Below is the complete list of Kendra Elliot books in order. For each series, the chronological reading order is the same as the order of publication.
Publication Order of Bone Secrets Books
Publication Order of Callahan & McLane Books
Publication Order of Columbia River Books
Publication Order of Mercy Kilpatrick Books
Publication Order of Noelle Marshall Books
Publication Order of Rogue River Books
with Melinda Leigh
Publication Order of Rogue Winter Books
by Melinda Leigh
Publication Order of Rogue Vows Books
with Melinda Leigh
Publication Order of Rogue Justice Books
Publication Order of Widow’s Island Books
with Melinda Leigh
Publication Order of Standalone Books
About Kendra Elliot
Kendra Elliot is an American mystery and romantic-suspense author whose interconnected series are rooted largely in Oregon and the wider Pacific Northwest. Her fiction combines murder investigations, forensic evidence, law enforcement, family histories, and relationships that develop across multiple cases. Since the publication of her debut novel in 2012, she has sold more than fifteen million books, appeared repeatedly on the Wall Street Journal bestseller list, and become particularly known for the Mercy Kilpatrick, Columbia River, Bone Secrets, and Callahan & McLane series.
Elliot grew up in the Pacific Northwest and was an enthusiastic reader long before she considered becoming a novelist. She earned degrees in journalism and dental hygiene and spent sixteen years working as a dental hygienist. That professional background proved unexpectedly useful when she began writing crime fiction, particularly her interest in forensic odontology and the identification of human remains.
She did not initially intend to write suspense. In 2006, inspired by the satisfaction she found in reading Diana Gabaldon, Elliot challenged herself to write a novel capable of giving readers a similar sense of immersion. Her first attempt was contemporary romance, but dead bodies kept appearing in the story. Recognizing where her instincts were leading, she shifted toward romantic suspense.
Her third completed manuscript became her first published novel, Hidden, released in 2012. It introduced forensic odontologist Lacey Campbell and launched the Bone Secrets series, in which different investigators and romantic pairings confront murders connected by recurring characters rather than one continuous central case. Detective Mason Callahan emerged from those books as a particularly important secondary character and later became one of the leads of the Callahan & McLane series alongside FBI Special Agent Ava McLane.
Elliot created another major fictional world with A Merciful Death, introducing FBI Special Agent Mercy Kilpatrick. Raised by a survivalist family near the fictional central Oregon town of Eagle’s Nest, Mercy returns as an adult to investigate murders within the prepper community that once rejected her. Her relationship with police chief Truman Daly develops throughout the series, while cases involving domestic extremism, isolated communities, missing people, and long-buried crimes gradually expand their circle of family and colleagues.
Those characters eventually fed into the Columbia River series, which deliberately brings together figures from Elliot’s earlier books. Zander Wells, Ava McLane, Mason Callahan, Mercy Kilpatrick, Truman Daly, Detective Evan Bolton, and search-and-rescue specialist Rowan Wolff all move through different installments, making Columbia River less a conventional single-protagonist series than a shared investigative world.
That world expanded again with the Noelle Marshall series, beginning with Her First Mistake in 2025. Noelle, previously introduced in the Columbia River books, is a Deschutes County sheriff’s detective whose own violent history becomes intertwined with present-day investigations.
Elliot has also collaborated extensively with Melinda Leigh. Their Rogue River, Rogue Winter, Rogue Vows, and Rogue Justice novellas follow two sisters and their extended law-enforcement family in rural Oregon, while Widow’s Island alternates between the authors as FBI agent Cate Wilde and deputy Tessa Black investigate crimes in an isolated island community. The two writers later united Elliot’s Mercy Kilpatrick with Leigh’s Bree Taggert in the full-length crossover Echo Road.
Elliot’s work has earned three Daphne du Maurier Awards and recognition from major romantic-suspense and thriller organizations. Across her bibliography, her strongest signature is continuity: detectives who begin as supporting characters acquire stories of their own, relationships mature instead of resetting, and separate series gradually reveal themselves as parts of a much larger Pacific Northwest crime world.