If you want to read the books in the order I wrote them, read them in the order listed above. However, since I wasn’t planning to write a series, I have written each book so that it stands alone. On my book tour, I often hear longtime fans tell new readers that the books should be read in the order I wrote them, but other readers have told me that they have read the books out of order and were able to follow everything just fine. Ultimately it’s up to the individual reader. Please note, however, that later books inevitably give away events that occurred in previous books. If you would like to read the books in something approximating chronological order, please note the following:
- The Christmas Quilt takes place in the interim between The Quilter’s Apprentice and Round Robin.
- The Sugar Camp Quilt is set in 1849-1850, so it takes place before the events chronicled in Gerda’s memoir in The Runaway Quilt.
- The Quilter’s Homecoming is set mainly in 1925, but it branches off from a storyline introduced in The Christmas Quilt.
- The New Year’s Quilt immediately follows The Quilter’s Legacy.
- The Lost Quilter begins in 1859 immediately following the events chronicled in Gerda’s memoir in The Runaway Quilt.
- A Quilter’s Holiday takes place while Bonnie is in Hawaii in The Aloha Quilt.
- The Union Quilters begins in 1861 and runs mostly concurrently with The Lost Quilter.
- Sonoma Rose is set in the Prohibition era immediately following the events of The Quilter’s Homecoming.
- The Christmas Boutique takes place after A Quilter’s Holiday.
- The Giving Quilt takes place when Sarah McClure’s twins are four and a half years old.
- The Wedding Quilt flashes forward to what was, at the time it was written, The Future. The Twenty-Twenties did not turn out as I had imagined, so this novel should be considered alternative history or a dream sequence.