Reading order
| # | Title | Published | Author | Buy on Amazon |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Careless Love | 1966 | Alice Adams | Buy |
| 2 | Families and Survivors | 1974 | Alice Adams | Buy |
| 3 | Rich Rewards | 1980 | Alice Adams | Buy |
| 4 | Superior Women | 1984 | Alice Adams | Buy |
| 5 | Roses, Rhododendron | 1987 | Alice Adams | Buy |
| 6 | Second Chances | 1988 | Alice Adams | Buy |
| 7 | Almost Perfect | 1993 | Alice Adams | Buy |
| 8 | A Southern Exposure | 1995 | Alice Adams | Buy |
| 9 | Medicine Men | 1997 | Alice Adams | Buy |
| 10 | After the War | 2000 | Alice Adams | Buy |
| 11 | Listening to Billie | 2011 | Alice Adams | Buy |
| 12 | Caroline’s Daughters | 2011 | Alice Adams | Buy |
Alice Adams published twelve standalone novels between 1966 and 2000, with two earlier titles reissued in 2011. Her debut, Careless Love, established the themes she would return to throughout her career: women trying to build lives on their own terms, often in the shadow of difficult relationships.
Her novels are set mostly in San Francisco and the American South. Books like Superior Women and A Southern Exposure follow groups of characters over long stretches of time, while others like Medicine Men take a more focused look at a single woman’s experience. Adams wrote with dry wit and a refusal to let her characters off easy, which gives her fiction a satisfying honesty.