Colleen Hoover Books in Order

Colleen Hoover is the self-published romance writer who became the best-selling novelist in America a decade later: a social worker from Texas who put out Slammed on her own in January 2012, and by 2022 - when It Ends with Us, a 2016 novel, rode BookTok back to the top - was outselling the Bible in weekly units. Around 20 million copies, a film adaptation of It Ends with Us, and a shelf that splits cleanly three ways: the contemporary romances she started with, the psychological-thriller lane (Verity, Too Late, Woman Down), and the two-book It Ends with Us cycle that is the front door for most readers now. This page sequences all of it (2012–present).

Where to start

It Ends with Us (2016) - the phenomenon, and the intended door. One warning: it is a two-book series, and It Starts with Us (2022) is its sequel, so read them in that order and stop hoping for a third - Hoover has said the story is done.

Does the reading order matter?

Almost everything is a standalone, so order matters in only four places. One: It Ends with Us (2016) before It Starts with Us (2022) - the only true sequel of her career. Two: the Slammed trilogy (Slammed, 2012, Point of Retreat, 2012, This Girl, 2013) - her debut run, read in order. Three: the Hopeless pair - Hopeless (2012) with its companion-from-the-other-side-of-the-story Losing Hope (2013). Four: Maybe Someday (2014) has a companion, Maybe Not; and Never Never (2015, with Tarryn Fisher) was planned as a trilogy that stopped at two. Verity (2017) stands fully alone - read it cold, no summaries.

Which one is the best?

It Ends with Us (2016), the one that rewrote her career; Verity (2017), the thriller people hand to friends with no plot summary; and Reminders of Him (2022), the late-career tearjerker.

Covered in depth here

An 8-question quiz, reading time, club questions and verified quotes for It Ends with Us (how long), Verity (how long).

Related guides

Readers finishing this shelf usually want the map next door: Abby Jimenez books in order, Lucy Score books in order, Emily Henry books in order. Every guide follows the same format — the shelf, the entry point, the honest answer about order.

Make it a project

Pick a session size and let the days accumulate — at the pace our reading speed test measures, most shelves above clear in a few weeks of half-hours. Every guide on the books in order shelf follows this same format, and when a book lands, its 8-question quiz is waiting on the original book quiz.