Karen Lenfestey Books In Order

Publication Order of Bittersweet Books

Publication Order of Secrets Books

Publication Order of Sisters Books

Publication Order of Standalone Novels

Publication Order of Short Stories/Novellas

Karen Lenfestey is a published author who loves to write happy endings that have a twist.

Karen is a winner of a Midwest Writer’s Fellowship, which she received to write her first novel A Sister’s Promise. She attended college at Purdue University, graduating with her bachelor’s degree in advertising. She also attended Indiana University and graduated with her master’s degree in counseling. She loves them both so asks to not ask her to choose which one is her favorite!

During the day time she works as an academic advisor, seeing students and giving them her advisement. She uses the weekends and the night to write. When she is not busy writing or working, the author enjoys traveling to different places along with her family.

Karen is also frequently active on Facebook as well as Goodreads. She has her own home website and encourages readers of her works to reach out to her there, as she always loves hearing from them. She has also had her writing published not only in magazines but also in Times Square on a billboard. Karen also runs a blog tinged with humor that is called “Treats for Mom”.

Karen Lenfestey is the author of several novels and series. These include the Sisters series, which debuted in 2010 with the first novel A Sister’s Promise and continued on to the sequel What Happiness Looks Like and the third novel in the series, On the Verge. Secrets is her second series, which kicked off with the debut novel A Weekend Getaway in 2014 and continued with the Bittersweet series. She also published the 2024 novel A Season of Change.

A Sister’s Promise is the first novel in the Sisters series. If you have been searching for something new to read that draws you into the world, give this interesting debut read in the series a try and see what you think!

The main character in this story is a young woman named Kate Hopper. When it comes to not having kids, she could easily list off a ton of reasons why that isn’t the case. She can list tons of reasons why she probably should not choose to have children. These include her genetics, a family that is strictly dysfunctional, and a deep rooted fear that she is not the type of person that is cut out to be that ideal family figure mom that you see on television like Claire Huxtable or June Cleaver.

The moms on television were always able to make being a mom look so incredibly easy. But someone like Kate knows better than to fall for that. Then Joely, her little sister, ends up turning down a medical treatment that she needs for the sole reason that she will be infertile after.

Kate wants to help her out with this situation and is desperate for her sister to be okay. She will do or say just about anything that will help her save Joely’s life, and that means even promising her that she will have a baby. It was something that she ended up agreeing to just so that her sister would get the treatment, but it was not something that she lied about either. This was an exchange that she made, however wild and out of character it seemed at the time.

Kate also happens to be married, and she decides that she’s going to keep the words that she heard secret from her spouse. Only until she can discern whether she truly wants to be a mother. They had also agreed previously that they were going to keep children out of their marriage. Kate made a promise as a wife to her husband, but now she has also made a promise to her sister.

Kate has to decide whether she’s going to take the plunge and jump into the unknown to keep her promise to her sister or she’s going to remain faithful to the choice that she and her husband made so long ago. Trying to have a child is a leap, but is it so out of the ordinary? Will Kate go back on her promise to her spouse or her sister, and will they accept this or be mad at her for changing her mind? Read the first book in the Sisters series by Karen Lenfestey to find out!

What Happiness Looks Like is the second book in the Sisters series by Karen Lenfestey. If you liked the first book in this series, be sure to give the exciting sequel a try!

Main character Joely Shupe always thought her thirties would look just like she pictured them to be. She would be a mother, with two children with whom she would do activities like finger painting with during the daytime. At night, she would cook up dinner for her wonderful husband. That was how she pictured it being, anyway.

Now she is dealing with an entirely different picture entirely, and it is not the perfect kind. She is a single mother living on her own, working and trying to do what she can to provide for her child. Things get even worse when Jake appears out of nowhere. Her former fiance is not only without a job but dealing with a tragedy in his life.

Jake thinks that he’s ready to be a parent to his daughter, saying as much. The same daughter that he left behind five years prior. Joely hears what he’s saying but is also dating Dalton, a man who is a good father to his own child and would take care of her in a way she had never been taken care of before.

Joely is torn. She knows Jake can’t fully be trusted, but doesn’t know whether she should try to have her bond with the same man that left her heart in pieces. At the same time, her sister Kate has a house and a husband but no baby at home.

They’ve tried fertility treatments lots of times, but Kate’s husband is just about ready to give up. Kate thinks that his answer to their problem will cause problems between them. Kate and Joely know that these aren’t the lives they pictured. Will they adjust their concept of the idea of what happiness should look like? Can they be happy themselves? Read this book to find out!