Below is the complete list of Lynn Cahoon books in order. For each series, the chronological reading order is the same as the order of publication.
Publication Order of Bainbridge Island Mystery Books
Publication Order of Castle View Books
as Lynn Collins
Publication Order of Cat Latimer Books
Publication Order of The Council Books
as Lynn Collins
Publication Order of Farm-to-Fork Mysteries Books
Publication Order of The Haunted Life Cozy Mystery Books
Publication Order of Kitchen Witch Books
Publication Order of Shawnee Valley Books
as Lynn Collins
Publication Order of Survivors’ Book Club Mysteries Books
Publication Order of Tourist Trap Books
Publication Order of Standalone Books
About Lynn Cahoon
Lynn Cahoon is an American author best known for cozy mysteries built around small communities, independent women, local businesses, and amateur investigations. A New York Times and USA Today bestselling writer, she has created several continuing mystery worlds, including the Tourist Trap Mysteries, Cat Latimer Mysteries, Farm-to-Fork Mysteries, Kitchen Witch Mysteries, Survivors’ Book Club Mysteries, Haunted Life Mysteries, and Bainbridge Island Mysteries. Her books range from traditional small-town cozies to light paranormal mysteries, but they share an emphasis on recurring characters and communities that develop alongside the crimes.
Originally from Idaho, Cahoon grew up with the kind of small-town environment that would later become central to much of her fiction. Her path to publication was not immediate. Although she became interested in storytelling while young, she chose political science rather than creative writing in college and spent years working before seriously pursuing a writing career.
A major turning point came after Cahoon was diagnosed with breast cancer. The experience prompted her to reconsider the goals she had postponed, including becoming a published author. She returned seriously to writing, studied the craft, and eventually sold her first books. Her earliest published fiction included contemporary romance, but cozy mysteries soon became the defining part of her career.
Her breakthrough mystery was Guidebook to Murder, published in 2014 as the first Tourist Trap Mystery. The novel introduces Jill Gardner, owner of Coffee, Books, and More in the fictional coastal California town of South Cove. Jill’s combination of bookselling, community involvement, and amateur detection established a durable framework for the series. Guidebook to Murder won the Reader’s Crown for Mystery Fiction, while Tourist Trap developed into Cahoon’s longest-running and best-known sequence.
Cahoon expanded into another literary setting with the Cat Latimer Mysteries, beginning with A Story to Kill. Cat is a writer who runs writing retreats in Aspen Hills, Colorado, creating mysteries in which authors, manuscripts, literary ambitions, and personal secrets naturally intersect. The series allowed Cahoon to bring the world of writers and readers directly into her mystery plots.
Food and rural life became particularly important in the Farm-to-Fork Mysteries. Beginning with Who Moved My Goat Cheese?, the series follows Angie Turner and centers on the County Seat restaurant in Idaho. Cahoon uses farms, regional ingredients, restaurant culture, and relationships among local producers as part of the investigative setting.
She added a supernatural element with the Kitchen Witch Mysteries, launched with One Poison Pie. Set in fictional Magic Springs, Idaho, the series follows Mia Malone as she builds a culinary business while discovering that magic is more closely connected to her family and community than she had realized. The books retain Cahoon’s cozy structure while incorporating witchcraft, familiars, and paranormal traditions.
The Survivors’ Book Club Mysteries, beginning with The Tuesday Night Survivors’ Club, combine crime solving with the relationships formed among cancer survivors. Cahoon has also continued expanding her bibliography with the Haunted Life paranormal cozy mysteries and the Bainbridge Island Mysteries, the latter featuring Meg Gates and her attempt to create a practical guide to amateur sleuthing.
Books and food recur frequently across Cahoon’s fictional worlds, but community is the stronger unifying element. Her protagonists often operate businesses or organizations that naturally place them at the center of local relationships. A bookstore, restaurant, writing retreat, catering venture, or book club becomes more than a convenient location for a murder: it provides the social network through which secrets, rivalries, friendships, and recurring characters can develop over multiple books.
Cahoon has become a prolific figure in contemporary cozy mystery fiction, maintaining several series while regularly introducing new settings and protagonists. Her work combines the puzzle structure expected of the genre with continuing personal storylines, allowing individual murders to be resolved while relationships and communities evolve across the larger series.