Emily Rath Books in Order: Jacksonville Rays, Second Sons & Devour Me (2026)
Emily Rath books in order matters more than usual, because her catalog mixes relationship structures: the Jacksonville Rays hockey series alone has a why-choose book, an MF reverse age gap, an MMF and an MM marriage of convenience. Add a Regency series, a Finnish-myth fantasy and Devour Me, her new dark paranormal romance from August 2026, and it’s easy to pick up the wrong book for your mood. Below is every Emily Rath book in reading order with a spoiler-free hook and the pairing for each, where to start, what’s new and the hotter Fractal Enigma picks for when you’ve finished the Rays.
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Emily Rath Books in Order: Where to Start
Start with Pucking Around. It’s the book that made Rath a TikTok name and a USA Today bestseller, and it sets up the Jacksonville Rays, the team and the found family the rest of the series lives in. Know what you’re buying: Pucking Around is a why-choose romance, one heroine with three men, and she doesn’t pick. Our Pucking Around before-you-read guide explains the setup without spoilers.
If you want one couple, start with Pucking Wild (MF). If you want MM, Pucking Strong stands on its own. If you came for the historical side, Beautiful Things opens the Second Sons series. Heat across the Rays books is 🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️: explicit, frequent and unembarrassed.
The Jacksonville Rays Series in Order
Also listed as the Pucking Around series. Four novels, a prequel novella and two bonus volumes, all set around a fictional NHL team in Jacksonville, Florida. Each novel follows a different relationship, and the couples from earlier books stay in the picture. The paperbacks were picked up by Kensington in the US and Penguin in the UK.
- That One Night (2023, prequel novella): Rachel Price’s hopes for a sports medicine fellowship collapse at her brother’s wedding brunch. She’s drinking alone in the hotel bar when a stranger walks in. Optional, but it’s the night that starts everything.
- Pucking Around (2023, why choose): Rachel lands a fellowship as the Rays’ physical therapist and discovers her one-night stand is now her patient. Then his surly best friend, the team’s new equipment manager, and a goalie hiding an injury make it three. Our list of books like Pucking Around has the readalikes.
- Pucking Ever After: Volume 1 (2023, bonus): six chapters of epilogue, set four years after Pucking Around.
- Pucking Wild (2023, MF reverse age gap): Tess Owens is mid-divorce and running from a public scandal. She ends up sharing a house with Ryan Langley, an injured Rays forward ten years younger than her. Not a why-choose book, despite the series. It debuted at number two in the US Kindle store. See our books like Pucking Wild guide.
- Pucking Ever After: Volume 2 (2023, bonus): seven more happily-ever-after chapters across five years, for Rachel’s group and for Tess and Ryan.
- Pucking Sweet (2024, MMF): Poppy St. James, the Rays’ new PR director, clashes with party-boy defenseman Lukas Novikov. One drunken night later she’s pregnant, and Colton Morrow makes it a triad.
- Pucking Strong (2025, MM): Teddy O’Connor, a former Rays intern turned doctor, has had a crush on Rays star Henrik Karlsson for years. When Henrik’s sister dies, he needs to bring his niece home to Sweden and meet custody requirements. Teddy marries him to make it work, and falls for real.
How the Rays Books Compare
The four novels share a team, a city and a found family, but they read very differently. Pucking Around is the biggest and busiest: a heroine with a career she won’t give up and three men who would rather share her than lose her. Pucking Wild slows down for a single couple and puts an older heroine rebuilding her life at the center, which makes it the easiest entry point if why choose isn’t for you. Pucking Sweet brings back the multi-partner structure with an unplanned pregnancy and a PR director who has to manage the scandal she’s part of. Pucking Strong is the softest of the four, a marriage of convenience between two men with a child, a grief storyline and a move to Sweden on the line.
What stays constant is the heat, the banter and the sense that the team looks after its own. If you only want one relationship structure, use the pairing labels above and pick your book; you won’t be lost.
The Second Sons Series in Order
Rath’s Regency series, written before the Rays: a penniless heroine, a ducal house party and several gentlemen competing for her attention. Deluxe limited editions of the books were released in 2025 and 2026.
- Beautiful Things (2022): Rosalie Harrow is twenty-two and penniless when she’s invited to a house party at Alcott Hall, where the new duke is hunting for a wife. She’s charmed by three men: Lord James, Lieutenant Renley and Mr. Burke.
- His Grace, The Duke (2022): James is trying to get his brother married and to keep his friend Burke away from Lady Olivia Rutledge. Rosalie upends the plan, and James, Burke and Renley each try to win her.
- Alcott Hall (2023): Lady Madeline Blair has to marry by New Year’s Eve to claim her aunt’s fortune, and proposes a marriage in name only to Charles Bray, who has come home to a town full of painful memories.
Fantasy, Paranormal and Standalones
- Whisky & Sin (2022): an omegaverse standalone. In a world where unbonded omegas are prized, Silas Wright flees an alpha pack and takes shelter in a mountain cabin with a stranger who is also an alpha.
- North Is the Night (2024, Tuonela 1): in the Finnish wilderness, Siiri sets out to rescue her friend Aina after a death goddess takes her to Tuonela, the underworld, with a Witch Queen and the king of the underworld in her way. A fantasy romance with Siiri and Aina at its heart.
- Devour Me (August 2026, Devour Me 1): Dáinn is a wraith bound to a dark witch. On Burr Island he meets historian and shop girl Birdie Rhodes, and the witch Jasper Prescott is drawn in too. A dark paranormal romance between a wraith, a witch and a human, and Rath’s newest book.
All Emily Rath Books in Publication Order
- Beautiful Things (2022)
- His Grace, The Duke (2022)
- Whisky & Sin (2022)
- Alcott Hall (2023)
- That One Night (2023)
- Pucking Around (2023)
- Pucking Ever After: Volume 1 (2023)
- Pucking Wild (2023)
- Pucking Ever After: Volume 2 (2023)
- Pucking Sweet (2024)
- North Is the Night (2024)
- Pucking Strong (2025)
- Devour Me (2026)
What’s Next for Emily Rath
Devour Me, out in August 2026, is the first book in a new dark paranormal series, so more of Dáinn’s world is coming. On the Rays side, Pucking Strong (2025) is the latest book, and we couldn’t find a confirmed title or date for a fifth Jacksonville Rays novel as of October 2026. No screen adaptation of the Rays series has been announced.
Why choose, MMF or MM: which Rays book is which?
Pucking Around is why choose (one heroine, three men). Pucking Wild is MF, one couple. Pucking Sweet is MMF. Pucking Strong is MM. If the labels are new to you, our explainers on why choose vs. reverse harem vs. polyamorous romance and MMF vs. MFM sort them out.
Read Next: Hotter Picks From Fractal Enigma
Rays readers want a team that becomes a family, more than one man in love with the heroine (or with each other) and nobody forced to choose. These Fractal Enigma reads keep the hockey, the triads and the MM heart, all at Inferno. For more, see our best why choose romance picks.
Unprecedented Access — Isla Wilde
Maya Bennett is the pro team’s newly hired sports-medicine therapist with exactly one rule: hands off the players. Then she falls for the charming rookie center, and his quiet, intimidating defenseman best friend admits he’s wanted her since training camp. Neither man is willing to walk away. Pucking Around’s setup, a medical professional inside a hockey team, as an MMF triad.
Heat: Inferno 🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️
Tropes: Hockey Romance, Why Choose, MMF Ménage, Teammates to Lovers, Secret Relationship, Forced Proximity, Praise Kink
Start reading Unprecedented Access →
Odd Man Rush — Chase Power
Magnus Eriksson, captain of the Chicago Wind, has loved his best friend Jax Miller for ten years without saying a word. Then a rookie arrives who sees everything and refuses to let them keep pretending. Three men, one bed, a 34/31/21 age spread. If Pucking Sweet made you want the triad all the way, this is MMM hockey poly. Free with Kindle Unlimited.
Heat: Inferno 🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️
Tropes: MMM Polyamory, Friends to Lovers, Teammates to Lovers, Age Gap, Grumpy/Sunshine, Secret Relationship
Yes, Captain — Jace Wilder
Marc Donovan is thirty-six, eight years into his captaincy and does not want to meet the twenty-two-year-old rookie drafted to replace him. Tyler Chen doesn’t plan to fall for the man whose jersey he grew up wearing. For readers who loved Pucking Strong’s MM pining and want the age gap and the praise turned up.
Heat: Inferno 🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️
Tropes: Captain/Rookie, Age Gap, Praise Kink, Forbidden Romance, Bi Awakening, Secret Relationship, Found Family
His Best Friend, Our Bed — Isla Wilde
Her husband wants to watch. His best friend, Gordon Pike, has wanted her for fifteen years and needs a spare room for ten weeks. The guest-room wall is very thin. An MFM why-choose with forty-something leads and a happily married couple, for readers who loved how Pucking Wild let an older heroine take what she wants.
Heat: Inferno 🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️🌶️
Tropes: Husband’s Best Friend, Why Choose, MFM Ménage, Fifteen Years of Pining, Thin Walls, 40-Something Leads, Romantic Comedy
Start reading His Best Friend, Our Bed →
FAQ: Emily Rath Reading Order
Do you need to read the Jacksonville Rays books in order?
Not strictly. Each novel follows a new relationship to its own happy ending. Reading in order is better, because the Pucking Ever After volumes and the later books assume you know Rachel’s group, and the team and friend group carry over from book to book.
Which Emily Rath book should I read first?
Pucking Around for why choose, Pucking Wild for a single MF couple, Pucking Strong for MM, Beautiful Things for Regency.
How spicy are Emily Rath’s books?
The Rays books are 5 chilis: explicit, frequent and multi-partner where the pairing calls for it. Our romance spice levels guide explains the scale; every Fractal Enigma pick above is Inferno too.
Is Pucking Around being adapted?
No adaptation has been announced as of October 2026. Rath’s newest release is Devour Me (August 2026), and Pucking Strong (2025) is the latest Rays book.
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