Reading order
| # | Title | Published | Author | Buy on Amazon |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Free From Sin | 2022 | Karen Ann Hopkins | Buy |
| 2 | Dark Hollow Road | 2022 | Karen Ann Hopkins | Buy |
| 3 | Rush Into Evil | 2023 | Karen Ann Hopkins | Buy |
| 4 | Demons Live Here | 2024 | Karen Ann Hopkins | Buy |
| 5 | Misery Loves Calamity | 2025 | Karen Ann Hopkins | Buy |
| 6 | Grovel To None | 2025 | Karen Ann Hopkins | Buy |
| 7 | Wicked Winds Whisper | 2025 | Karen Ann Hopkins | Buy |
The Possum Gap series is Karen Ann Hopkins’s dark, Appalachian-set crime fiction saga. Possum Gap is a fictional small town tucked into the Kentucky mountains, a place hurt by closed industries and plagued by poverty, drug abuse, and the feuds of clannish hill families. Sheriff Sadie Mills holds the line in this community, juggling single motherhood with a caseload that ranges from sex trafficking to serial murder to the supernatural.
Hopkins draws on her own life in rural Kentucky to build a setting that feels lived-in and harsh. Sadie is assisted by Coroner Raymond Russo, who fled New Jersey and a family crime syndicate for what he hoped would be a quieter life. Together, they dig into crimes that often connect back to the surrounding Amish communities, creating overlap with Hopkins’s other long-running series, Serenity’s Plain Secrets. The Possum Gap books lean darker than her other work, mixing crime investigation with haunted properties, Appalachian folklore, and a genuine sense of menace. The series began in 2022 with Free From Sin and has grown to seven books as of 2025.