Jodi Picoult’s novels are well known for the difficult decisions she forces her characters to make. Many will make you think long and hard about what is right in these tough situations. Are you a new Jodi Picoult book addict looking for how to read the Jodi Picoult books in order? We are here to help!
Who is Jodi Picoult?
Jodi Picoult is a bestselling author with more than 20 novels to her name. She often explores power, privilege, and race in her books.
Picoult’s books have been translated into 34 languages in 35 countries. Collectively, her books have sold more than 40 million copies.
In addition, there are many film adaptations for her novels, including The Pact, Plain Truth, The Tenth Circle, My Sister’s Keeper, and Salem Falls. Wish You Were Here is currently being adapted by Netflix.
Picoult has been awarded many awards, including The New England Bookseller Award For Fiction and the Alex Awards from YALSA.
Also, the Romance Writers of America has awarded Picoult a lifetime achievement award for mainstream fiction and the NH Literary Award of Outstanding Literary Merit.
Jodi Picoult Books in Order
If you’re a fan of Jodi Picoult then you know that her books are not to be missed. But have you ever wondered what order to read them in? Well, wonder no more!
Here is the perfect reading order for all of her fans.
Jodi Picoult Books in Order of Publication
- Songs of the Humpback Whale (1992)
- Harvesting the Heart (1993)
- Picture Perfect (1995)
- Mercy (1996)
- The Pact (1998)
- Keeping Faith (1999)
- Plain Truth (2000)
- Salem Falls (2001)
- Perfect Match (2002)
- Second Glance (2003)
- My Sister’s Keeper (2004)
- Vanishing Acts (2005)
- The Tenth Circle (2006)
- Nineteen Minutes (2007)
- Change of Heart (2008)
- Handle with Care (2009)
- House Rules (2010)
- Sing You Home (2011)
- Over the Moon (2011)
- Leaving Home (2011) (Short Story Collection)
- Lone Wolf (2012)
- The Storyteller (2013)
- Leaving Time (2014)
- Larger Than Life (2014) (Novella)
- Where There’s Smoke (2014) (Short Story)
- Shine (2016) (Short Story)
- Small Great Things (2016)
- Mermaid (2017) (Short Story)
- A Spark of Light (2018)
- The Book of Two Ways (2020)
- Wish You Were Here (2021)
- Mad Honey (2022)
- By Any Other Name (Expected: August 20, 2024)
Between the Lines Books in Order
This series was written in collaboration with Samantha van Leer.
- Between the Lines (2012)
- Off the Page (2015)
Summary of Jodi Picoult Books In Order
Jodi Picoult is a well-known author who has written more than 20 novels. Her books are usually based on moral and ethical dilemmas that her characters face. In addition to being an excellent writer, Picoult is also a great storyteller, which makes her books hard to put down. If you’re looking for an engaging and thought-provoking read, then check our summary below on some of the Jodi Picoult books 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.
Shine
This is a prequel to another Jodi Picoult thriller, “Small Great Things,” in the form of a short story.
Today is Ruth’s first day of third grade at Dalton. The prestigious institution on New York’s Upper East Side couldn’t be more different from her old school in Harlem. Despite being the smartest girl in her grade, Ruth suspects that her classmates and teachers only see her dark skin.
She also notices that Christina, the daughter of her mother’s employer, treats Ruth very differently when they’re hanging out with the popular girls rather than playing together. 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. During her shift, Ruth begins a routine checkup on a newborn, only to be told a few minutes later that she’s been reassigned to another patient.
The parents 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. Kennedy McQuarrie, a white public defender, takes her case but gives unexpected advice: Kennedy insists that mentioning race in the courtroom is not a winning strategy.
Conflicted by Kennedy’s counsel, Ruth tries to keep life as normal as possible for her family – especially her teenage son – as the case becomes a media sensation. As the trial moves forward, Ruth and Kennedy must gain each other’s trust, and come to see that what they’ve been taught their whole lives about others – and themselves – might be wrong.
Songs of the Humpback Whale
Jodi Picoult’s powerful novel portrays an emotionally charged marriage that changes course in one explosive moment.
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.
Now Oliver, an expert at tracking humpback whales across vast oceans, will search for his wife across a continent – and find a new way to see the world, his family, and himself through her eyes.
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. A frightening pattern is taking shape – a cycle of hurt, denial, and promises, thinly veiled by glamour.
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, who is 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.
And when an inexplicable attraction leads to a shocking betrayal, Allie faces the hardest questions of the heart: When does love cross the line of moral obligation? And what does it mean to truly love another?
The Pact
For eighteen years the Hartes and the Golds have lived next door to each other, sharing everything from Chinese food to chicken pox to carpool duty. They’ve grown so close it seems they have always been a part of each other’s lives.
Parents and children alike have been best friends, so it’s no surprise that in high school Chris and Emily’s friendship blossoms into something more. They’ve been soul mates since they were born.
So when midnight calls from the hospital come in, no one is ready for the appalling truth: Emily is dead at seventeen from a gunshot wound to the head. There’s a single unspent bullet in the gun that Chris took from his father’s cabinet – a bullet that Chris tells police he intended for himself. But a local detective has doubts about the suicide pact that Chris has described.
Keeping Faith
Somewhere between belief and doubt lies faith. For the second time in her marriage, Mariah White catches her husband with another woman and Faith, their seven year old daughter, witnesses every painful minute. In the aftermath of a sudden divorce, Mariah struggles with depression and Faith seeks solace in a new friend – a friend who may or may not be imaginary.
Faith talks to her “Guard” constantly and 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. As word spreads and controversy heightens, Mariah and Faith are besieged by believers and disbelievers alike, caught in a media circus that threatens what little stability they have left.
Plain Truth
The small town of Paradise, Pennsylvania, is a jewel in Lancaster County – known for its picture-postcard landscapes and bucolic lifestyle. But that peace is shattered by the discovery of a dead infant in the barn of an Amish farmer.
A police investigation quickly leads to two startling disclosures: The newborn’s mother is an unmarried Amish woman, eighteen-year-old Katie Fisher. And the infant did not die of natural causes. Although Katie denies the medical proof that she gave birth to the child, circumstantial evidence leads to her arrest for the murder of her baby.
One hundred miles away, Philadelphia defense attorney Ellie Hathaway has achieved an enviable, high-profile career. But her latest court victory has set the sands shifting beneath her.
Single at thirty-nine and unsatisfied with her relationship, Ellie doesn’t look back when she turns down her chance to make partner and takes off for an open-ended stay at her great-aunt’s home in Paradise. Fate brings her to Katie Fisher. Suddenly, Ellie sees the chance to defend a client who truly needs her, not just one who can afford her.
Salem Falls
Jack St. Bride was once a beloved teacher and soccer coach at a girls’ prep school – until a student’s crush sparked a powder keg of accusation and robbed him of his career and reputation.
Now, after a devastatingly public ordeal that left him with an eight-month jail sentence and no job, Jack resolves to pick up the pieces of his life. He takes a job washing dishes at Addie Peabody’s diner and slowly starts to form a relationship with her in the quiet New England village of Salem Falls.
But just when Jack thinks he has outrun his past, a quartet of teenage girls with a secret turn his world upside down once again, triggering a modern-day witch hunt in a town haunted by its own history.
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 and her husband, Caleb, a quiet and methodical stone mason, are shattered. They are ripped apart by an enraging sense of helplessness in the face of a futile justice system that Nina knows all too well.
In a heartbeat, Nina’s absolute truths and convictions are turned upside down. She hurtles toward a plan to exact her own justice for her son. No matter the consequence, whatever the sacrifice.
Second Glance
Ross Wakeman is a ghost hunter who’s never seen a ghost. All he’s searching for is something to end the pain of losing his fiancée Aimee in a car accident. He tried suicide – a number of times.
Now Ross lives only for a way to connect with Aimee from beyond. Searching the site for signs of the paranormal, Ross meets the mysterious Lia, who sparks him to life for the first time in years. But the discoveries that await Ross are beyond anything he could dream of in this world, or the next.
My Sister’s Keeper
Anna is not sick, but she might as well be. By age 13 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.
Like most teenagers, Anna is beginning to question who she truly is. But unlike most teenagers, she has always been defined in terms of her sister. And so Anna makes a decision that for most would be unthinkable, a decision that will tear her family apart and have perhaps fatal consequences for the sister she loves.
Final Thoughts On Jodi Picoult Books in Order
If you’re a fan of Jodi Picoult and her novels, this is the place for you. The publication order of Jodi Picoult books will help those looking to start reading her books from the beginning or who want to read them in order.
Looking for more books in order?
Check out this list of the Kristin Hannah books in order.
4 thoughts on “All 30+ Jodi Picoult Books in Order | Ultimate Guide”
Love your books, please keep them coming.
This is an amazing list! I’m so excited to read all of these!
Please write a sequel to Salem Falls and tell us how Addie and Jack work out with his mom in New York, AND tell us the history behind Amos and Gillie and all their futures.
Just finished Mad Honey. Enlightening, informative, compassionate. It gave me a new outlook on the struggle some have to live with. My outlook has changed just reading this book. Thank you for opening my heart and mind.