Heather Gudenkauf Books In Order

Publication Order of Standalone Novels

Publication Order of Short Stories/Novellas

Publication Order of Anthologies

Heather Gudenkauf is a bestselling author who debuted in 2009 with the release of The Weight of Silence. She has released many more books since that book’s release, including These Things Hidden, Not a Sound, and The Overnight Guest.

Gudenkauf was born in Wagner, South Dakota as the youngest of six children in her family. Her father was employed at the Rosebud Indian Reservation in South Dakota where they lived for the early years of her life. They then moved to Iowa where she did the majority of growing up.

She was born with a hearing condition known as profound unilateral hearing loss. Because of this, she ended up retreating to reading and could often be found hiding in her toy box with a flashlight and a book. This time as a voracious reader planted the seed in her for a future as an author.

Heather would go on to attend the University of Iowa where she would earn her degree in elementary education. She would spend many years working with students and today she still works in education as a Title I Reading Coordinator.

Gudenkauf makes her home in Iowa where she lives with her family. When she isn’t working on her next novel, she enjoys reading, hiking, and spending time with her family and their German Shorthaired Pointer named Lolo.

She made her debut as a writer in 2009 with The Weight of Silence and it is the story of two little girls gone missing. One of the girl’s is seven-year-old Calli Clark with selective mutism. The other is her best friend, Petra, who is her best friend and often serves as Calli’s voice.

Calli’s mother Antonia and Petra’s father martin are desperate to find their children. They begin to look within, confronting dark truths in their own lives that may have inadvertently lead to what happened to the girls. These families are tied together by the tragedy yet trapped in the silence of their unspoken secrets. The families are desperate, will they find their daughters before it’s too late?

One Breath Away is another book by Gudenkauf and it may be one of the most emotionally charged books that she has written. The story begins in the midst of a spring snowstorm when an unknown man walks into an elementary school classroom with a gun.

The town is held hostage as they wait outside of the school. Officer Meg Barrett is on the case and she has a ton of pressure on her with the town’s children’s lives in her hands. Then there is Will Thwaite, a man who is raising his two grandchildren, left outside wondering if he is failing his daughter. Inside the classroom, there is the children’s teacher Evelyn Oliver who is desperate for an opportunity to try to save the children. The school is also housing a thirteen-year-old named Augie who will risk her own safety it means protecting her little brother.

The tensions get higher and higher for each minute that this goes on. The hidden fears and grudges of the town are revealed and examined as the town’s people race to discover the identity of the man who is holding their children hostage.

Heather is also the author of Without A Sound. A tragic accident leaves nurse Amelia Winn deaf which ends up costing her everything that matters to her in her life including her job, her husband, and her stepdaughter. Two years later, she starts to get back on her feet with the help of a hearing dog named Stitch.

Her life gets complicated when she discovers the dead body of a fellow nurse in a bush near her cabin. Amelia finds herself drawn into a mystery that could shatter her rebuilt life. The case hits a little too close to home for her and she is shook by what she learns. Amelia will be tested about just how far she will go in order to find the truth and bring a killer to justice.

This is How I Lied was released in the year 2020. It was twenty-five years ago when the body of a sixteen-year-old girl named Eve was found in a cave near her home by her best friend, Maggie, and her sister, Nola. There were numerous suspects in her death, including her boyfriend Nick, but ultimately there was not even evidence and the case ended up unsolved. Maggie was haunted by the case for decades afterwards.

Now Maggie is a detective in Grotto who finds herself thrust back into the case when a new piece of evidence surfaces and the case is reopened. She reexamines the clues while checking out the new ones, and works on her investigation into what really happened on that fateful night. She soon figures that there is someone who knows much more than they are letting on. Someone who will stop at nothing to keep the truth buried.

The Overnight Guest focuses on a true crime writer named Wylie Lark. She doesn’t mind being snowed in at her isolated farmhouse when she is writing her new book. As long as there is a cozy fire and silence, she is good. This house is a bit different though. This is the house where two people were murdered and another disappeared decades ago.

The storm rages on outside and Wylie finds herself haunted by the secrets of the house with nowhere to go. Things get weird when she heads outside and discovers a child in the snow. Where did he come from? And how long had he been out there? Wylie brings the child in for warmth and safety, but ends up with more questions than answers. This farmhouse turns out to not be as isolated as she thought and there is someone out there who is desperate to find them.