Ashley Antoinette Books in Order: The Complete Series-by-Series

Ashley Antoinette has published 79 works and racked up well over 200,000 Goodreads ratings that average a genuinely rare 4.5+ stars — consistent across nearly two decades of writing, which is not an easy thing to pull off. What makes her catalog tricky to navigate isn’t quality, though. It’s volume: this isn’t one series, it’s twelve, several of which quietly share characters, cities, and even a single crossover novel.

This guide is the full map of Ashley Antoinette books in order — every series, grouped by which fictional universe it belongs to, so you can see at a glance where each one starts, where it connects to the others, and where you should actually begin. Whether you came here for the Diamond family’s Miami empire or Ethic Okafor’s love story, you’ll find the full reading order below, plus tips for picking your entry point.

The Ashley Antoinette Books in Order

Here’s the thing to understand before you dive in: there isn’t one master reading order for Ashley Antoinette’s work, because there isn’t one story. Publication order and chronological order match within each series, but the series themselves mostly run in parallel, not in sequence — with one major exception where several of them collide on the page. Below, everything is grouped into five clusters by shared universe.

Cluster 1: The Cartel Universe

The flagship — a sprawling Miami crime saga about the Diamond family, plus two smaller series that plug directly into it.

The Cartel (9 books, with JaQuavis Coleman)

1. The Cartel (2009) — Carter Diamond’s death exposes his empire and his secret son, Young Carter, while hitwoman Miamor’s revenge mission collides with an unlikely love.
2. Tale of the Murda Mamas (2009) — A snitch in the crew puts Young Carter’s freedom on the line, and the fates of Miamor and Breeze hang in the balance.
3. The Last Chapter (2010) — Originally the planned finale: Miamor fights for her life, Carter’s in federal custody, and control passes to Zyir and Mecca.
4. Diamonds Are Forever (2012) — Zyir and Breeze run the empire while a “retired” Young Carter gets pulled back in.
5. La Bella Mafia (2014) — With the men sidelined, Miamor, Breeze, and Leena take the wheel — and a plane crash changes everything.
6. The Demise (2016) — A casino venture pushes the family toward legitimacy, and toward its steepest fall yet.
7. Illuminati: Roundtable of Bosses (2017) — Carter goes into hiding while bosses from across the Ashley & JaQuavis universe unite around a new drug, “Heaven.”
8. Long Live the Cartel (2020) — The next generation, Carter “CJ” Jones II and cousin Mo, tries to inherit the throne under the weight of old family curses.
9. Money Devils 2 (2023) — Picks up years later, converging the Diamond bloodline with the Money Devils storyline. Kept spoiler-light here since it’s the most recent mainline entry.

Two deluxe omnibus editions also exist, collecting books 1–3 and 4–5.

Carter Diamond Series (3 books, solo) — A prequel trilogy covering Carter Diamond’s origin, before he was the ruthless patriarch readers meet already dead in book one of The Cartel.

1. Carter Diamond (2012)
2. Carter Diamond Part 2 (2013)
3. Carter Diamond 3 (2014) — Carter allies with Miami boss Emilio Estes after Estes’s son is murdered, then falls for Estes’s daughter, Taryn — a forbidden pairing that forces him to choose between the game and love.

Money Devils (1 book, with JaQuavis Coleman)

1. Money Devils 1 (2020) — Introduces the LaCroix sisters, a secretive crew of women who move money for the world’s most corrupt players. Their world collides with what’s left of the Cartel, setting up Money Devils 2 (counted as Cartel book 9 in most catalogs, including Goodreads).

Cluster 2: Where It All Started

Two earlier trilogies — including the actual manuscript that got Ashley and JaQuavis discovered.

Dirty Money (3 books, with JaQuavis Coleman) — written as a bet between two 17-year-olds, this became the manuscript that landed them a deal with Carl Weber’s Urban Books.

1. Dirty Money (2007) — Told through the diary of Remy Morgan, a girl swept into a drug lord’s world; her tragic fate is only revealed after her death.
2. Diary of a Street Diva (2009) — Remy’s husband, Cease, reads her diary on the morning of his own murder trial, uncovering the secrets she kept from him.
3. Supreme Clientele (2007) — A new cast: Harlem hustler Julius “Jules” Carter builds an empire, only to have his love for a young woman named Tish come back to destroy him.

Murderville (3 books, with JaQuavis Coleman) — a darker, globe-spanning trilogy about human trafficking, told through the doomed love story of Liberty and A’shai.

1. Murderville: First of a Trilogy (2011) — Two children from Sierra Leone are sold into the trafficking trade; years later, dying of a heart condition, Liberty asks A’shai to tell her their story one last time.
2. Crown (2011)
3. The Black Dahlia (2013) — Baron, a Murderville character, resurfaces — a bittersweet echo of A’shai, who died by suicide in book one.

Cluster 3: The Prada Plan

Ashley Antoinette’s solo flagship, and the series she’s most identified with outside of the Cartel.

The Prada Plan (5 books, solo)

1. The Prada Plan (2009) — Disaya “YaYa” Morgan, orphaned at six and abused in foster care, claws her way up from nothing alongside her best friend, Mona.
2. The Prada Plan 2: Leah’s Story (2011) — YaYa’s rival Leah Richards schemes her way into the life YaYa built.
3. The Prada Plan 3: Green-Eyed Monster (2012) — Co-written with JaQuavis under the joint pen name Ashley Coleman; YaYa, presumed dead, resurfaces for revenge.
4. The Prada Plan 4: Love and War (2014) — Leah kidnaps YaYa and Indie’s baby daughter, Skylar, in a final act of revenge.
5. The Prada Plan 5 (2017) — Now married to Indie, YaYa has everything she fought for — and discovers it isn’t enough.

Cluster 4: The Ethic Universe

Ashley’s most acclaimed solo work by reader ratings — and the series that spins directly into another.

Ethic (6 books, solo)

1. Ethic (2018)
2. Ethic 2 (2018)
3. Ethic 3 (2018)
4. Ethic 4 (2019)
5. Ethic 5 (2019)
6. Ethic 6 (2019) — Closes out reformed kingpin Ezra “Ethic” Okafor’s love story with Alani, the woman who once shot him.

Butterfly (5 books, spinoff of Ethic, solo) — follows Morgan Atkins, who grew up under Ethic Okafor’s roof, as she navigates a years-long tangle between three men.

1. Butterfly (2019) — Morgan, still grieving her first love Messiah Williams, has settled for a controlled, comfortable life with Sebastian “Bash” Fredrick.
2. Butterfly 2 — Morgan falls for Messiah’s best friend, Ahmeek “Meek” Harris — right as Messiah reveals he’s alive.
3. Butterfly 3 (2020) — Two years later, Messiah returns to reclaim Morgan, who’s hiding a secret: twins born after he vanished.
4. Butterfly 4 — Morgan wrestles with a generational pattern of “sleeping with the enemy” that runs in her family.
5. Butterfly 5 — Morgan and Messiah face down everything between them — love, children, and old trauma — to decide if their bond survives.

Cluster 5: Standalone Romance Series

Four shorter series, each self-contained, spanning most of Ashley’s solo career.

Luxe (2 books, solo)

1. Luxe (2015) — Bleu Montclair escapes Flint on a UCLA scholarship, only to fall into fast money and addiction — until street power player Iman steps in to protect her.
2. Luxe 2: A LaLa Land Addiction (2016)

Love Burn (4 books, solo) — a monthly short-story series following one couple’s unraveling.

1. Love Burn (2015) — Noni discovers her marriage was built on drug money and infidelity, empties her husband Dom’s accounts, and runs.
2. Love Burn 2 (2015)
3. Love Burn 3 (2015)
4. Love Burn 4 (2016) — The couple’s toxic cycle comes to a head.

Birds (3 books, solo, most recent series)

1. Birds in the Sky (2025) — Nightclub singer Charlie and street veteran Demi fall fast and hard, despite being total opposites.
2. Any Given Day, Every Fu*king Night (2025) — Widens out to Charlie’s sister Stassi and her own risky entanglements.
3. Birds of a Feather (2025) — The most recent entry, still building toward a resolution as of this writing.

Single Ladies (3 books, solo, VH1 tie-in) — official novellas based on the VH1 drama Single Ladies, each spotlighting one of the show’s three leads, set between the Season 2 finale and Season 3 premiere.

1. April: “No Sex in the City” (2013)
2. Raquel: “Trois” (2013)
3. Keisha: “A Couple of Forevers” (2013)

How the Universes Connect

Most of these series stand completely on their own — Butterfly is the one real exception, since it’s a direct continuation of Ethic rather than a true spinoff. The one place several worlds collide on the page is The Cartel 7: Illuminati, where bosses pulled from Murderville, The Prada Plan, and Dirty Money sit down at the same table as the Diamond family. You don’t need to have read those series first to follow it, but it lands harder if you have.

Tips for New Readers of Ashley Antoinette

• Where to start: There’s no single correct entry point across the whole Ashley Antoinette books in order list — pick the universe that matches what you’re after (see recommendations below) rather than trying to read everything chronologically by publish date.
• Age-appropriateness: All of it is adult urban fiction — graphic violence, drug-trade content, and explicit sexual content run through nearly every series here. None of this is YA.
• Recommended formats: Several Cartel and Prada Plan titles have well-regarded audiobook editions; the two Cartel deluxe omnibus editions are an easy way to catch up on the early books in fewer purchases.
• Companion material: If you finish one series and want more of the same world, check “How the Universes Connect” above before assuming a spinoff is required reading — most aren’t.
• Pacing advice: Series written in tight clusters (Ethic’s six books all released within about 18 months, as did Love Burn’s four) read best back-to-back. Series with long real-world gaps between entries, like The Cartel, reward re-reading a quick recap before picking the next book back up.

Fun Facts About Ashley Antoinette

• Ashley Antoinette and JaQuavis Coleman were discovered by bestselling author Carl Weber at just 17, after writing their first manuscript, Dirty Money, on a bet — the winner was supposed to get $500.
• The duo are widely credited as the youngest African-American co-authors to land on the New York Times bestseller list twice, with Cartel entries hitting the list in both 2009 and 2010.
• Their catalog was successful enough to catch the attention of Cash Money Records’ Bryan “Baby” Williams and Ronald “Slim” Williams, leading to a publishing deal with Cash Money Content.
• Beyond books, Ashley Antoinette worked as a writer on VH1’s drama series “Single Ladies” — the same show her own novella trilogy is based on.
• Ashley’s catalog has picked up serious industry recognition over the years, including the Urban Classic Honor at the 2018 AAMBC Awards and, in 2019, Black Girls Who Write naming her Author Queen of the Year and her Ethic series Best Black Book Series.

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

What order should I read all of Ashley Antoinette’s books in? There’s no single order across her whole catalog — read each of her 12 series independently in its own publication order. The only place they intersect is The Cartel 7: Illuminati, which crosses over with a few other series.

Do all of Ashley Antoinette’s series connect to each other? No. Only Butterfly (a direct continuation of Ethic) and the Illuminati crossover book link separate series together. Everything else — Prada Plan, Luxe, Love Burn, Birds, Single Ladies — stands alone.

Which Ashley Antoinette series should I start with? Depends what you want: The Cartel for a crime epic, Ethic (then Butterfly) for her most acclaimed emotional drama, The Prada Plan for her original solo hit, or Birds if you want something short and recent.

How many books has Ashley Antoinette written? 79 works across roughly 12 series and standalone titles, co-written and solo combined, as of this writing.

Is Ashley Antoinette’s work appropriate for teens? No. Every series listed here is adult urban fiction with graphic violence and explicit sexual content — none of it is written for a YA audience.

Conclusion

Twelve series, one shared universe hiding inside a handful of them, and a catalog that somehow keeps a 4.5-star average across 79 books — that’s the case for taking the time to actually map out the Ashley Antoinette books in order before you start. Pick your cluster, start at book one, and don’t be surprised if you end up circling back for the rest. Let us know in the comments which universe hooked you first.

For More: Ashley & JaQuavis on Wikipedia