You know how it is.  Years ago you read a book you REALLY liked, then the sequel, which you also really liked.  Then… years pass and you realize that this author has written another six novels, all featuring the same characters, all part of a series!

When WILL you have time to go back and read the six you’ve missed?  Can you remember enough about the first two to thoroughly enjoy them?  Really, all you DO remember is that you enjoyed them and that you really liked the characters.

Yes, this just happened to me.  Case in point:

Author Julia Spencer-Fleming‘s Clare Fergusson and Russ Van Alstyne series.

Russ is the police chief of the small Adirondack town of Miller’s Kill, in upstate New York. Untraditional in every sense, Clare is not just a “lady,” she’s a tough ex-Army chopper pilot, and nobody’s fool.  When Clare arrives in Miller’s Kill, she is newly ordained and the first female Episcopal priest the town has ever known.  Russ Van Alstyne does not know what to make of her… other than he is deeply attracted to her.  There is one huge hitch however – Russ is married.

The series follows the pair as they investigate crimes, face ethical dilemmas, and stoically resist their feelings for one another.

The novels in the series are:

#1 “In the bleak midwinter”

#2 “A fountain filled with blood”

#3 “Out of the deep I cry”

#4 “To darkness and to death”

#5 “All mortal flesh”

#6 “I shall not want”

#7 “One was a soldier”

#8 “Through the evil days”

#9 “Hid from our eyes”  (not yet published)

Read this great interview with Julia Spencer-Fleming and the novelist Hank Phillippi Ryan.

Julia Spencer-Fleming

Julia Spencer-Fleming is the winner of the Agatha, Anthony, Macavity, Dilys, Barry, Nero Wolfe, and Gumshoe Awards, and an Edgar and Romantic Times RC Award finalist.

Why not give her series a try?