Darcie Chan Books In Order

Publication Order of Mill River Books

Darcie Chan is a bestselling author of literary and historical fiction from New York who is best known for the “Mill River” series of novels.

Growing up, her father worked as a psychologist for schools and then transitioned to becoming a special education administrator.

Given the nature of the jobs that her father used to work in, she was best described as a peripatetic, even though she never learned the world until she was well into her thirties.

She was born in Wisconsin where she lived until she was six years old. Following that stint, the family lived all over the place from Cheraw and La Junta, Colorado, to Muncie, Indiana ultimately to Paoli, Indiana where she attended high school.
In all the places that she lived, Darcie had the privilege of being surrounded by familiarity and warmth typical of small communities.

It is for this reason that she is now known for penning novels with small-town settings with similar characteristics to the many small towns in which she grew up.

Thanks to supportive and loving parents who both worked in education, she learned how to write while she was still very young.

As a kid, she loved books and developed an obsession with the “Black Stallion” series of novels by Walter Farley among many others.

Later on, Darcie Chan went to Indiana University which was a major college that had a student body greater than many of the small towns she lived in during her childhood.

As a high school student, she often participated in science fairs and hence she decided to major in medical school and biology. But the more she studied in premed, the more she hated her choice, even as she dreamed of studying creative writing and literature.
Midway through her junior year, she changed her major to study English with a focus on later getting into law school. She also resolved that she would one day achieve her dream of becoming a fiction author.

Nonetheless, her love for the sciences did not go to waste as she graduated from Indiana University with an environmental certificate which birthed her interest in environmental law.

She had also met Tim her husband at a high school fair competition and they kept in touch throughout college. After graduating from college, they applied to medical and law schools in Baltimore, so that they could see more of each other.
Her husband Tim went to the School of Medicine at Johns Hopkins University while she went to the University of Baltimore Law School.

After graduating from college, Darcie Chan got a job with the Senate where she was charged with drafting natural resource and environmental legislation.

Since Tim her husband had to work crazy hours during his residency she had a lot of time in the evenings and she took that time to pen the manuscript for her debut novel “The Mill River Recluse.”

Similar to many debut novels, it was banished to a drawer as she could not sell it. Years later, Chan learned about ebooks and how easy it was to self-publish and uploaded her manuscript on Amazon Kindle and everything changed.
The work would go on to become a New York Times bestselling title and in 2012, she resigned from her legal job to become a professional author.

Darcie now makes her home in New York’s northern Westchester County with her family. When she is not writing her novels, she can usually be found cooking, reading, playing piano, and gardening.

Darcie Chan’s novel “The Mill River Recluse” is a fascinating work of fiction set in the small town of Mill River.

The lead is Mary McAllister, a widow who suffers from extreme social anxiety disorder, given that she had been disfigured by the beatings of an abusive husband.
She had spent nearly six decades living in the isolated white marble mansion in Vermont overlooking the small town of Mill River.

The only links she has in the outside world are the media, the mail, a bedroom window that overlooks the town, and an elderly priest whose kleptomania is all about tablespoons.

Most people in town think of the old widow and her house as insignificant but peculiar fixtures. The only people who have ever seen McAllister include an endearing village idiot, a covetous nurse, and an arsonist.
However, there have been several people who have also been curious about the old widow including a new fourth-grade teacher, his daughter, and a police officer.

But the only person who knows her well and the secret she keeps is Father Michael O’Brien. He will always be her confidant since if he ever reveals her secret their entire lives will be changed forever.

Darcie Chan’s work “The Mill River Redemption” returns to Mill River the enchanting town as it tells the heartwarming story of forgiveness, self-discovery, and family.

The lead is a recently divorced woman named Josie DiSanti, who left her home in New York City alongside her two daughters the shy Emily and the spirited Rose.

She heads to Mill River, Vermont where she is taking refuge with the local bookstore owner Ivy Colar, who is her only remaining relative even if she barely knows her.

In the small town they build for themselves a new life, but then they experience a shocking tragedy that tears Rose and Emily apart. Years later, the two come back home to attend their mother’s funeral and the reading of her will.

According to their mother’s last wishes, they will have to work together to find a secret key to a safe deposit box that has details about their inheritance. It does seem that Josie will do anything to reconcile her two daughters even from the grave.
They have no choice but to obey her wishes and go back to the small town during the summer to start their search. They soon discover that the small town is known for its miracles and magic but awaiting them is an even greater treasure.

“The Promise of Home” is another heartwarming novel set in Mill River in which a collection of old letters is discovered resulting in the coming to light of an ancient secret that will change everything for the residents.

Teacher Claudia Simon and her husband Kyle Hansen had been planning their nuptials when they heard that a new BnB was set to open in the old widow’s mansion. They are hoping that the talented Emily DiSanti will get the mansion back to its old grand state.
But while she is polishing some old hardwood floors, she finds a secret compartment and inside it a mysterious case.

Inside the briefcase, she finds letters that had been written between Anna O’Brien the mother to Father O’Brien the town priest, and her close friend the reclusive Mary McAllister.

Through the letters, she learns some very interesting things about the relationship between Anna and Mary and a secret that could destroy Father O’Brien.

Another thread is that of a town resident named Karen Cooper who lives with Nick her eight-year-old son. Her husband is a government contractor who has been missing for a year while on tour in Afghanistan.

As she struggles with depression, her son starts having issues at school and Karen has to turn to Father O’Brien for guidance on how to deal with a situation that feels all too familiar.