Below is the complete list of L. J. Smith books in order. For each series, the chronological reading order is the same as the order of publication.
Publication Order of Dark Visions Books
Publication Order of Forbidden Game Books
Publication Order of Night World Books
Publication Order of Night World Companion Books
with Annette Pollert
Publication Order of The Secret Circle Books
Publication Order of Wildworld Books
Publication Order of The Vampire Diaries Books
Publication Order of The Vampire Diaries: The Return Books
Publication Order of The Vampire Diaries: The Salvation Books
Publication Order of The Vampire Diaries: Stefan’s Diaries Books
with Julie Plec
Publication Order of The Vampire Diaries: The Hunters Books
Publication Order of Akashic Noir Books
About L. J. Smith
L.J. Smith was an American author whose supernatural romances and dark fantasies helped shape young-adult publishing long before paranormal fiction became one of the category’s dominant commercial forces. Writing under initials derived from her full name, Lisa Jane Smith, she created teenagers confronting vampires, witches, shapeshifters, psychic powers, forbidden love, and secret societies. Her best-known works include The Vampire Diaries, Night World, The Secret Circle, The Forbidden Game, and Dark Visions.
Born in Fort Lauderdale, Florida, in 1958 and raised in Southern California, Smith studied experimental psychology at the University of California, Santa Barbara. She later earned teaching credentials in elementary and special education and worked as a kindergarten and special-education teacher before writing full time. Her understanding of childhood, adolescence, and emotional vulnerability became important to fiction in which young characters are forced to make adult moral choices while discovering that the world around them contains hidden dangers.
Her first published novel, The Night of the Solstice, appeared in 1987, followed by Heart of Valor. These books, later grouped as the Wildworld sequence, follow siblings drawn into a magical struggle involving rival sorceresses and an alternate realm. Although written for younger readers, they established several qualities that would recur throughout Smith’s career: close-knit groups of young people, unseen supernatural worlds, female characters discovering unusual power, and the belief that loyalty can overcome forces designed to isolate or corrupt them.
Smith achieved her major breakthrough with the original four Vampire Diaries novels, beginning with The Awakening. The series centers on Elena Gilbert and vampire brothers Stefan and Damon Salvatore, combining high-school relationships with blood feuds, supernatural possession, death, and resurrection. Smith returned to the characters years later with the Return trilogy, concluding her complete run with The Return: Midnight. Later Hunters and Salvation installments were produced by continuation writers and should be distinguished from the volumes written entirely by Smith.
She followed the original Vampire Diaries books with several tightly constructed supernatural trilogies. The Secret Circle concerns Cassie Blake and a hidden coven of teenage witches in New Salem. The Forbidden Game places Jenny Thornton and her friends inside deadly supernatural contests controlled by the seductive shadow man Julian. Dark Visions follows psychic teenager Kaitlyn Fairchild and other gifted young people recruited by an institute whose apparent interest in their abilities conceals exploitation. Each series combines romance with questions of identity, temptation, sacrifice, and the danger of surrendering power to a charismatic authority.
The Night World books created her broadest original universe. Vampires, witches, werewolves, and shapeshifters live secretly among humans under laws forbidding exposure and romantic attachment to mortals. Individual volumes feature different couples, but recurring characters, the soulmate principle, Circle Daybreak, and an approaching apocalypse gradually connect their stories. Nine principal books were published between 1996 and 1998. Smith later reported completing manuscripts titled Strange Fate: Mystic and Strange Fate: Apocalypse, but they had not received commercial publication by July 2026.
After a long publishing hiatus, Smith returned to writing, produced new short fiction, and revisited established characters while reissues introduced her work to another generation. Television adaptations of The Vampire Diaries and The Secret Circle further expanded her readership, although both series differed substantially from the novels.
Smith died on March 8, 2025, after a long illness. Her strongest legacy lies in the emotional seriousness she gave supernatural romance. Her heroines are frequently frightened, divided, or inexperienced, but they are rarely passive. They survive by recognizing the humanity inside supposed monsters, resisting seductive forms of control, and choosing loyalty even when love places them in direct conflict with the rules of their world.