Eva Woods
Eva Woods has published 7 books. The recommended reading order starts with The Thirty List (2015).
Eva Woods is an English author of women's fiction and mystery novels, the latter published under the name Claire McGowan. She also teaches creative writing and lives in London, England. Woods made her debut as Eva Woods in 2015 with the novel The Thirty List. Her interests include wine, pop music, and holidays. She writes crime fiction as Claire McGowan, and her work as Eva Woods focuses on women's fiction. She lives in London where she both writes and teaches creative writing.
Shelf & Shadows
Order of Standalone Novels
- TagsromanceDescriptionRachel is standing at the edge of thirty with a life that looks perfect on paper but feels hollow at its core—a steady boyfriend, a reliable job, a predictable routine that's slowly suffocating her. When she crosses paths with a terminally ill woman named Chloe, everything shifts. Chloe hands her a challenge: a list of thirty things Rachel must do before her own thirtieth birthday, each one designed to shake her awake, to make her feel something real again. What follows is a year of reckoning, as Rachel works through tasks that range from the terrifying to the transcendent—skydiving, confronting old wounds, risking her heart in ways she's spent years avoiding. Eva Woods crafts a story that refuses to sentimentalize either grief or transformation, instead offering a clear-eyed look at what it means to stop sleepwalking through your own existence. The friendship between Rachel and Chloe anchors the novel with surprising emotional weight, even as the clock ticks down on both the list and Chloe's life. This is a book about the small revolutions that happen when we finally stop waiting for permission to live boldly, and it delivers that message without preaching or platitudes. Woods understands that change is messy, that courage doesn't arrive all at once, and that sometimes the most radical act is simply choosing to show up for your own life. It's a story that lingers, not because it's tragic, but because it's true.Publication dateJune 18, 2015Amazon rating4.3/5Print length411LanguageEnglishPublisherMills & Boon
- TagsromanceDescriptionEva Woods knows how to write a breakup. More importantly, she knows what comes after. Helen's life has imploded. Her fiancé left her at the altar. Her job is a dead end. Her flat is a disaster. So when a self-help guru suggests confronting every ex to find closure, Helen decides to track down the men who shaped her romantic history. It's a terrible idea. She does it anyway. What follows is part excavation, part reckoning. Each ex reveals something Helen buried—about love, about herself, about the stories we tell to survive heartbreak. Some encounters are awkward. Some are painful. A few are surprisingly tender. And one might change everything. Woods writes with warmth and wit, but there's real emotional heft here. This isn't a revenge fantasy or a rom-com checklist. It's about a woman learning to stop looking backward for answers and start building a life that feels like hers. Funny, honest, and deeply human.Publication dateSeptember 8, 2016Amazon rating4/5Print length368LanguageEnglishPublisherHARPER COLLINS
- DescriptionWhat does it take to relearn joy when grief has hollowed out the architecture of your life, leaving only the brittle scaffolding of routine and survival? Eva Woods constructs a quiet study of emotional resurrection in this standalone novel, tracing the unlikely friendship between Annie, a woman calcified by loss, and Polly, a terminally ill optimist determined to prove that happiness can be practiced like a skill. The premise risks sentimentality, but Woods navigates it with a journalist's eye for the granular textures of depression and the small, almost embarrassing acts required to climb back toward light—forcing yourself to smile at strangers, dancing badly in public, saying yes when every instinct screams no. What distinguishes this from the glut of redemptive friendship narratives is Woods's refusal to treat happiness as a destination or Polly as a manic pixie savior. Instead, the novel examines happiness as a series of deliberate, sometimes absurd experiments conducted against the backdrop of mortality's ticking clock, with both women learning and teaching in equal measure. The result is a book that earns its emotional beats through specificity rather than manipulation, offering not a cure for sadness but a map of one woman's painstaking journey back to feeling anything at all. Woods writes with the understanding that sometimes the bravest thing we do is simply show up for our own lives.Publication dateSeptember 5, 2017Amazon rating4.3/5Print length400LanguageEnglishPublisherGraydon House
- Tagsliterary-fictionromancegraphic-novelsDescriptionWhat happens in the space between the life we're living and the one we thought we'd have, when everything we've built begins to shift beneath our feet? Eva Woods crafts a tender, searching novel that lingers in those fragile moments when ordinary lives brush against one another and leave unexpected marks. The atmosphere here is quietly devastating—the kind of story that unfolds in hospital waiting rooms and kitchen tables, in the small gestures that reveal how deeply we're all connected, even when we feel most alone. There's a gentle urgency to the prose, a sense that time is both abundant and running out, that the people we encounter in passing might be the ones who change everything. At its heart, this is a story about the invisible threads that bind us, the way a single moment can ripple outward and reshape multiple lives in ways we never see coming. Woods writes with compassion and clear-eyed honesty about loss, hope, and the messy beauty of human connection, never flinching from the hard truths but always finding the light that persists even in the darkest corners. It's the kind of book that asks you to pay attention to the people around you, to recognize that every life touches others in ways we can't always measure but that matter more than we know.Publication dateMay 29, 2019Amazon rating4.5/5Print length533LanguageEnglishPublisherThorndike Press Large Print
- TagsromanceDescriptionEva Woods crafts a story that lingers in the quiet spaces between memory and possibility, where the past refuses to stay buried and the heart keeps its own stubborn calendar. This is a novel about the one who got away—or more precisely, the one you can't stop measuring everyone else against, no matter how many years pass or how hard you try to move forward. Woods understands the particular ache of unfinished business, the way a first love or a profound connection can become the ghost that haunts every relationship that follows, not because it was perfect but because it was never properly resolved. Her protagonist faces the question we've all asked ourselves in vulnerable moments: what if you could go back and see that person again, knowing everything you know now about yourself and what you've become? The emotional terrain here is achingly familiar—the collision between who we were and who we are, the courage it takes to revisit old wounds, and the possibility that some doors we thought closed forever might crack open again if we're brave enough to knock. Woods writes with warmth and insight about second chances, the stories we tell ourselves about our past, and whether it's ever truly possible to rewrite an ending that's haunted you for years.Publication dateSeptember 5, 2019Amazon rating4.3/5Print length304LanguageEnglishPublisherSphere
- TagsromanceDescriptionErin's life has just imploded. Her fiancé left her at the altar, and now she's supposed to what—just carry on? Instead, she finds herself at a support group for the brokenhearted, a motley crew of people who've all been wrecked by love in their own spectacular ways. They call themselves the Heartbreak Club. It's not therapy. It's survival. What starts as a place to wallow becomes something else entirely. These strangers become friends, then family. They challenge each other to take risks, to stop hiding, to actually live again. Erin begins to see that heartbreak isn't just an ending—it's a beginning, messy and terrifying and full of possibility. She's learning to laugh again. To hope again. To figure out who she is when she's not defined by someone else. This is a story about picking up the pieces and discovering they fit together differently than you thought. Woods writes with warmth and wit, capturing the raw ache of loss and the unexpected joy of rebuilding. The Heartbreak Club isn't about finding another person to complete you. It's about finding yourself. It's funny and tender and real, the kind of book that reminds you that sometimes the best love story is the one you have with your own life.Publication dateApril 15, 2021Amazon rating4.2/5Print length336LanguageEnglishPublisherSphere
- TagsromanceDescriptionEva Woods drops you into the life of a woman who's forgotten how to live. She's safe. She's careful. She hasn't left her apartment in months. Agoraphobia has her pinned in place, and the world outside her door might as well be another planet. Then a stranger appears with an unusual proposition: a list. Seven tasks designed to pull her back into the mess and beauty of being alive. This is Woods at her sharpest—a story that refuses to sugarcoat anxiety while still believing in the possibility of change. The premise could tip into gimmick, but it doesn't. The list isn't a cure. It's a dare. Each task forces her protagonist to confront what she's lost and what she might still claim. Woods writes fear with precision, joy with earned weight. The supporting cast—flawed, funny, unexpectedly tender—never feels like scaffolding for the main character's journey. They're living their own complicated lives, and that's what makes this book hum. You Are Here is about showing up when it's terrifying, about the small rebellions that add up to a life. It's warm without being soft, hopeful without lying about the work it takes to get there.Publication dateAugust 4, 2022Amazon rating3.9/5LanguageEnglishPublisherSphere
Frequently Asked Questions about Eva Woods
Eva Woods writes standalone novels. The books are not part of a series and do not need to be read in any particular order. Readers can begin with any title that catches their interest. The Thirty List was published in 2015, followed by The Ex Factor in 2016. How to Be Happy, also known as Something Like Happy, was released in 2017. The Inbetween Days, or The Lives We Touch, came out in 2019, as did The Man I Can't Forget. Woods has published additional titles since then, all of which can be enjoyed independently of one another.
Readers can start with any of Eva Woods's novels, as they are all standalone. The Thirty List, published in 2015, is the first book she released. Other early works include The Ex Factor (2016) and How to Be Happy (2017). More recent titles such as The Lives We Touch and The Man I Can't Forget were published in 2019. Any of these titles offer an entry point into Woods's writing.
No, Eva Woods's books do not need to be read in order. She writes standalone novels, meaning each book can be read and enjoyed independently. There is no overarching plot or series that connects them. Readers can choose any title that appeals to them and begin reading without needing prior knowledge of other books. This approach allows for flexibility in discovering her work.
Eva Woods writes standalone novels. Each of her books tells a complete story and does not require readers to be familiar with previous titles. There are no series to follow. This means readers can pick up any book by Eva Woods and understand the narrative without needing to read them in a specific sequence.
Eva Woods has written at least eight books. Her published works include The Thirty List (2015), The Ex Factor (2016), How to Be Happy / Something Like Happy (2017), The Inbetween Days / The Lives We Touch (2019), and The Man I Can't Forget (2019). Information suggests she has at least two additional titles beyond those listed.
The first book Eva Woods wrote was The Thirty List, published in 2015. This marked her debut as a novelist. Following this, she released The Ex Factor in 2016 and How to Be Happy (also known as Something Like Happy) in 2017. All of her books are standalone novels.
The most recent book listed by Eva Woods is The Man I Can't Forget, published in 2019. This novel, along with The Inbetween Days / The Lives We Touch, was released in the same year. Woods has published other titles, but these represent her most recent works based on the available information.
Eva Woods writes contemporary fiction, often focusing on relationships and personal journeys. Her novels explore themes of love, loss, and self-discovery. Titles like The Thirty List and The Ex Factor suggest a focus on romantic relationships and their complexities. Books such as How to Be Happy and The Lives We Touch indicate explorations of happiness and the different paths people take in life.
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We verified the reading order for Eva Woods's books by cross-referencing official publication dates, ISBN databases, and publisher catalogs.
Last verified: July 2026
Shelf & Shadows. (…). “Eva Woods Books in Order.” Retrieved …, from https://www.shelfandshadows.com/authors/eva-woods