Below is the complete list of Karen Kingsbury’s Sunrise books in publication order. For this series, the chronological reading order is the same as the order of publication.
Sunrise Books in Publication Order
- Sunrise (2007)
Sunrise was published in 2007 and is listed as book #1 in the Sunrise series. - Summer (2007)
Published in 2007, Summer is listed as book #2 in the Sunrise series. - Someday (2008)
Someday is a 2008 release and appears as book #3 in the Sunrise series. - Sunset (2008)
In the Sunrise series, Sunset is book #4 and was published in 2008.
About Sunrise
Karen Kingsbury’s Sunrise series continues the Baxter family saga after the Redemption and Firstborn books, bringing several long-running emotional threads into a more settled but still deeply tested season. The four books—Sunrise, Summer, Someday, and Sunset—focus heavily on Dayne Matthews and Katy Hart, while also continuing the wider Baxter family story through marriage, illness, loss, fame, faith, and the ongoing consequences of choices made in earlier series.
The series begins with Sunrise, which places Dayne and Katy at the center as they prepare for marriage and try to imagine a future that can hold both Hollywood fame and the quieter faith-centered life Katy values. Their relationship has already been shaped by distance, publicity, and painful uncertainty, so the wedding is not treated as a simple finish line. Kingsbury uses it as the beginning of a new challenge: what happens when two people from very different worlds must build a shared life under constant attention?
Dayne’s role in the Sunrise books is especially important because he stands at the intersection of two parts of Kingsbury’s fictional world. He is a movie star with public visibility, professional pressure, and a complicated past, but he is also now tied to the Baxters, whose family life represents the belonging he has long needed. His marriage to Katy brings him closer to stability, yet fame remains a source of tension. Paparazzi, career demands, privacy, and the expectations of the entertainment industry continue to test the life they are trying to protect.
Katy’s journey is just as central. She is not simply Dayne’s love interest; she has her own history with Christian theater, mentorship, and the Bloomington community. Her challenge is to remain grounded while stepping into a world that can easily distort identity and purpose. Kingsbury often writes about the cost of public influence, and Katy’s story gives that theme a personal shape. She must decide how to support Dayne’s calling without losing the values and relationships that shaped her.
As the series moves through Summer and Someday, the Baxter family faces new seasons of joy and hardship. The books continue exploring Ashley and Landon, Luke and Reagan, John Baxter, and other familiar characters whose lives have already carried major emotional weight. Kingsbury’s approach is generational: a decision in one book can echo through marriages, children, friendships, and family gatherings many books later. That continuity is one of the main reasons the Sunrise series matters within the Baxter world.
Sunset brings this particular four-book arc to a reflective close. The title suggests ending, but Kingsbury uses it less as finality than as transition. The Baxters have changed dramatically since the opening Redemption books. They have gained family members, endured losses, faced public attention, struggled with faith, and learned that restoration does not mean life becomes easy. The final book in the sequence carries that sense of looking back while still moving forward.
The Sunrise series is best understood as a continuation of the Baxter family’s emotional and spiritual legacy, with Dayne and Katy’s marriage providing one of its strongest through-lines. It blends romance, family drama, Hollywood pressure, and Christian faith in the direct, heartfelt style that defines Kingsbury’s work. At its core, the series is about what comes after long-awaited dreams arrive: the daily work of protecting love, trusting God through uncertainty, and holding a family together as life keeps changing.