Love & Heartbreak
Colleen Hoover Books in Order: The Complete Reading Guide
With more than two dozen books published since 2012, figuring out the Colleen Hoover books in order means dealing with something most authors don't have: four separate series running alongside a huge shelf of standalone novels, several of which are quietly connected to each other. There's no single "start here and read straight through" order for her whole catalog — but there is a right way to read each series, and a smart order for tackling the standalones.
Here's the complete breakdown, series by series, with her five biggest standalones covered in detail first.
Where to Start: Colleen Hoover's Biggest Standalone Novels
If you've never read Hoover before, these five are the ones that made her name — and none of them require reading anything else first.
It Ends with Us (2016)
Hoover's most-read book by a wide margin, and the one that eventually got the Blake Lively film adaptation. Lily Bloom falls for charming neurosurgeon Ryle Kincaid, only to watch the relationship curdle into something that forces her to reckon with the abuse she watched her own mother survive growing up. It has a direct sequel, It Starts with Us (2022), told from Lily and her first love Atlas's perspective — read It Ends with Us first.
Verity (2018)
Hoover's one true psychological thriller, and a gateway book for readers who don't normally touch romance. Lowen Ashleigh is hired to finish the remaining books in a bestselling series after its author, Verity Crawford, is left incapacitated by an accident — and finds a hidden, deeply unsettling autobiography manuscript in Verity's office that changes everything about how Lowen sees the family she's living with.
Ugly Love (2014)
Tate Collins and fighter pilot Miles Archer agree to a no-strings-attached relationship — until Miles's guarded past starts bleeding through the rules he set for himself. Told in dual timelines, it's one of Hoover's most re-read standalones for the twist in its final chapters.
Reminders of Him (2022)
Kenna Rowan gets out of prison after a car accident killed the father of her daughter, only to find that her in-laws have kept her from any contact with the child she's never really known. It's one of Hoover's most emotionally heavy books, built around grief and the slow, difficult work of earning trust back.
Regretting You (2019)
A mother-daughter story told across dual timelines after a tragic accident forces both Morgan and her teenage daughter Clara to confront years of buried resentment and a secret that reframes everything Clara thought she knew about her family.
The Slammed Series, in Order
Hoover's debut trilogy, and the series that started it all.
- Slammed (2012)
- Point of Retreat (2012)
- This Girl (2013)
The Hopeless Series, in Order
Hoover's second series follows Sky and Dean Holder, with two companion novellas bridging into the spinoff novel All Your Perfects.
- Hopeless (2012)
- Losing Hope (2013)
- Finding Cinderella (novella, 2013)
- All Your Perfects (2018)
- Finding Perfect (novella, 2019)
The Maybe Someday Series, in Order
- Maybe Someday (2014)
- Maybe Not (novella, 2014)
- Maybe Now (2018)
The It Ends with Us Series, in Order
- It Ends with Us (2016)
- It Starts with Us (2022)
Every Other Colleen Hoover Standalone, in Order
The rest of her catalog, chronologically — none of these require reading anything else first.
- Confess (2015)
- November 9 (2015)
- Never Never (with Tarryn Fisher, digital 2015 / print 2023)
- Too Late (2016)
- Without Merit (2017)
- Heart Bones (2020)
- Layla (2020)
- Woman Down (2026) — her most recent release, and by her own description one of the darkest things she's written
Verity, Reminders of Him, Regretting You, and Ugly Love — already covered above — round out the standalone catalog.
More Emotional Reads and Twisty Thrillers
Loved the gut-punch endings? These guides are next on your list:
Which Colleen Hoover book destroyed you the most? For us it's a toss-up between Verity and Reminders of Him.
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