Vampire Diaries Books in Order

Original series: The Awakening, The Struggle, The Fury (all 1991) and Dark Reunion (1992). The Return trilogy: Nightfall (2009), Shadow Souls (2010), Midnight (2011). Then the ghostwritten continuations: The Hunters trilogy — Phantom (2011), Moonsong (2012), Destiny Rising (2012) — and The Salvation trilogy — Unseen (2013), Unspoken (2013), Unmasked (2014). Stefan’s Diaries (2010–2012) is a separate six-book prequel series tied to the TV show.

The first seven: the original four novels and The Return trilogy, ending with Midnight (2011). After that, the publisher and packager Alloy Entertainment replaced her with a ghostwriter. The Hunters and The Salvation trilogies carry her name as creator but were written by a ghostwriter credited as Aubrey Clark, and Stefan’s Diaries were ghostwritten from the start.

Smith wrote the series under a work-for-hire contract in 1991, which meant Alloy Entertainment — not Smith — owned the characters and the copyright. After Midnight, the two sides disagreed about the direction of the story (Smith wanted to explore Elena’s bond with Damon; Alloy wanted the focus kept on Elena and Stefan), and in 2011 Alloy dismissed her and hired a ghostwriter to continue the books under her name.

After she was let go, Smith returned to her own characters through Amazon’s Kindle Worlds program, which let authors publish licensed fan fiction. Beginning in January 2014 she released Evensong: Paradise Lost and The War of Roses, her own alternate continuation picking up after Midnight. Kindle Worlds closed in 2018, and the Evensong titles are no longer on sale, which is why they don’t appear in the list above.

Only loosely. The show kept the names of Elena, Stefan, Damon, Bonnie and a few others and then went its own way — the town is Mystic Falls rather than Fell’s Church, Elena is a brunette rather than a blonde, and the mythology and plot diverge almost immediately. Many fans enjoy the novels precisely because they are a different story.