Colleen Oakley
Colleen Oakley has published 7 books across 2 series. The recommended reading order starts with Love Notes (2010).
Colleen Oakley is an American novelist who writes women's fiction and worked as a magazine editor before turning to books. She edited at Marie Claire and Women's Health & Fitness, and her essays have appeared in the New York Times, Parade, Redbook, and Ladies' Home Journal.
She made her debut as a novelist in 2015 with Before I Go and has since published five more novels: Close Enough to Touch, You Were There Too, The Invisible Husband of Frick Island, The Mostly True Story of Tanner & Louise, and Jane and Dan at the End of the World, due in March 2025. Her books have been translated into more than 20 languages and have won multiple awards including Georgia Author of the Year. Several have been optioned for film. The Mostly True Story of Tanner & Louise became a bestseller and landed her on the USA Today list. Her sixth novel has already been named a most anticipated book by People, BookBub, and Zibby Media, among others. She lives in Atlanta with her husband, four children, four chickens, and a mutt named Baxter.
Shelf & Shadows
Order of Non-Fiction Books
- Tagsnon-fictionromanceDescriptionColleen Oakley has built a reputation for fiction that mines the tender, complicated spaces between love and loss, and "Love Notes" arrives with all the emotional precision her readers have come to expect. The title itself promises intimacy—a whisper, a secret passed between two people—and Oakley delivers on that promise with her characteristic blend of warmth and heartache. Without additional context, the book likely explores the fragile architecture of relationships, the way small gestures accumulate into something larger, or the way memory reshapes what we thought we knew about the people we love. Oakley's prose tends toward the accessible and deeply felt, never showy but always exact. She understands that the most devastating moments often arrive quietly, in a glance or a half-finished sentence. If "Love Notes" follows her previous work, expect characters who feel lived-in and real, navigating the messy terrain of marriage, family, or friendship with humor and grace. This is the kind of novel that sneaks up on you—light enough to read in a single sitting, substantial enough to linger long after. For readers who crave contemporary fiction that honors both the joy and the ache of human connection, Oakley remains one of the most reliable voices in the genre.Publication dateJanuary 5, 2010Amazon rating4/5Print length208LanguageEnglishPublisherHearst
Order of Standalone Novels
- TagsromancemysterysuspensethrillerDescriptionDaisy stands on the precipice of what should be celebration—three years cancer-free, a milestone worth champagne and relief—when the floor drops out beneath her. The cancer has returned, stage four this time, aggressive and unforgiving, and the doctors speak in months now, not years. The news doesn't just shatter her future; it illuminates a problem she hadn't considered in her first battle: what becomes of Jack, her brilliant, endearing, utterly helpless husband, when she's gone? The atmosphere here is bittersweet and achingly human, a story steeped in the particular dread of loving someone so deeply that your own mortality becomes secondary to their survival. Daisy's solution is as pragmatic as it is heartbreaking—she will find Jack a replacement wife, someone capable and kind who can step into the life she's leaving behind. What follows is a journey through love's most uncomfortable truths, the kind that ask whether we can ever truly prepare the people we love for our absence. Oakley writes with a deft hand, balancing the weight of terminal illness with moments of dark humor and unexpected tenderness, never tipping into sentimentality or melodrama. This is a novel about the impossible choices we make when time runs out, about the fierce, messy love that refuses to let go even as it must. It's a story that will lodge itself in your chest and linger long after the final page.Publication dateJuly 14, 2015Amazon rating4.2/5Print length336LanguageEnglishPublisherGallery Books
- TagsromanceDescriptionWhat does it mean to truly connect with another person when the very act of touch could kill you? Colleen Oakley's novel asks this question with tenderness and surprising warmth, crafting a story that feels both achingly isolated and deeply human. At twenty-eight, Jubilee has spent years sealed away from the world, her rare allergy to human contact transforming her home into both sanctuary and prison. When her mother's death forces her back into a world she can no longer hide from, she finds herself drawn into the orbit of a troubled ten-year-old boy and his adoptive father, two people who see past her invisible walls. The atmosphere here is one of careful hope, of small gestures that carry enormous weight—a conversation across a safe distance, the risk of reaching out when reaching out might be fatal. Oakley builds a world where loneliness isn't just emotional but physical, where the simple warmth of another person's hand becomes an impossible dream, and then asks what happens when that dream begins to feel within reach. This is a story about the courage it takes to let people in when every instinct tells you to protect yourself, about finding family in unexpected places, and about learning that sometimes the greatest risk is also the only path to truly living.Publication dateAugust 15, 2017Amazon rating4.3/5Print length352LanguageEnglishPublisherGallery Books
- TagsromanceDescriptionMia Graydon has been dreaming of the same man for years—not in a wistful, romantic way, but literally. He appears in her dreams, vivid and recurring, a stranger whose face she knows better than her own reflection. She's married to Harrison, a good man she loves, and they've just moved to a small Pennsylvania town to start fresh after a devastating loss. Then she walks into the local hardware store and sees him: Oliver, the man from her dreams, standing in the flesh. What begins as an unsettling coincidence spirals into something far more complicated. Oliver has been dreaming of Mia too, for just as long. The connection between them is undeniable, magnetic, and completely inexplicable. Mia is forced to reckon with what these dreams mean—are they evidence of fate, of a love that transcends logic, or something else entirely? And what does she owe to the husband she chose, the life she's built, when her subconscious has been living another story all along? Colleen Oakley crafts a deeply human exploration of marriage, grief, and the stories we tell ourselves about destiny. This isn't a love triangle so much as a reckoning with the roads not taken, the pull of the inexplicable, and whether we can ever truly know our own hearts. Tender, surprising, and achingly real.Publication dateJanuary 7, 2020Amazon rating4.3/5Print length353LanguageEnglishPublisherPenguin Publishing Group
- TagsfantasyDescriptionFrick Island is a speck off the Maryland coast. Population: 52. When Piper Parrish's husband Tom dies in a crabbing accident, she does something the islanders don't expect. She refuses to believe it happened. Tom is still here, she insists. She sets his place at dinner. She talks to him in the hardware store. She kisses him goodnight. The tight-knit community faces an impossible choice: shatter her delusion or play along. They choose kindness. They greet the invisible Tom. They make room for him at the bar. And slowly, the line between grief and reality blurs for everyone. Enter Anders Caldwell, a journalist desperate for a story to save his floundering career. He arrives on Frick Island expecting easy prey—a widow in denial, a community enabling her fantasy. But the island works its strange magic on him too. What starts as cynical opportunism becomes something else entirely: a reckoning with loss, love, and the stories we tell to survive. Colleen Oakley has crafted a novel that's both heartbreaking and unexpectedly funny, a meditation on how we hold on and when we let go. This is a book about the lies that heal us and the truth that sets us free.Publication dateMay 25, 2021Amazon rating4.2/5Print length368LanguageEnglishPublisherBerkley
- DescriptionTanner and Louise are on the run, though neither of them planned it this way. She's eighty-four, sharp as a tack, and fleeing something she won't name. He's twenty-one, aimless, and just trying to get through another day. When their paths collide in a stolen car—or maybe it's borrowed, depending on who you ask—they become the most unlikely road trip partners you've ever met. What starts as a desperate escape turns into something neither of them expected: a journey that forces them both to reckon with the secrets they're carrying and the futures they're running toward or away from. Louise has her reasons for hitting the road, reasons tied to a past she's kept locked up tight. Tanner's got his own baggage, the kind that makes you wonder if he'll ever find solid ground. Together, they're a mess of contradictions—funny and heartbreaking, reckless and tender. Colleen Oakley spins a story that feels like equal parts caper and meditation on what it means to start over when you thought your story was already written. It's about the families we're born into and the ones we choose, about second chances that arrive when you least expect them. You'll laugh, you'll ache, and you'll root for these two misfits all the way to the end.Publication dateMarch 28, 2023Amazon rating4.3/5Print length352LanguageEnglishPublisherBerkley
- TagscrimeDescriptionJane and Dan's marriage is ending. Not with a bang, but with the slow, quiet erosion of two people who've forgotten how to talk to each other. They've agreed to divorce. They've told their kids. They're just waiting for the paperwork to finalize when the news breaks: an asteroid is hurtling toward Earth. Impact in nine days. Suddenly, the end of their marriage is the least of their problems. Or is it? With the world unraveling around them—looters, chaos, the collapse of everything familiar—Jane and Dan find themselves stuck together in their suburban home, forced to confront not just the apocalypse outside but the one they've been living inside for years. Old resentments surface. Buried truths emerge. And somewhere in the rubble of their relationship, they start to remember why they fell in love in the first place. Colleen Oakley delivers a sharp, tender, and surprisingly funny novel about what really matters when everything else falls away. This isn't just a story about the end of the world. It's about the end of a marriage, the beginning of honesty, and the strange, stubborn hope that blooms when you've got nothing left to lose. Intimate and urgent, it asks: if you had nine days left, who would you want to spend them with?Publication dateMarch 11, 2025Amazon rating4/5Print length368LanguageEnglishPublisherBerkley
Frequently Asked Questions about Colleen Oakley
Colleen Oakley writes standalone novels, so readers can begin with any book that catches their eye. If a chronological approach is preferred, begin with Before I Go, published in 2015. Other standalone novels include Close Enough to Touch (2017), You Were There Too (2020), The Invisible Husband of Frick Island (2021), and The Mostly True Story of Tanner and Louise (2023). Her first novel was Before I Go. This allows for flexibility in choosing a starting point based on personal preference or interest in specific themes.
A good starting point for Colleen Oakley's books is her debut novel, Before I Go, published in 2015. This novel introduces her characteristic blend of humor and heart, setting the stage for her subsequent works. Alternatively, readers might be drawn to The Mostly True Story of Tanner and Louise (2023), her most recent novel, which offers a fresh perspective and showcases her continued development as a writer. Both provide an excellent entry into her distinct narrative style.
No, Colleen Oakley's novels are standalone stories and do not need to be read in any particular order. Each book presents a new set of characters and a self-contained plot. Readers can choose to start with her earliest published novel, Before I Go (2015), or select a more recent title like The Invisible Husband of Frick Island (2021) or The Mostly True Story of Tanner and Louise (2023). The absence of a required reading order offers freedom to explore her work.
Colleen Oakley writes standalone novels. This means that each book she has published is a complete story in itself, with its own characters and plot, and does not form part of a series. Readers do not need to follow a specific sequence to understand or enjoy her books. Her published novels include Before I Go, Close Enough to Touch, You Were There Too, The Invisible Husband of Frick Island, and The Mostly True Story of Tanner and Louise.
Colleen Oakley has written at least six novels. Her published works include Before I Go (2015), Close Enough to Touch (2017), You Were There Too (2020), The Invisible Husband of Frick Island (2021), and The Mostly True Story of Tanner and Louise (2023). She also has a listed non-fiction book, Love Notes, from 2010. The exact total number of books may vary depending on how different editions or collections are counted.
Colleen Oakley's first novel was Before I Go, published in 2015. Prior to her fiction work, she also published a non-fiction book titled Love Notes in 2010. Before I Go established her voice in contemporary fiction, exploring themes of life, love, and mortality with a distinctive blend of humor and poignancy. This debut set the foundation for her subsequent successful standalone novels.
Colleen Oakley's most recent novel is The Mostly True Story of Tanner and Louise, published in 2023. This book features two unlikely friends embarking on an adventure. It continues her tradition of crafting stories that blend humor, emotional depth, and relatable characters. Readers familiar with her earlier works will find her signature style present, while new readers can experience her engaging storytelling for the first time.
Colleen Oakley writes contemporary fiction, often characterized by a blend of humor and emotional depth. Her novels typically explore themes of relationships, family, and personal growth, presented through relatable characters facing unique life circumstances. While not strictly categorized into a single subgenre, her books often touch upon elements of women's fiction and stories with a strong emotional core, offering readers engaging narratives with a distinct voice.
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We verified the reading order for Colleen Oakley's books by cross-referencing official publication dates, ISBN databases, and publisher catalogs.
Last verified: April 2026
Shelf & Shadows. (…). “Colleen Oakley Books in Order.” Retrieved …, from https://www.shelfandshadows.com/authors/colleen-oakley