How to read Paula Hawkins books in order

Disclosure: This post may contain affiliate links, meaning I receive a small compensation to help support my blog if you decide to make a purchase through my links at no cost to you.

This list is about Paula Hawkins books in order of publication date! Paula Hawkins is an incredibly talented thriller author, and some of her work has already seen incredible popularity through books and book to screen adaptation.

Read on below to find a list of all of Paula Hawkins thriller work as well as book to screen adaptation news – an absolute must-watch!

List of Paula Hawkins books in order

Below are all of Paula Hawkins’ books in chronological order of publication date:

1. The Girl on the Train (2015)

2. Into the Water (2017)

3. A Slow Fire Burning (2021)

4. Blind Spot (2022) (Novella)

5. The Blue Hour (2024)

Paula Hawkins book tips & news

• Paula Hawkins’ books are all standalone novels and can be read in any order
• Blind Spot is a novella
• The Girl on the Train was my first Paula Hawkins read, and I can definitely absolutely recommend it as a starting point – I completely devoured it in a weekend
• If you’re looking to start from the beginning and work your way through, The Girl on the Train is your starting point
• Book to screen adaptation news: The Girl on the Train was adapted into a major film in 2016 (I highly recommend it!); DreamWorks acquired film rights to Into the Water; Blind Spot has had film rights acquired by Blumhouse Television

1 of 5: The Girl on the Train (2015)

Synopsis for The Girl on the Train:

EVERY DAY THE SAME
Rachel takes the same commuter train every morning and night. Every day she rattles down the track, flashes past a stretch of cozy suburban homes, and stops at the signal that allows her to daily watch the same couple breakfasting on their deck. She’s even started to feel like she knows them. Jess and Jason, she calls them. Their life—as she sees it—is perfect. Not unlike the life she recently lost.

UNTIL TODAY
And then she sees something shocking. It’s only a minute until the train moves on, but it’s enough. Now everything’s changed. Unable to keep it to herself, Rachel goes to the police. But is she really as unreliable as they say? Soon she is deeply entangled not only in the investigation but in the lives of everyone involved. Has she done more harm than good?

2 of 5: Into the Water (2017)

Synopsis for Into the Water:

A single mother turns up dead at the bottom of the river that runs through town. Earlier in the summer, a vulnerable teenage girl met the same fate. They are not the first women lost to these dark waters, but their deaths disturb the river and its history, dredging up secrets long submerged.
 
Left behind is a lonely fifteen-year-old girl. Parentless and friendless, she now finds herself in the care of her mother’s sister, a fearful stranger who has been dragged back to the place she deliberately ran from—a place to which she vowed she’d never return.
 
With the same propulsive writing and acute understanding of human instincts that captivated millions of readers around the world in her explosive debut thriller, The Girl on the Train, Paula Hawkins delivers an urgent, twisting, deeply satisfying read that hinges on the deceptiveness of emotion and memory, as well as the devastating ways that the past can reach a long arm into the present.
 
Beware a calm surface—you never know what lies beneath.

3 of 5: A Slow Fire Burning (2021)

Synopsis for A Slow Fire Burning:

When a young man is found gruesomely murdered in a London houseboat, it triggers questions about three women who knew him. Laura is the troubled one-night-stand last seen in the victim’s home. Carla is his grief-stricken aunt, already mourning the recent death of yet another family member. And Miriam is the nosy neighbor clearly keeping secrets from the police. Three women with separate connections to the victim. Three women who are – for different reasons – simmering with resentment. Who are, whether they know it or not, burning to right the wrongs done to them. When it comes to revenge, even good people might be capable of terrible deeds. How far might any one of them go to find peace? How long can secrets smolder before they explode into flame?

4 of 5: Blind Spot (2022) (Novella)

Synopsis for Blind Spot:

”How can you say things like this? How can you be so blind?”

Since they were kids, Edie, Jake and Ryan have been the closest of friends. It”s been the three of them against the world. Edie thought the bonds between them were unbreakable. So when Jake is brutally murdered and Ryan accused of the crime, her world is shattered.

Edie is alone for the first time in years, living in the remote house that she and Jake shared. She is grief-stricken and afraid – with good reason. Because someone is watching. Someone has been waiting for this moment. Now that Edie is alone, the past she tried so hard to leave behind is about to catch up with her…

5 of 5: The Blue Hour (2024)

Synopsis for The Blue Hour:

Welcome to Eris: a remote Scottish island with only one house, one inhabitant, one way out. Unreachable from the Scottish mainland for twelve hours each day.

Once home to Vanessa: A famous artist whose notoriously unfaithful husband disappeared twenty years ago in a baffling cold case.

Now home to Grace: A solitary creature of the tides, content in her own isolation.

But when a shocking discovery is made in an art gallery far away in London, a visitor comes calling.

And the secrets of Eris threaten to emerge….

Authors similar to Paula Hawkins

If you’re a fan of Paula Hawkins’ books, you’ll also love these other authors!

• Alice Feeney
• B.A. Paris
• Freida McFadden
• Gillian Flynn
• Katherine Faulkner
• Lisa Jewell
• Lucy Foley
• Megan Miranda
• Ruth Ware
• Shari Lapena