Charlotte ‘Charlie’ James Reading Order
| Title | Published | Buy on Amazon |
|---|---|---|
| The Paris Mystery | 2023 | Buy |
| Murder in Paris | 2026 | Buy |
Standalone Novels
| Title | Published | Buy on Amazon |
|---|---|---|
| The Midsummer Garden | 2017 | Buy |
| The Song of the Jade Lily / The Jade Lily | 2018 | Buy |
| The Lost Jewels | 2020 | Buy |
| The French Gift | 2021 | Buy |
| The Hidden Book | 2024 | Buy |
Kirsty Manning is an Australian author who splits her time between Melbourne and the Bellarine Peninsula. She came to fiction after a career in publishing and food writing, and her novels reflect that background in their attention to place, craft, and the physical details of daily life in different eras. Her debut, The Midsummer Garden (2017), established the dual-timeline structure she has returned to in most of her subsequent books.
Her standalone novels move across a wide geographic range. The Jade Lily (2018) connects wartime Shanghai to modern-day Melbourne, The Lost Jewels (2020) links a discovery beneath a London building site to Edwardian-era secrets, and The French Gift (2021) is set between wartime France and the present day. More recently, Manning launched the Charlotte “Charlie” James mystery series with The Paris Mystery (2023), following a young Australian journalist investigating a poisoning at a high-society party in 1940s Paris. Murder in Paris (2026) continues Charlie’s story in the same setting.