addie finds just what she’s looking for when she gets a job at a vineyard in the country. And maybe she’s found more than peace and contentment with the vineyard owner, Scott. But Addie’s ties to the past intrude when she gets a call telling her that her sister has just given birth and she is wanted at home to help the family she tried so hard to forget. Now, as she returns home, she faces an impossible choice – should she abandon the picture-perfect future she planned or to return to the past.
2. The View from Prince Street (2016) – When a car accident took her sister’s life, Rae McDonald’s life was turned upside down. She made some reckless choices in that first year and one of them resulted in pregnancy at sixteen. She knew she couldn’t handle that responsibility on top of her grief and found a loving family to adopt the child but her sister’s death and now the loss of the child she loved instantly is overwhelming. The only way she can go forward is to bury her emotions. Lisa Smyth, her sister’s friend, had survived the accident that night but never did tell the truth about what happened. The weight of that guilt is almost unbearable when she is drawn back to Alexandria and both women must confront the past.

Standalone novels by Mary Ellen Taylor

• Winter Cottage (2018) – Still grieving the loss of her wandering, free-spirited mother, Lucy Kincaid leaves Nashville for the faded town of Cape Hudson, Virginia. She goes to see the house she’s inherited-one she never knew existed, bequeathed to her by a woman she’s never even met. At the heart of this mystery is the hope that maybe-just maybe-this “Winter Cottage” will answer the endless questions about her mother’s past…including the identity of her birth father.
• Spring House (2019) – Pregnant and still grieving the death of her fiancé historian Megan Buchanan is forging ahead on a dream project: to restore to its original glory the landmark hunting lodge her own great-great-grandfather built on Virginia’s Eastern Shore. With the help of her fiancé’s caring best friend, it’s sure to draw much-needed tourist revenue to Cape Hudson, a town rich in southern history. However, it’s Spring House, the caretaker’s cottage on the grounds, that holds the most intriguing history for Megan.
• Honeysuckle Season (2020) – Adrift in the wake of her father’s death, a failed marriage, and multiple miscarriages, Libby McKenzie feels truly alone. Though her new life as a wedding photographer provides a semblance of purpose, it’s also a distraction from her profound pain. When asked to photograph a wedding at the historic Woodmont estate, Libby meets the owner, Elaine Grant. Hoping to open Woodmont to the public, Elaine has employed young widower Colton Reese to help restore the grounds and asks Libby to photograph the process. Libby is immediately drawn to the old greenhouse shrouded in honeysuckle vines.

• The Words We Whisper (2021) – As a hospice nurse, Zara Mitchell has already seen more death than most people will experience in a lifetime. So when her older sister asks her to help care for their ailing grandmother, Zara agrees-despite strained family relationships. Though pale and tired, Nonna has lost none of her sharp mind. She’s fixated on finding something long forgotten, and she immediately puts Zara to work cleaning out the attic. Unexpectedly, amid the tedium of sifting through knickknacks and heirlooms, Zara also reconnects with a man she’s attracted to but whose complicated past makes romance seem impossible.
• The Brighter the Light (2022) – When a shipwreck surfaces, old secrets are sure to follow. Or so goes the lore in Ivy Neale’s hometown of Nags Head, North Carolina. When Ivy inherits her family’s beachfront cottage upon her grandmother’s death, she knows returning to Nags Head means facing the best friend and the boyfriend who betrayed her years ago. But then a winter gale uncovers the shipwreck of local legend-and Ivy soon begins to stumble across more skeletons in the closet than just her own. Amid the cottage’s clutter are clues from her grandmother’s past at the enchanting seaside resort her family once owned. One fateful summer in 1950, the arrival of a dazzling singer shook the staff and guests alike-and not everyone made it to fall.
• When the Rain Ends (2023) – When artist Dani Manchester learns she’s slowly losing her vision, she becomes unmoored. Her ex-husband died only months before, leaving Dani and her preteen daughter grief-stricken. Suddenly, the life Dani built for her family on the Outer Banks feels like a painful reminder of all they’ve lost. On a whim, Dani sells her waterfront home and buys an old farm inland near the Virginia state line. But Dani’s daughter recoils at the sudden, drastic change. The Outer Banks’ sun-swept beaches, pink dawns, and savage storms are all she’s ever known. But Dani is resolute, and the pair move to Virginia to embark on a challenging renovation. That summer, their efforts to turn a run-down silo into an art studio bring forth new friends, new loves, and new challenges.

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