You finish a romance series, go looking for the next book, and find yourself staring at three different "reading order" charts that all disagree with each other. Publication order. Chronological order. Some fan-made spreadsheet that swears by a third option entirely.

If you've ever felt confused about whether you're reading a series "right," you're not alone, and you're probably dealing with a format that's more common than most readers realize: the interconnected standalone series.