L.J. Sellers books in order

Sula Moreno knows too much. Working in public relations at Prolabs Pharmaceutical, it’s her job to put a positive―and profitable―spin on the company’s products. That includes the exciting new antidepressant Nexapra, the linchpin in a corporate merger that will save the faltering Prolabs from going under. But when Sula discovers the shocking truth about a lethal flaw in the drug, there’s no good way to spin the potential death of millions of consumers.

Karl Rudker, the company’s ruthless CEO, disagrees. To safeguard Prolabs’s bottom line―and his own place at the top―he’ll do whatever’s necessary to keep the facts about Nexapra’s dangerous side effects secret, even if it means putting an end to more than just Sula’s job. And when the only other person who can expose Rudker ends up murdered, Sula knows her boss is playing for keeps. But she also knows taking on her psychopathic superior is the only way to stop a fatal drug from flooding the market…and unleashing a wave of death.

NB: Previously available as The Suicide Effect.

As a thirty-two-year-old, single restaurant manager, Jenna McClure is all too aware of her ticking biological clock. Elizabeth Demauer, a fertility clinic doctor, helps her patients bear children―a joy she can never share. But these two women have more in common than just a yearning for motherhood. When they cross paths, Elizabeth sees not only the sister she never knew existed but the once-in-a-lifetime chance to realize her deepest desire…by any means necessary.

Together with her lover―a rogue physician and charismatic cult leader―Elizabeth masterminds the ultimate theft. But their carefully laid plans could be derailed by Eric Troutman, the heroic reporter who’s fallen in love with Jenna and will stop at nothing to solve her sudden disappearance. And the more his relentless investigation tightens the noose around Elizabeth and David, the more their “victimless crime” threatens to become anything but.

NB: Previously available as Beyond Conception.

Just over a decade into our future, America is a stricken country where jobs are scarce, health care is a luxury for the wealthy, and hope rides on the annual Gauntlet games―a punishing physical and mental competition where the victor brings not only pride but an economic windfall back to his or her home state.

In the 2023 games, former police detective turned paramedic Lara Evans represents Oregon. But the contest’s notorious obstacles and cutthroat rivalry may be the least of her challenges. After saving a government bureaucrat’s life―and literally dodging a bullet―she finds herself in the crosshairs of a relentless hit man. And when another Gauntlet contestant is murdered, a stroke of bad luck puts Lara on the wrong end of damning evidence.

Still, the games must go on. And with the country, the law, and a killer watching her every move, Lara must use all her strength and savvy to beat the odds, claim the prize, and win back her life in the most dangerous game of all.

NB: Previously available as The Arranger.

Two world-renowned scientists have disappeared, and FBI agent Andra Bailey is assigned to find them and hunt down the kidnapper. She’s exactly the right person to get it done. In her personal life, Bailey works hard to control her sociopathic tendencies. But on the job, her cold logic comes in handy.

The agent soon suspects that a rare-metal shortage may be the link between the disappearances and that the motive is far more dangerous than she imagined. With the tech market in turmoil and prices sky-high, electronics companies and their power-hungry CEOs are ready to do anything―even kill―to keep production lines going.

When a third scientist disappears, Bailey throws caution aside to track the crimes to their source. But the clock is ticking on the scientist’s life, and when the bureau pulls its support, Bailey is on her own to stop the meltdown.

When bodies with unusual traits start showing up in the morgue, intern Taylor Lopez is alarmed enough to dig into the dead people’s profiles. After discovering they were born at the same clinic two decades earlier, she investigates further and uncovers a shocking list. With the realization that more gender-fluid people are targeted for elimination, Taylor kicks her investigation into high gear. But Major Blackburn, the researcher who conducted the experiment, isn’t about to let anything interfere with his plans.Soon Taylor is in deep trouble and needs the help of FBI Special Agent Bailey. 

As Bailey scrambles to track down leads, events spin out of control and she finds herself blocked at every step by powerful military forces. With the clock ticking on Phase 2 of the experiment, can Bailey and Taylor uncover the truth in time to save the other young subjects?

Jayla’s world shatters when her sister goes over the wall and is killed by Savages—but grief is just the beginning of her nightmare. When she cries in public, Enforcers drag her off to a brutal detention camp, where she begins to doubt the enclave. Yet between those moments, she meets Ronin, a kindred empath.

Ronin, a bodytaker, experiences his own awakening when he tinkers with his state-issued phone and receives a message from a stranger outside the wall. He also falls madly in love with Jayla—a woman of a different class whom he can never be with.

As their troubles escalate to a life-and-death crisis, so do the enclave’s. Jayla and Ronin are determined to expose the deceitful authoritarian regime. But to free everyone, will they have to sacrifice their own lives?

What if, without warning, you had to go into hiding and leave everything behind?

Remi Bartell faces that terrifying moment and takes only her dog to start over with a new life.

Just as she settles in, lightning strikes her. Remi temporarily loses her memory and makes one small mistake—that costs her everything. The crime-family patriarch she’s hiding from kidnaps her and forces her to carry out his personal vendetta. The trauma reveals buried memories from her old life that will either destroy her or save her.

In these two short thrillers, bestselling author L.J. Sellers explores how the dark side of human nature takes over in crucial, fearful moments and leads to irreversible, life-changing repercussions.

In Dirty Jobs, ex-con Eddie Lucas makes his living doing maintenance work no one else wants to do. He’s worked hard to stay out of trouble. But when he walks in on a violent scene at a client’s house, he finds himself once again on the wrong side of the law. He does one noble thing in his entire life, but it’s for the wrong person at the wrong time.

In Love You to Death, Kelly, a weary middle-aged nurse, has sacrificed everything for her only son—an addict who can’t seem to stay out of trouble or out of debt. Held up at gunpoint one night, Kelly can take no more. Pushed to the edge, she fights back and surprises herself with an unexpected chance at freedom.

Inspired first by a layoff, then by fellow crime-fiction author Joe Konrath, L.J. Sellers decided to put novel writing first with the goal of making a living from fiction. 

Along the way to her amazing success, she wrote numerous blogs about her goals, methods, writing process, and how she adapted to a changing industry.

In this book, she shares humorous personal essays, nonfiction features, and a host of blogs about her journey to become a full-time novelist. The book also includes a long chapter with writing, editing, and promotion advice, as well as detailed information about her writing process. 

The final chapter highlights features she wrote about amazing women in her hometown of Eugene, Oregon. L.J. Sellers is an award-winning journalist and the author of the bestselling and highly praised Detective Jackson mysteries as well as three standalone thrillers. All nine of her novels have an average 4.5-star rating on Amazon.

Agent Jamie Dallas loves undercover assignments that get her out of the Phoenix Bureau. But when a woman and her baby disappear from an isolated community of preppers in Northern California, she knows the risk of infiltrating the armed group is dangerously high.

Once inside the compound, she discovers that the brothers who founded Destiny are scheming something far more devious than kidnapping or murder. Meanwhile, her local FBI contact is pulled from her team and assigned to investigate the murder of a woman found at the bottom of a motel pool.

Soon Dallas finds herself in deeper trouble than she's ever encountered—with no way to reach her contacts. Can she break free of the bunker and stop their bizarre end-of-world plans? Will Agent McCullen identify the killer in time to help?

Agent Jamie Dallas loves undercover assignments that get her out of the Phoenix Bureau. But her new case is risky—an FBI agent is mysteriously dead, and a medical device company is targeting competitors with dangerous acts of sabotage. 

Dallas infiltrates TecLife, spies on her new bosses, and tries to steal a sample of their mutant bacteria. But soon her life is in danger when she’s caught in a battle between companies, each hoping to kill the competition while launching a billion-dollar blockbuster. Meanwhile, a famous actor is found beaten and murdered in an abandoned cannery, and a young detective lands the case of a lifetime. 

Determined to bring justice to his favorite star, Detective Cortez follows a trail of evidence that leads to the medical-product war—but he has no idea how deadly it is. Can Dallas survive long enough to stop a researcher who’s gone over the edge and save millions of consumers from getting caught in the crossfire?

While skydiving with an adventure group, FBI Agent Jamie Dallas overhears plans to carry out criminal acts against a politician. Believing the group may have already committed murder, the bureau sends Dallas to infiltrate the activists. But to worm her way inside the tight-knit clan, Dallas makes dangerous compromises and starts to sympathize with their cause. She ends up so deep undercover she can’t make contact with the bureau.

Across town, a Washington DC detective investigates a death that looks like a simple “hooker homicide.” But as Detective Larson peels away the layers, she uncovers something far more sinister, something deeply connected to a high-profile judge’s death.

Meanwhile, working against her own conscience, Agent Dallas struggles to gather evidence and push the activist group toward the major takedown the FBI has orchestrated. But inside the group’s safe house, another imposter lurks, and when the real motive surfaces, Dallas is caught in a cunning trap that will make her both a victim and a killer.

Can the law enforcement players come together in time to help Dallas, or is she on her own—to live or die—depending only on her wits and timing?

FBI Agent Jamie Dallas specializes in undercover assignments that take her to new locations, where she infiltrates criminal groups. 

In THE TRIGGER, she searches for a missing woman by joining an isolated group of survivalists and uncovers a social-meltdown plot. 

In THE TARGET, she investigates a biotech company that’s engaged in corporate sabotage—and murder! 

In THE TRAP, she infiltrates a group of prison-reform activists, getting in so deep, she’s on her own when her cover is blown and her life is on the line.

District Attorney Clara Hitchens faces two major battles—exposing a corrupt DA, who might be her boss, while handling a high-profile trial with a victim who isn’t sympathetic. When Hitch runs into Nate Conner, he’s the last person she would expect support from.

Newly released from jail, Conner has his own problems. A thug is pressuring him for money, and his little sister Kaylee is missing. Determined to go straight, Conner decides that Hitch is the one person he can trust with his suspicions.

They develop a plan, but everything goes sideways.

The snitch who testified against Conner turns up dead, and all the evidence points to him. Then another key player is murdered, and Kaylee goes deeper into hiding, On top of all that, Hitch’s trial gets derailed when the victim’s OnlyFans videos are revealed in court—a devastating blow.

Can Conner and Hitch beat the odds to bring down the corrupt prosecutor, win the trial, and find Kaylee in time to save her?

As a nurse and youth counselor at Eugene, Oregon’s Planned Parenthood clinic, Kera Kollmorgan has endured her share of harassment from fanatical abortion foes. But it only strengthens her resolve. Then a bomb blast rips through the clinic and, soon after, a teenage girl Kera recently treated is found naked and murdered in a dumpster. Kera fears the bitter abortion war in her small community has reached a terrifying new level.

The sexualized killing of Jessie Davenport hits close to home for Detective Wade Jackson. Raising his teenage daughter alone, he understands better than anyone the predatory world that threatens young women. But he never expects his grim investigation will lead to a teenage Bible-study club, the dark underside of high school life, and even the halls of political power. Now he must confront two shockingly different suspects with nothing in common―except a taste for sex and violence.

As Jackson’s manhunt intensifies, Kera becomes a marked woman, stalked by a crazed crusader. And when the fates of the detective and nurse intersect, a world of righteous rage, sexual secrecy, and chilling obsession threatens to blow them apart.

When young social worker Raina Hughes arrives at a ramshackle trailer outside of town, she’s on a mission to protect a small boy from abusive parents. But when Detective Wade Jackson arrives at the same location hours later, his mission is far grimmer: investigating Raina’s murder.

The victim’s vicious death is a shocking event for laid-back Eugene, Oregon―and even more chilling when one of Jackson’s fellow officers suspects an elusive rapist whose appetite is turning murderous. Jackson thinks he’s got a tight case against the meth-head dad who menaced Raina, but the evidence seems to leave his suspect in the clear―and a homicidal sex offender still on the loose. 

What Jackson fears is that his new love affair with nurse Kera Kollmorgan may be knocking him off his game. And what he never expects is to find an ally in savvy reporter Sophie Speranza, who may have stumbled on the killer’s shocking motive. But even as Jackson and Sophie team up to tighten the noose, their quarry zeroes in on his next victim―ready to take his twisted game to the next level.

Monday morning, a young mother disappears after a doctor’s appointment.

Monday evening, a young socialite leaves a risqué lounge after an evening of drinking and never makes it home. Detective Wade Jackson, of Eugene, Oregon’s Violent Crimes Unit, ends up with both cases.

The missing mother is Danette Blake, a friend of the family, and all signs indicate she may have fled the pressures of life. But Jackson’s personal search for her must be set aside when Courtney, the socialite with rich, powerful parents, turns up mysteriously dead in a public place. Pressured by the chief of police, Jackson and his team descend into Courtney’s wanton world, uncovering a handful of suspects with disturbing motives.

Although it’s hardly the first time a case has led Jackson into dark territory, the discovery that the two disappearances are connected brings him face-to-face with the last person he expects. And leaves him wondering, where is the other missing woman?

The scene is a bloodbath: Jared and Carla Walker lie brutally bludgeoned and stabbed to death, along with their young son, while their teenage daughter barely clings to life. 

Detective Wade Jackson’s boss believes a gang of carjackers has graduated to home invasion…and homicide. But there are other suspects in the mix: a bitter brother-in-law convinced the Walkers ripped him off big-time, a young heroin addict in forbidden love with the Walker’s daughter, and the shady former employer who was being blackmailed by Jared Walker.

Still, with only inconclusive forensic evidence and a sole survivor who can’t remember anything, Jackson and his team are getting nowhere fast. And so is Jackson’s personal life―as he duels over money with his alcoholic ex, struggles to raise his teenage daughter, and fights to keep his high-pressure job from destroying his new romance. 

Add the looming specter of departmental downsizing, and things couldn’t possibly get worse. At least until the only living witness to the massacre vanishes―along with the shocking truth buried in her mind―and the killer follows in hot pursuit.

A decade earlier, Hector Vargas confessed to the cold-blooded murder of Detective Jackson's parents. Now, facing his own death, Vargas reaches out from prison to declare his innocence. Armed with the shocking new truth that dirty cops railroaded Vargas, Jackson must revisit the painful past to get justice for his parents.

Meanwhile, Gina Stahl awakens from a two-year coma with a chilling message: He tried to kill me. Detective Lara Evans must probe the young woman's desperate claim that her near death was not failed suicide, but attempted murder.

As their investigations overlap, Jackson tangles with his estranged brother, hunts a loan shark turned philanthropist, and confronts his parents' long-buried secrets, while Evans contends with a relentless reporter and shadows a fellow cop with a dangerous reputation. But the more dark revelations they make, the deadlier the resistance they face from a killer terrified of losing everything...and willing to stop at nothing.

Outside a local bar, a man is drugged and slashed to death with a scalpel. Inside a local bank, a woman suffers a fatal heart attack after learning her life savings have been plundered.

The crimes are as different as the night and day they occur. The vicious murder is a case for Eugene’s Violent Crimes Division, but the more Detective Wade Jackson and his homicide team probe into the death of Rafel Mazari―an Iraq War veteran with disturbing secrets―the more it appears that one crime’s victim may be the other’s perpetrator.

While there’s damning evidence that Mazari died at the hands of his cheating wife, a phantom internet veterans’ charity―the same one that wiped out the heart attack victim’s bank account―keeps cropping up at every turn of Jackson’s investigation. And when Mazari’s best friend turns up murdered in identical fashion, Jackson suspects a motive that’s deeper, darker, and more devastating than broken vows and love turned lethal.

When a call from his daughter, Katie, interrupts his much-needed vacation, Detective Wade Jackson knows it’s bad news. As Katie tearfully announces that her mom―Jackson’s ex-wife, Renee―is missing, Jackson suspects alcoholic Renee has climbed back inside the bottle that destroyed their marriage. But the truth is far worse: kidnappers have snatched Renee and are demanding ransom from her wealthy fiancé.

The very same night, someone dumps a savagely beaten University of Oregon coed on the doorstep of the ER. Jackson’s protégé, Detective Lara Evans, must identify the unconscious victim, then track down the assailant with no leads to go on…except the whispered rumor of a secret sorority.

Meanwhile, Eugene’s new FBI liaison, Agent Carla River, takes charge of Renee’s high-tech ransom operation while Jackson comforts his distressed daughter and retraces the steps of the mother she holds dear. But as the rescue takes a deadly twist and the suspects seem willing to let Renee die rather than crack under interrogation, Jackson worries that Katie will never forgive him if her mother is lost forever.

Fresh off the leave-of-absence he took following his ex-wife’s tragic death, Detective Wade Jackson’s life is in upheaval. He struggles to keep his grief-stricken, out-of-control daughter, Katie, from succumbing to the same alcoholism demon as her mother, while trying to reinvigorate a passion for his work. 

When a body is found in a local storage unit, Jackson hopes a simple open-and-shut homicide case will help him get back on track. But when the victim is identified as ex-con Craig Cooper―a former meth addict who did time for bank robbery, the spoils of which were never recovered―it becomes quickly apparent that the case will be challenging.

The same night Cooper is murdered, a firebomb goes off in a bottled water factory on the other side of town. The prime suspects are from an organization called Love the Earth―eco-terrorists believed to be modeling themselves after the infamous Earth Liberation Front. Fears that new group is plotting another attack bring agents from the ATF and FBI to town, among them Jamie Dallas, an undercover agent with a wild streak, and Carla River, an FBI agent with a complicated past. 

When Jackson discovers a shocking link between the murder case and the bombing, they will have to work together to solve both crimes before they blow up in their faces.

When a young mother is found murdered in a derelict Eugene neighborhood―and her terrified young son is discovered hiding beneath the floorboards―Detective Jackson reluctantly takes the case. His own life is already in chaos, with his runaway teenage daughter, Katie, still gone and his girlfriend, Kera, facing her own family crisis. Matters get more complicated when the orphaned boy bonds with Jackson, triggering unexpected emotions and compromising his ability to investigate. 

Meanwhile, Detective Evans, one of Jackson’s most valuable colleagues, is pulled off the case to look into the death of a University of Oregon football star―leaving the homicide task force shorthanded. As Jackson works to solve the murder and find a home for little Benjie, he soon faces devastating choices that threaten everything he holds dear.

On a chilly Oregon morning, a policeman is found slain near the homeless camp where he’d been passing out blankets the night before. When Detective Jackson is called to the scene, witnesses point to a pair of mentally ill street twins as the likely perpetrators.

As the case progresses and arrests are made, the homeless community revolts against the police, and the chaos pulls detectives away from their investigations. Tension mounts, and the evidence begins to link a series of sexual assaults to the death of the murdered officer. The task force is quickly faced with a dangerous decision: Should they risk the life of another young victim to catch the killer?

Detective Wade Jackson is in for a shock when he’s summoned to the police chief’s office―his sergeant has been poisoned, and Jackson’s been tapped to lead the investigation.

But before the Eugene Violent Crimes unit has a chance to respond, two people are gunned down at a licensed marijuana nursery. Jackson and his colleague Detective Lara Evans are on the case―but there are more suspects than evidence, and the crime is baffling.

Soon, more people are hospitalized, and when Evans discovers a link between the poisonings and edible pot, she and Jackson suspect that the product tampering and shootings are connected.

As the task force investigates new leads, it’s clear that the detectives are on a dangerous trail, one that forces them to question everyone―even their own team. But they’ll have to uncover the truth fast…before the next victim falls prey.

When a frustrated ex-con takes a young family and their home hostage, the only officer he’ll speak with is Detective Wade Jackson. But Jackson already has his hands full running the Violent Crimes Unit and overseeing the investigation of a series of random violent assaults. While Jackson juggles his chaotic single-parent home life with hostage negotiations, the attacks point toward a troubled company that recycles industrial oil. With several lawsuits pending, the CEO of WestPac emerges as a likely suspect in the latest assault on a trial lawyer. 

As Jackson tries to deliver the hostage taker demands, a powerful politician interferes for personal reasons, and the standoff turns bloody. Meanwhile, the latest assault victim dies, and Jackson’s team must scramble to identify the assailant. But can they piece together all the connections in time to prevent another murder and save the family?

When a woman is murdered with her own food product, Detective Jackson takes the case—even though his brother is hospitalized with a mystery illness and his heart is torn between two women. 

A Peeping Tom neighbor surfaces as an obvious suspect, but when a second woman with similar looks is strangled, the task force fears they’re dealing with a serial killer. The evidence soon turns to one obvious connection—Jackson’s brother, Derrick, who had dated both women. But both victims had dangerous secrets, and everything the team uncovers creates a new twist.

When a young woman suddenly disappears, a new motive falls into place. But can the task force find her in time to save her?

When a victim with no ID is found murdered, Detective Jackson believes it’s another hate crime. He rounds up members of a local white nationalist group, but his task force doesn’t have enough evidence to hold them.

Soon after, another woman dies of what looks like a possible suicide. Yet a witness claims the victim had argued with her estranged husband right before. The team has to split up to investigate both deaths, and the detectives are pushed to their limits. 

When they finally identify the first victim and a reporter reveals a shocking detail about the second, Jackson realizes the crimes are connected. But without any solid evidence, he has to extract a high-stakes confession from a suspect with everything to lose.

Roxanne MacFarlane is the Extractor―a former CIA agent who specializes in rescuing people from dangerous situations. She lives on the edge and works outside the law, but desperate families know she’s the only operative who can bring their missing loved ones home. Driven by guilt over the loss of her sister to a polygamous cult, she will stop at nothing to save her clients.

When Dave and Jenny Carson ask her to find their daughter, Emma, and extract her from a charismatic cult leader who preys on young women with guilt issues, Rox is eager to help them. But the experimental treatment she just started in order to improve her atypical brain patterns forces her to face conflicting newfound emotions while working feverishly to find the secret compound and craft a strategy to get Emma out.

When the bodies of young women who match Emma’s description turn up, Rox must fast-forward her plans. But the situation is more complicated and dangerous than she realizes, and her own life is soon in jeopardy. Can Rox save Emma and bring down a ruthless predator before more young women fall victim?

Roxanne MacFarlane is the Extractor, a former CIA agent who rescues people from dangerous situations. When she's asked to find a correctional wilderness camp and bring home a troubled teen named Josh, she's skeptical—about the father who wants his son back and her own ability to pull it off. 

When another boy turns up missing, she fears the bootcamp and its owner could be deadly. Determined to find and rescue both teenagers, Rox works around the clock to locate the camp. But someone tips off the director, making her mission nearly impossible. 

Soon after, Josh's mother is murdered, and Rox realizes the boys know a dark secret and are living on borrowed time. Can she find the base and extract the kids before the killer silences them?

Logan Wilmont dreams of freedom, but he’s trapped in a mental institution where he doesn’t belong, by a mother who wants to keep him quiet. He knows he quirky, but not insane—except for when he sees the other boy who looks just like him. His only hope is Rox MacFarlane, an ex-CIA agent who specializes in extractions. Hired by Logan’s aunt, Rox and her partner Marty agree to take on their most difficult case. 

Penetrating a locked facility is challenging enough, but Logan’s hallucinations work against them, and at times, they’re not even sure they can trust their client. Yet Rox’s own autism makes her empathize with the teenager, and she’s determined to break him out. 

As she and Marty plan a rescue, a reporter who’s investigating the psychiatric hospital is brutally murdered, and the clock starts ticking for Logan. Can the Extractors free the boy before his mother silences his secrets once and for all?

Agent Dallas goes undercover to bring down a pack of online sexual predators, but the secrets she uncovers are more horrific than anyone imagined.

A body wrapped in plastic turns up in the middle of the road—with no ID and no viable explanation. The pressure builds when Detective Jackson must also locate a missing woman that few people seem to know. Fearing for the kidnapped woman’s life, Jackson follows her ex-boyfriend, but the effort backfires in a deadly way.

Across the country, FBI Agent Jamie Dallas takes on a dangerous undercover assignment—tracking a sexual predator who brags about his assaults in a perverse dark-web forum. Dallas travels to Jackson’s hometown and discovers that her target’s crimes are just the opening salvo. Yet confronting the hatemongers could get her killed.

The investigators race the clock to find the victims, but will they discover the connection in time to save all the women caught in the deviant trap?

After a young girl, Zena, turns up dead, Detective Jackson discovers she recently fled from a mysterious cult in fear for her life. But the physical and psychological walls around the anti-technology group derail his investigation. So do the lies told by the victim’s boyfriend and his protective mother.

Meanwhile, pressure builds as a ruthless criminal takes aim at police officers. As the whole department frantically searches for the cop killer, the taskforce members are pulled into a dangerous standoff with armed traffickers.

Needing more help with his case, Jackson recruits Agent Dallas to go undercover. She infiltrates the secluded cult and soon discovers a bizarre form of child abuse. To document the evidence and bring down the egomaniacal leader, Dallas takes a risk that puts her life in danger.

Jackson’s concern for the kids behind the compound wall also reaches the point of alarm. Determined to find out what really happened to Zena, he pushes the boundaries to break through the gate. But is he in time to save everyone?