Order of Alexandra Ripley Books

Alexandra Ripley (1934-2004) was a celebrated American novelist who specialized in historical fiction and sweeping family sagas. Her most famous achievement was penning Scarlett, the authorized continuation of Margaret Mitchell's beloved Gone with the Wind, which became a bestseller and cemented her place in literary history. Throughout her career, she wrote compelling historical narratives both under her own name and using the pen name B.K. Ripley, frequently drawing upon Southern history and her own family background to craft her stories.

Ripley launched her writing career in 1972 with Who's the Lady in the President's Bed?, published under her B.K. Ripley pseudonym. Nine years later, she released Charleston in 1981, marking her first publication under her real name. Here are Alexandra Ripley's novels listed chronologically by publication date:

Book Summaries: Scarlett serves as the official follow-up to Margaret Mitchell's Gone with the Wind. This continuation picks up Scarlett O'Hara's tale where the original left off, with Ripley attempting to honor the essence of Mitchell's masterpiece. The story returns readers to Tara and reunites them with cherished characters including Rhett, Ashley, and Mammy, while rekindling the epic romance between Scarlett and Rhett Butler. Against the backdrop of the post-Civil War South, the novel aims to provide closure to one of literature's most iconic romantic tales.

From Fields of Gold stands as an independent work by Ripley. The story follows Chess, whose fortune disappears after the Civil War, leaving her with only her dignity and a tobacco-machine patent she cannot commercialize independently. Enter Nate Richardson – driven, unsettled, and harboring feelings for another man's spouse – who enters into a marriage of convenience that offers mutual benefit. While their arrangement brings prosperity, it also entangles them in perilous business dealings and unexpected emotions.

A Love Divine represents another standalone Ripley novel. The protagonist, Joseph of Arimathea, experiences an overwhelming attraction to the ocean from age twelve, dreaming constantly of far-off lands. His only competing passion is Sarah, the black-haired woman he has cherished since youth. As a Jewish man living under Roman occupation in Palestine, Joseph faces the challenge of preserving both his liberty and his love.

Through careful historical research and grand storytelling, Ripley vividly recreates Joseph's ancient world. His adventures take him from Palestine's dusty paths to Rome's magnificence and eventually to Britain's wild, unconquered settlements. Throughout his travels, he faces the potential loss of Sarah to an arranged marriage, maneuvers through treacherous political schemes involving Herod and Salome, and meets a figure who will transform history – Jesus of Nazareth. This encounter permanently changes Joseph's destiny and affects his disabled daughter Helena's life.

New Orleans Legacy is another standalone Ripley work. When Mary McAlistair's father dies and leaves everything to her scheming stepmother, Mary travels to New Orleans seeking answers about her Creole ancestry and a hidden family secret.

In The Time Returns, Ripley tells the story of Lorenzo de Medici and Ginevra de Pazzi, whose families are bitter rivals but who find themselves undeniably attracted to each other in fifteenth-century Florence during a period of political instability. Their relationship draws them into intimate circles of artists and thinkers, even as family feuds intensify, alliances crumble, and dangerous conspiracies threaten to spark warfare.