Below is the complete list of Jennifer Hillier books in order. For each series, the chronological reading order is the same as the order of publication.
Publication Order of Serial Killer Files Books
Publication Order of Standalone Books
About Jennifer Hillier
Jennifer Hillier is a Filipino Canadian crime novelist known for dark psychological thrillers built around obsession, violence, hidden identities, and the long consequences of trauma. Her novels often combine the pace of commercial suspense with morally complicated characters and disturbing subject matter, placing ordinary-looking communities under pressure until buried secrets begin to surface. She is particularly associated with Jar of Hearts, Little Secrets, and Things We Do in the Dark, three novels that established her as a prominent contemporary voice in psychological crime fiction.
Hillier was born and raised in Toronto, Canada, and is of Filipino heritage. She later spent several years living in the Seattle area, a region that became an important influence on her fiction. Many of her novels draw on the Pacific Northwest’s combination of urban life, isolation, rain, forests, and affluent suburbs, environments that suit stories in which danger exists just beneath a respectable surface.
Her debut novel, Creep, was published in 2011. It introduced Sheila Tao, a psychology professor whose attempt to end an affair with a dangerous former student places her in increasingly serious peril. The book established several traits that would continue throughout Hillier’s work: flawed protagonists, manipulative villains, sexual obsession, escalating violence, and the unsettling possibility that a seemingly controlled life can unravel very quickly.
Creep was followed by Freak, which continues elements from the first novel rather than functioning as a completely separate thriller. Hillier later published The Butcher, a darker standalone involving a notorious serial killer case and secrets connected to a prominent Seattle family.
Her major breakthrough came with Jar of Hearts in 2018. The novel centers on Georgina “Geo” Shaw, a successful executive whose carefully constructed adult life collapses when the truth about a murder committed during her teenage years is exposed. Hillier structures the story around guilt, complicity, abusive relationships, and the question of how much responsibility a person bears for choices made under manipulation and fear. The novel won the International Thriller Writers Award for Best Hardcover Novel and significantly expanded her readership.
Little Secrets followed in 2020. It begins with the abduction of Marin Machado’s young son and then shifts into a psychological story about grief, marriage, betrayal, and revenge. Rather than treating the disappearance solely as a conventional missing-child mystery, Hillier examines how prolonged loss changes a marriage and how desperation can make otherwise rational people capable of dangerous decisions.
In Things We Do in the Dark, published in 2022, Hillier again combines murder with a protagonist whose past is central to the investigation. Paris Peralta is arrested after her wealthy celebrity husband is found dead, but the murder accusation threatens to expose another identity and an earlier life she has fought to leave behind. The novel also gives substantial attention to abuse, exploitation, reinvention, and the ways people survive environments that were designed to control them.
Hillier’s fiction is frequently described as psychological thriller, but it also draws heavily from crime and serial-killer fiction. Her books are generally darker than traditional domestic suspense. Violence can be explicit, and the emotional histories behind the crimes are often as important as the question of who committed them.
A recurring concern in her work is the gap between public identity and private reality. Successful professionals, respectable families, celebrities, spouses, and trusted authority figures may all be concealing histories that fundamentally alter how they should be understood. Hillier often places women at the center of these stories and allows them to be complicated rather than conventionally sympathetic. They may lie, make damaging choices, seek revenge, or carry serious guilt while still remaining emotionally compelling.
Her Filipino background has also become more visible in her later fiction, particularly through characters and family histories that reflect Filipino and Filipino American experiences. This has added another dimension to books already concerned with identity, secrecy, and reinvention.
Jennifer Hillier’s novels are primarily standalones, with the notable connection between Creep and Freak. As a result, most of her books can be read independently and in any order. What connects them is less continuity than sensibility: tightly controlled suspense, damaged but resilient characters, disturbing crimes, and a persistent interest in what people are willing to hide in order to preserve the lives they have built.