As a long-time fan of Gregory Ashe's work, I’ve had the idea to create a beginner's guide percolating at the back of my head for a while now. I know how overwhelming the interconnectedness and sheer number of books in his backlist can feel, so I hope this helps quash whatever's been holding you back!

**Originally posted on Reddit (Redacted info included in this post with spoiler tags)** - Last updated: 3/1/2025

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Who is Gregory Ashe?

Gregory Ashe is a prolific author who writes predominantly mystery and speculative fiction featuring gay protagonists. He's most well-known for his Hazard & Somerset series, which tells the tale of Emery Hazard who finds himself back in his hometown and forced to partner up with his former high school bully. The first book is Pretty Pretty Boys.

I keep seeing the term "Hazardverse" - what does it mean?

In honor of our aforementioned eponymous leader and character who started it all, Emery Hazard, we call the larger story world in which a set of interconnected, contemporary mystery books take place the Hazardverse. Stories that don't take place in this book universe are categorized as Asheverse.

Content Warnings

Fans lovingly call themselves Ashochists (a play on “masochist,” the joke being that all of GA’s readers are masochists because they like how painful his stories are) - and for good reason!

A few folks and I are hard at work on a list of CWs (WIP), but we've heard good things about StoryGraph's user-submitted content warnings. Please reach out if you notice any gaps or would like to contribute!

Hazardverse Overview

Most use the term "arc" or "season" to refer to each series-long set of books - for example, the story of Hazard & Somers consists of three arcs, the first being The Hazard and Somerset Mysteries with six books. The day before each new release in an arc, he will customarily share a free short story via his newsletter.

If you miss the freebies in real-time, no worries - at the end of every arc, he puts out a short story collection with the previously shared stories AND one new story exclusive to the collection. These can be read in between books, or all together at the end, but make sure you read at least the last short story in the collection before moving on - GA likes to end those on a cliffhanger that hints at the next arc in some way (check out the links to each series page for more info).

Main (these are the mainstay Hazardverse series)

Series	MC(s)	Setting
Three arcs:
**1. The Hazard and Somerset Mysteries

A Union of Swords
Arrows in the Hand** | Hazard & Somers | Wahredua, a fictional town in central Missouri | | Two arcs: **1. The Borealis Investigations
Without a Compass** | North & Shaw | St. Louis | | The First Quarto | Theo & Auggie | Wahredua, a fictional town in central Missouri | | The Lamb and the Lion | Jem & Tean | Utah |

The above four couples join forces in the 4-book crossover series, Iron on Iron.

Other (these stories take place in the same universe but are largely separate)