Delia Owens Books in Order: Complete Reading Guide

Delia Owens’s career falls into two distinct phases: twenty-five years as a wildlife biologist and non-fiction writer, then a 2018 fiction debut that became one of the most successful novels in recent publishing history.

Delia Owens Books in Publication Order

Non-Fiction (co-authored with Mark Owens)

1. Cry of the Kalahari — 1984

The Owenses’ account of seven years living among lions, brown hyenas, and other wildlife in the Kalahari Desert of Botswana. A genuine adventure story as well as a naturalist memoir. The best starting point for readers interested in her non-fiction work.

2. The Eye of the Elephant — 1992

Their account of conservation work in Zambia’s North Luangwa National Park — protecting elephants from poachers during a period of significant political instability. More dramatic and darker than the Kalahari book.

3. Secrets of the Savanna — 2006

A return to Zambia and the conclusion of their African conservation story.

Fiction

4. Where the Crawdads Sing — 2018

Start here for fiction. Kya Clark, the Marsh Girl, has been abandoned by her family and raised herself in the marshlands of North Carolina. When the town’s golden boy is found dead, she is the prime suspect. A crime novel, a coming-of-age story, and a nature book in one — the bestselling novel of 2019 and one of the most popular books of the 2020s.

➡ Full review → | Buy on Amazon →

The Scientist Turned Novelist

Delia Owens came to fiction by an unusual route, as a wildlife scientist whose decades of work and observation in the natural world preceded and profoundly shaped her writing. Before she became a novelist, Owens was a zoologist who spent many years in Africa studying wildlife, work that produced a series of non-fiction books, co-authored with Mark Owens, recounting their experiences researching and living among the animals of the African wilderness. This scientific background is the foundation of her distinctive achievement as a novelist, for the years of close observation of the natural world, the trained naturalist’s eye, and the deep engagement with wilderness that her scientific career involved all inform her fiction. When Owens turned to the novel, she brought to it the authority and intimacy with nature that her years as a wildlife scientist had cultivated, and this grounding in genuine scientific knowledge and observation of the natural world is among the most distinctive features of her writing. The scientist turned novelist offers fiction shaped by a real and deep engagement with nature, rendered with the authority of one who has spent years observing the natural world closely. For readers, this background gives Owens’s fiction its distinctive authority and its rich engagement with the natural world, the work of a writer who came to the novel from a career as a wildlife scientist and who brings to her fiction the trained eye and deep knowledge of the naturalist. The scientist turned novelist is the foundation of Owens’s distinctive achievement, the wildlife scientist whose decades of observation in the natural world shaped the fiction that would make her famous.

Nature as the Heart of the Story

The defining feature of Where the Crawdads Sing, and the element that most distinguishes it, is the central place of nature in the story, the way that the natural world is not mere setting but the very heart of the novel, rendered with the authority and intimacy of Owens’s scientific background. The novel is set in the marshlands of the American South, and these marshes are evoked with a richness, precision, and intimacy that reflect Owens’s years as a wildlife scientist and her deep knowledge of and feeling for the natural world. The marsh is not a backdrop but a presence, a fully realized natural world rendered with the trained eye of the naturalist and the loving attention of one who knows wilderness intimately, and it is central to the novel’s power and its appeal. The protagonist’s deep connection to the natural world, her life lived in intimate relationship with the marsh and its creatures, is at the heart of the story, and the novel’s evocation of nature, its marshes and creatures, its beauty and its rhythms, is among its most distinctive and celebrated features. This central place of nature, rendered with the authority of Owens’s scientific background, gives the novel its distinctive character and much of its appeal, for it offers readers an immersion in a richly realized natural world, evoked with precision, intimacy, and feeling. Nature as the heart of the story is the defining feature of Where the Crawdads Sing, the central place of the natural world in the novel, rendered with the authority and intimacy of Owens’s years as a wildlife scientist, and central to the book’s power and appeal.

A Late and Spectacular Debut

The story of Delia Owens’s emergence as a novelist is itself remarkable, for Where the Crawdads Sing was a debut novel published when its author was around seventy, and it became one of the most spectacular publishing phenomena of recent years. That a first novel, published so late in its author’s life, should become such an enormous success is striking, a testament both to the quality of the book and to the possibility of literary success at any age. Where the Crawdads Sing became a runaway bestseller, selling in extraordinary numbers, dominating the bestseller lists for an exceptional length of time, earning a vast and devoted readership, and eventually being adapted into a film. This spectacular success, achieved with a debut novel published when its author was around seventy, after a career as a wildlife scientist rather than a writer, is among the most remarkable publishing stories of recent years. The phenomenon reflected the novel’s broad appeal, its combination of an immersive natural setting, a compelling coming-of-age story, a murder mystery, and an emotional resonance that reached an enormous readership. For readers, the story of Owens’s late and spectacular debut adds interest to her work, the remarkable achievement of a wildlife scientist who, around the age of seventy, published a first novel that became one of the great publishing phenomena of its time. A late and spectacular debut, Where the Crawdads Sing was published when its author was around seventy and became one of the most remarkable publishing successes of recent years, a testament to the quality of the book and to the possibility of literary success at any age.

What Makes Where the Crawdads Sing Work

The novel’s enormous success comes from the combination of three things most literary fiction separates: a genuinely gripping murder mystery plot, a deeply sympathetic and resourceful protagonist, and nature writing of real precision and beauty. Owens spent decades as a wildlife biologist, and the North Carolina marshland she describes is rendered with the specificity of a scientist who has lived in similar places — not as picturesque backdrop but as a complete ecological world.

Affiliate disclosure: Links to Amazon on this page are affiliate links. We earn a small commission at no extra cost to you.