Reading order
| # | Title | Published | Author | Buy on Amazon |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | The Making of June | 2002 | Annie Ward | Buy |
| 2 | Beautiful Bad | 2019 | Annie Ward | Buy |
| 3 | The Lying Club | 2022 | Annie Ward | Buy |
Annie Ward has published three standalone novels across two decades, from The Making of June in 2002 to The Lying Club in 2022. Each book is an independent story, so they can be read in any order. The seventeen-year gap between her first and second novels is striking, with Beautiful Bad arriving in 2019 after a long silence, followed just three years later by The Lying Club.
The titles suggest a taste for darker subject matter. Beautiful Bad pairs an appealing adjective with a troubling one, and The Lying Club points toward secrets and deception. Even The Making of June, her earliest novel, carries a sense of someone being shaped or constructed. All three sit in the general fiction category, though the later titles lean toward suspense based on their names alone.
Ward’s recent output has been steadier than her early career might have suggested. With two novels in the span of three years after that long break, readers who discover her through Beautiful Bad or The Lying Club will find her back catalog is small but easy to work through.