I had been hearing about Paige Toon for years, but until recently I never got round to picking up any of her books. When she released a YA contemporary in 2014 called The Accidental Life of Jessie Jefferson, I still wasn’t convinced she’d be my kind of author, because the cover made me think it might be a little bit young for me.
But I’d heard such great things about the Jessie Jefferson series, so last year I finally took the plunge and read the first one. It took no time at all for me to fall head-over-heels with Paige Toon’s writing style and her characters. I couldn’t wait to get my hands on the next two in the trilogy – I’ve reviewed them all here.
Once I’d finished all three Jessie Jefferson novels, I knew I needed more, so I started to investigate Paige Toon’s adult novels. I wandered into Waterstones and picked up The One We Fell In Love With, which was the only Paige Toon they had in stock.
It took me no more than a day to read it – I was hooked. Before I knew it, I was buying every single Paige Toon novel in existence (and I’m not even exaggerating).
Each novel is raw and honest, with deep explorations of relationships that go far beyond the fluffy chick lit I’ve read in the past. It’s never easy to work out where the story will take the characters, and sometimes you’ll be surprised by huge heartbreak among the moments of hilarity and swoon-worthy romance.
One of the things I love about Paige Toon’s novels is that they all weave together. The key is to read them in order of publication, which I did not do to start off with. It would have been a lot better if I’d read the Jonny Jefferson books before the Jessie Jefferson trilogy, because boy did I get a lot of spoilers from them. Thankfully I still bloody loved Jonny Be Good and Baby Be Mine (so, so much) and have been recommending them to anyone who’ll listen.
Paige Toon Books Order
Here’s the full list of Paige Toon novels in order of publication to help you work out where to start. I’ve made a note of the ones I’ve read so far, too.
- Lucy In The Sky – Read (Paige’s debut is brilliant and I’d definitely recommend reading this one first, but I think they get better and better from here!)
- Jonny Be Good – Read, definitely one of my favourites
- Chasing Daisy – Read, this was incredible! Lots of globetrotting which I really loved too.
- Pictures of Lily – Read, set in Australia which I loved because I went to Australia and visited lots of the same places last year
- Baby Be Mine – Read, I read this right after Jonny Be Good instead of waiting to read it in the right order, but I think that worked out alright. I couldn’t resist.
- The Accidental Life of Jessie Jefferson – Read (I don’t think this is the right order at this point if we’re going by publication year, but you’re going to want to read these right after Baby Be Mine and I’m fairly sure there’s no major crossover that’ll confuse you or spoil anything here)
- I Knew You Were Trouble (Jessie Jefferson #2)
- All About The Hype (Jessie Jefferson #3)
- One Perfect Summer – My next read!
- The Longest Holiday
- Thirteen Weddings
- The Sun in Her Eyes
- The One We Fell In Love With – Read, but I may reread it when I get to this point. It was brilliant.
- The Last Piece of My Heart
- Five Years From Now
- If You Could Go Anywhere – This one is out in May
You can add them all to your Goodreads here or buy them on Amazon here.
Have you read any Paige Toon novels? Which was your favourite? Are there any similar authors you’d recommend that I might not have discovered yet? Let me know in the comments!
