Romancing the Clarksons

About the Romancing the Clarksons series

Romancing the Clarksons follows four estranged siblings honoring their late mother's dying wish: road-tripping together from California to New York to jump into the Atlantic Ocean off Coney Island on New Year's Day, just as she once did with the real-life Coney Island Polar Bear Club. When their car breaks down in the small town of Hurley, New Mexico, the trip stalls out -- and each Clarkson sibling, in turn, falls for someone they meet along the way or back home. It opens with Too Hot to Handle, in which chef Rita Clarkson, still living in her celebrated mother's shadow, falls for Hurley local Jasper Ellis while her siblings wait out the car repairs.

Published by Forever between 2016 and 2017, the four full-length novels are joined by one shorter novella, Too Close to Call, which slots in partway through the run. The road-trip framework gives the series a stronger throughline than most of Bailey's other series -- the siblings' shared grief, old resentments, and the promise they're keeping to their mother run underneath each individual romance. Readers who enjoy Bailey's blunt, physical chemistry wrapped around real family stakes and a slow-healing sibling relationship will find this an easy series to binge.

How to read this series

Publication order, starting with Too Hot to Handle. Each of the four Clarkson siblings gets their own book as the family's cross-country road trip unfolds; Too Close to Call is a shorter novella that fits between books three and four. Reading in order lets the siblings' shared journey -- and the promise they made their late mother -- build properly across the series.