Clare Leslie Hall Books In Order

Publication Order of Standalone Novels

Clare Leslie Hall is a published journalist and a novelist. She resides in the wilds of Dorset, England, along with her family. She is married and has three children, where they all live in an old farmhouse with fields all around, and which was the inspiration for the setting for her novel Broken Country.

She had previously published two novels under the pen name Clare Empson, titled Him and Mine. The books were released in the United Kingdom and were re-released under her name Clare Leslie Hall with altered titles, ‘Picture of Him’ replacing ‘Him’ and ‘Mine’ becoming ‘Days You Were Mine’.

The author has always enjoyed LP Hartley’s The Go Between, and their 2025 novel Broken Country is a nod to the work as it features a love affair that is not only forbidden but is ominously leading to horrible, catastrophic repercussions.

Broken Country was published by Simon & Schuster in the United States and by John Murray in the United Kingdom. The work is being translated into over two dozen languages all over the globe. A film adaptation of this work is also in development with Sony 3000 and Hello Sunshine.

The first part of her career was spent by the author working as a journalist for national newspapers. She then published her first two novels under her pen name Clare Empson. Her favorite novels include Moon Tiger and The Great Gatsby, and these along with works such as The Go-Between and The Secret History have set up a type of blueprint for the style of books that she loves to read and write. She counts all of her novels as putting together love stories with elements of suspense and mystery that are sure to keep the readers guessing.

Broken Country is a 2025 novel from Clare Leslie Hall. It was a New York Times bestseller and a member of the highly coveted Reese’s Book Club selection list. Reese Witherspoon calls this an ‘unforgettable story of love, loss, and the choices that shape our lives’.

It is the type of book that is stirring and mysterious, according to bestselling author of Where the Crawdads Sing Delia Owens. She praises the novel, saying that it fires ‘directly at the human heart and hits the mark’.

Beth and her husband Frank have been married for some time and happily so, but at the same time their relationship works so well because they depend on the past staying buried. Beth’s husband is gentle and kind, but neither of them could have predicted how the actions of someone else would go on to impact their lives.

When Beth’s brother-in-law shoots a dog that is going after their sheep, Beth does not understand at the time that the gunshot has the power to alter the course of their lives. The dog belonged to someone that Beth knew– Gabriel Wolfe. He was the man that she had loved as a teenager, and had been the man who years ago broke her heart.

Gabriel has come back to the village and he has brought along with him Leo, his young son. The boy reminds her a lot of her own son, who died in a horrible accident. Beth begins to slowly get pulled into Gabriel’s life once more, and tensions around the village start to rise at the same time.

Jealousies and secrets from the past start to come out, and they may have terrible consequences this time. Beth must make a choice and choose between the woman that she used to be and the woman that she now has become.

This is a love story with the pace of a thriller, a novel of passion, choices and consequences that makes its way from the past to the present and looks into the idea of the legacy of first love. Get a copy of this book in order to follow along, and let members of your book club know that there’s a new great story that you could potentially all be reading together!

Pictures of Him is a novel from Clare Leslie Hall. If you love a good suspense thriller or have read some other of Clare Leslie Hall’s novels, then you’ll be sure to want to check out this book!

This is a thriller that is all about the consequences of one woman’s love affair which was not only doomed but years later may come to the surface and in the process pull her perfect world apart.

Catherine lives a life that is fairly normal with Sam, her loving husband, and their two children. She has adapted to a lot of their life together and decides to keep parts of her past in mystery as that is the way that she prefers things.

Leaving the past where it belongs helps to keep her safe. When an ex-flame comes to the surface once more, Catherine is surprised to find that something inside of her gives out. A bunch of trauma that she thought was long in the past releases like a flood when she thought that she had buried it all those years ago.

Catherine has a total breakdown and while she is lying there in the hospital, she and others can’t help but notice that language is eluding her. The shock of her past has now resulted in her being mute, and she cannot tell her children or her husband why she is in so much anguish.

The doctors are saying that the only way she may be able to move forward is to look into the past. In order to do that, she needs to begin with him. Him being Lucian. He was the love of her life that she met in university. She was slowly drawn into an elite circle of his hedonistic and privileged friends. One night it falls apart entirely and she shatters his life forever by leaving him.

Lucian was an artist who was both charismatic and complicated. Together they share a passion that was supposed to conclude in tragedy. Now it has been fifteen years since their romance concluded, and she must take on the events that brought her to crisis. He has haunted each of her quiet moments and their reuniting means their love comes back in full force.

As the delicate pieces of her life start shifting and could even shatter, she finds that they can’t simply move on from what happened years ago. But will showing the truth implode both of their lives? Read this book to find out!