Emily Henry Books in Order (2026): Every Novel and Where to Start

January Andrews writes happy endings for a living, until her father dies and she learns he kept a second life and a lake house in Michigan. She moves in for the summer, broke and blocked, and finds that the man next door is Gus Everett, the literary novelist who was her rival on a university writing course. They make a bet: she writes his kind of bleak book, he writes her kind of romance.

It suits readers who like banter with a bruise underneath it. The jokes land, but the book is really about grief and finding out your parents were people. I read it in two days. Read our full review of Beach Read.

Poppy is loud and restless; Alex is quiet and likes things in their place. They have taken a summer trip together every year since university, until one trip two years ago went wrong and they stopped speaking. Poppy talks him into one last holiday to fix it.

The chapters swap between the present trip and summers past, so you watch the friendship build and crack at the same time. It suits anyone who loves friends-to-lovers and the slow ache of the unsaid. It is also the first of her books to reach the screen. Read our review of People We Meet on Vacation.

Nora Stephens is a New York literary agent, the woman who gets dumped in small-town romances so the hero can find someone nicer. Her sister drags her to the tiny town of Sunshine Falls for a month, and the first person she keeps running into is Charlie Lastra, a sharp-tongued editor she can’t stand.

This is her most purely funny book, and the one I recommend to readers who work in books or love books about books. Under the jokes sits a careful story about two sisters and what the older one gave up. It made me cry, which I did not expect from a book this quick on its feet. Read our review of Book Lovers.

Harriet and Wyn broke up months ago and haven’t told their friends. Then the group gathers for its yearly week at a cottage in Maine, and the two of them have to share a bedroom and pretend they’re still together.

It is the most bittersweet of her romances, about friendships that change as people grow up and about working yourself into the ground to please everyone. Read it once you already like her voice; as a first Emily Henry it can feel heavy. Read our review of Happy Place.

Daphne, a children’s librarian, moved to her fiancé’s Michigan lake town for him. Then he left her for his best friend, Petra. Daphne, with nowhere else to go, ends up rooming with Miles, Petra’s ex. The two jilted exes start posting pictures of themselves together to make a point, and the point gets away from them.

This is the warmest of the six, full of small routines, a town slowly opening up to an outsider, and a heroine learning she is allowed to stay. Good for readers who want comfort more than heartbreak. Read our review of Funny Story.

Alice Scott is a cheerful magazine writer who wants one big break. She gets a shot at it on a small Georgia island, where Margaret Ives, heiress to a family the tabloids once followed everywhere, is ready to tell her life story. The catch: Margaret is auditioning two writers, and the other is Hayden Anderson, a Pulitzer-winning biographer who does not seem to like Alice at all.

Half of this book is Margaret’s story, told across decades, and it has more family secrets than any of her other novels. It suits readers who like a slow burn and don’t mind the romance sharing the stage. It is also a Reese’s Book Club pick. Read our review of Great Big Beautiful Life.

Her debut. Natalie Cleary is about to leave her Kentucky town for university when the visitor she calls Grandmother returns with a warning: she has three months to save “him”. Then she meets Beau, and the world around her starts to flicker between versions.

It is part love story, part time puzzle, and part a quiet story about a Native girl adopted into a white family looking for where she belongs. For readers who like their romance with a mystery bolted on. Read our review.

June O’Donnell has been raised to stay away from the Angert family. When Saul Angert comes home to their Michigan town, she falls for him anyway, and the two of them start seeing the past in ways they can’t explain.

Of the early books, this is the one that haunts me most. It is a Romeo-and-Juliet setup turned into a book about grief and what families pass down. If you loved the sadder parts of Beach Read, start your YA reading here. Read our review.

Franny and her friends, who call themselves the Ordinary, film strange goings-on around their struggling Ohio town. One night something falls from the sky in front of them, and afterwards they start to change.

The only one of her books where romance takes a back seat. It is about friendship, a town still grieving an old disaster, and teenagers deciding who they will be. Best for readers who enjoy small-town science fiction. Read our review.

Winona and Lucille meet outside a police station, both deciding whether to report the people who are hurting them at home. Instead they take a car and some cash and drive out of Michigan towards Las Vegas.

It has been called a teenage Thelma and Louise, and that is about right: angry, funny and loyal, with no magic and very little romance. Read it for the friendship. Read our review.