John Gray Books in Order

If you want cozy holiday romance with a touch of mystery: Manchester Christmas → Chasing Manhattan → Chasing Rome
If you enjoy contemporary faith-based fiction: The Carpenter's Son
If you're comforting a child after losing a pet: God Needed a Puppy
If you want stories about friendship, differences, and special-needs pets: Keller's Heart
If you're teaching kids about generosity and helping others: Sweet Polly Petals

John Gray grew up in South Troy, New York, and has spent his life telling stories about the people and places he knows best. Many viewers recognize him as an Emmy-winning television journalist, but readers know him for books that mix small-town warmth, second chances, and quiet questions about faith, on the page and on screen.

In Catholic school he discovered early that words could change how people feel. In fourth grade he wrote a short story that earned an A and a chance to read it aloud to his classmates. Their reaction made writing feel less like homework and more like a doorway he might walk through someday.

A few years later, a seventh grade English teacher at La Salle Institute pulled him aside, told him his writing was different, and handed him a folder to save his stories, a simple gesture Gray never forgot.

Through high school and college he chased every chance to write, working on student newspapers while studying broadcasting at Hudson Valley Community College and the State University of New York at Oswego. After graduation he worked his way through radio and local TV before becoming a familiar face on evening newscasts in New York's Capital Region.

Over the last few decades he has anchored news programs, covered everything from presidential campaigns to hometown fundraisers, and written a long-running column for local newspapers and magazines. Along the way he has earned multiple Emmy Awards and other honors for his reporting and commentary, but he still talks about the work in plain terms, as a way to make sense of ordinary life with his neighbors.

Books gave him room to turn that same eye for detail toward grief, faith, and kindness in a more personal way, for readers of all ages.

His first breakout book, God Needed a Puppy, grew out of the sudden loss of his own young dog, Samuel. Wanting to comfort children facing the death of a pet, he wrote a forest story in which friendly animals walk a child through sadness toward the hope that love is not wasted. He followed it with Keller's Heart, inspired by his blind and deaf rescue dog, and Sweet Polly Petals, a modern fairy tale about a girl who uses her wishes to help people who are struggling instead of herself. A significant share of the proceeds from these books has gone to animal shelters and other causes close to his heart.

Gray then turned to adult fiction with the Chase Harrington novels, beginning with Manchester Christmas and continuing in Chasing Manhattan and Chasing Rome. Across those books a young writer stumbles into a Vermont village, New York penthouses, and Italian streets, discovering romance, mysteries, and a sense that unseen grace might be at work in the background. His later novel The Carpenter's Son follows a skeptical Boston journalist investigating modern-day miracles and grappling with the possibility that the answers she finds could change everything she believes.

He lives near Albany with his wife, Courtney, their three children, and several rescue dogs with special needs, including the real-life Keller. Between anchoring the news, writing his columns, visiting schools, and working with local charities, he carves out early mornings and late evenings to keep drafting new stories. Whether he is writing about a girl and her dog, a reporter chasing a mystery, or a town that comes together at Christmas, his goal is to leave readers feeling a little less alone and a little more hopeful when they turn the last page.