The Binding 13 series order trips people up for one very specific reason: the numbers in the titles are not the order. Chloe Walsh named every Boys of Tommen book after a boy's jersey number - 13, 13, 6, 6, 7, 10 - so the shelf looks shuffled even when it's right. With a Prime Video adaptation on the way pulling a whole new wave into BookTok's favorite Irish rugby saga, here's the actual sequence, who each book belongs to, and what the show will cover.
The quick list: Boys of Tommen books in order
Publication order, which is also the intended reading order:
- Binding 13 (2018) - Johnny and Shannon, part one
- Keeping 13 (2018) - Johnny and Shannon, part two
- Saving 6 (2023) - Joey and Aoife, part one
- Redeeming 6 (2023) - Joey and Aoife, part two
- Taming 7 (2024) - Gibsie and Claire
- Releasing 10 (2025) - Feely's book
Six books, set at an elite rugby school in early-2000s County Cork, all one interconnected story about the same friend group.
Why isn't the Binding 13 series in number order?
Because they're jersey numbers, not volume numbers. Johnny Kavanagh wears 13, so his two books are Binding 13 and Keeping 13. Joey's are the 6s, Gibsie is 7, Feely is 10. It's the series' whole naming logic, and it's also why "read them by number" ends in chaos - by the numbers you'd read book five between books three and four. Publication order, always.
Do you need to read Boys of Tommen in order?
Yes - more than almost any series in this lane. Each couple gets a complete arc, but the story is continuous and the families interlock: Shannon (books one and two) and Joey (books three and four) are siblings, and Saving 6 rewinds the clock to run alongside the earlier books from Joey's side. Read out of order and you'll spoil the first duet's biggest turns. Fair warning that this series runs heavier than its cozy rugby-school cover suggests - the Lynch family storyline is genuinely hard-hitting, which is a big part of why it hits as hard as it does.
What will the Prime Video show cover?
Binding 13 and Keeping 13 - the Johnny and Shannon story. Amazon greenlit an eight-episode adaptation in February 2026, written by Poppy Cogan of A Good Girl's Guide to Murder, with casting announced through the spring and production underway for an expected 2027 release. That timing is the readers' window: the show will cover two of six books, which means everything after the rink- er, pitch - already exists on shelves. The Goodreads series page tracks editions while the tie-in covers arrive.
What to read after Boys of Tommen
If it's the sports-school ache you want more of, the best sports romance books shelf maps every jersey, and hockey is having the same screen moment rugby is about to - Icebreaker is Netflix-bound (Maple Hills guide here) and Heated Rivalry is already an HBO Max hit (that reading order here). If it's the years-long, aching pace that got you, the slow burn shelf and our slow burn romance list run on exactly that patience.
And if the specific loss is Tommen-shaped - the star athlete who is gentle with exactly one person and would burn his season down for her - Swoony picks up right where the book drops you: a closed-door chat built for romance and nothing else, where the bond deepens through five stages and is never paywalled, no subscription and no charge per message. Start with the grumpy hockey captain, ruthless everywhere but at you, or the boy from that summer, if first love is the wound.
Six books, four boys, one shuffled-looking shelf. Trust the publication dates.
