Reading order
The MacGregors reading order
- Playing the Odds1985
- Tempting Fate1985
- All the Possibilities1985
- One Man's Art1985
- For Now, Forever1987
- Rebellion1988
- In From the Cold1990
- The MacGregor Brides1997
- The Winning Hand1998
- The MacGregor Grooms1998
- The Perfect Neighbor1999
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11- 11 volumes
- Volumes
- 1985–1999
- Published
- about 60 h
- Reading time
- Completed
- Status
Quick answer
Affiliate link: buying through it supports BookRank at no extra cost to you.
Publication order
11 volumes1985–1999Completed
- Fourteen years of books about one family, and they were never meant to be read as a serial: each is a category romance that closes on its own, and Roberts wrote the first four in a single year, then returned every few years when she felt like it.
- Publication order is the order below and it doubles as family chronology — the couples from the early books turn up as parents and grandparents in the late ones, and Daniel MacGregor spends the whole series matchmaking.
- Start with Playing the Odds if you want to watch that happen; start anywhere if you only want one book.
A plan for the whole series
11 volumes, 3,390 pages, about 60 hours. At 45 min a day that is about 3 months.
Stages
4 stages, with 3 short books from outside the series between them. You finish around January 31, 2027, 11 days later than in one go.
- Stage 116 habout 3 weeksby November 20, 2026
- 1. Playing the Odds
- 2. Tempting Fate
- 3. All the Possibilities
- Short breakThe Fire Next Time · James Baldwin · 120 pp. · score 8.8
- Stage 219 habout 4 weeksby December 19, 2026
- 4. One Man's Art
- 5. For Now, Forever
- 6. Rebellion
- Short breakThe Emperor's Soul · Brandon Sanderson · 96 pp. · score 8.8
- Stage 315 h20 daysby January 11, 2027
- 7. In From the Cold
- 8. The MacGregor Brides
- 9. The Winning Hand
- Short breakOn Tyranny: Twenty Lessons from the Twentieth Century · Timothy Snyder · 128 pp. · score 8.4
- Stage 412 h16 daysby January 31, 2027
- 10. The MacGregor Grooms
- 11. The Perfect Neighbor
- The end of the series
We count 1.1 min per page, the pace of an average novel reader. Faster? Move the slider.
How this plan is calculated
The plan comes from the pages and ratings of each volume: we split the series into stages of about three weeks’ reading, size each break to the stage before it, and read the chance of finishing from how many readers rate the last volume compared with the first. How we work out the plan →
Every volume in order
No volume in this series has enough ratings to enter a ranking yet, so the list carries no scores — the order and the volumes are still complete.
Order checked by hand · Order and years: Wikidata (CC0). Spotted an error? Tell us. · Data updated October 29, 2026
Frequently asked questions
Which The MacGregors book is the longest?
“The MacGregor Brides” is the longest at 373 pages; the shortest is “In From the Cold” with 112 pages.
What should I read after The MacGregors?
Other series by Nora Roberts: Chronicles of The One, The Circle Trilogy, In Death.
