Series · romance

Fool's Gold

by Susan Mallery

The Fool's Gold series by Susan Mallery has 23 known books (publication-state breakdown unavailable).

Books: 23 known books
Publication dates: Not recorded
First recorded release: 2010
Status: hiatus
Shelved under: Romance
Last checked: 12 September 2026

Book one

Almost Perfect (2010)

Reading order

No reading order has been recorded yet.

About the Fool's Gold series

Fool's Gold is a fictional small town tucked into the California foothills where the local women have -- half-jokingly -- decided the men are all taken, gay, or emotionally unavailable, and the town itself becomes a running character: matchmaking grandmothers, a self-appointed welcoming committee, and a community that closes ranks around anyone who needs it. Susan Mallery built the series around linked trilogies rather than one continuous plot -- the "Perfect" books, the "Only" books, the "Summer" books, and so on -- each trio following a different set of sisters, friends, or townspeople toward their own happy ending while earlier couples reappear in the background.

The series became one of Mallery's signature achievements: it helped cement her move from category romance into the bigger single-title women's-fiction-plus-romance format she calls "Romance-Plus," and several entries (including Thrill Me in 2015) reached #1 on the New York Times bestseller list. The town's warmth, humor, and running gags -- the ongoing feud over the moose statue, the town's tight-knit group of gossiping seniors, the Fool's Gold Cattlemen's Rodeo -- gave the series a distinctive comfort-read identity that Mallery carried forward into her later small-town series.

How to read this series

Fool's Gold is designed to be read in publication order: it is built from a sequence of loosely connected trilogies (the Perfect books, the Only books, the Summer books, and onward), each centered on a different set of characters, with earlier couples making cameo appearances in later books. Reading in order lets the town and its recurring cast accumulate naturally, though because each book resolves its own central romance, later entries can also be read as standalones without serious confusion.

This list tracks the 23 full-length Fool's Gold novels. A handful of shorter novellas and anthology pieces set in the same town -- Sister of the Bride (2010), Only Us (2011), Halfway There (2013), Sweeter with You (2016), A Kiss in the Snow (2016), and the tie-in Susan Mallery's Fool's Gold Cookbook (2013) -- exist alongside the main sequence but are not tracked individually here.

Frequently asked questions

How many books are in the Fool's Gold series?

This page tracks the 23 full-length novels, published between 2010 and 2020. Several additional novellas and anthology pieces set in the same town exist but are not individually tracked here.

What order should I read Fool's Gold in?

Publication order. The series is built from linked trilogies -- the Perfect books, the Only books, the Summer books, and so on -- with earlier couples recurring in later entries.

Is Fool's Gold a completed series?

No new entries have appeared since A Fool's Gold Wedding (2020), and Susan Mallery has been focused on other series and standalones since, but no formal end to the series has been announced, so it is tracked as on hiatus rather than completed.

Do I need to read Fool's Gold before Mallery's other small-town series?

No -- Blackberry Island, Mischief Bay, Happily Inc, and Wishing Tree are separate, unconnected series set in their own fictional towns.