Madeline Hunter Books in Order: All 40 Titles
Madeline Hunter (1952-2025) was an American historical romance novelist who wrote entirely in medieval, Georgian and Regency England. She held a PhD in art history and taught at Duquesne University while writing; her debut, the medieval romance By Arrangement, was published by Bantam in June 2000. She published thirty-five novels and five novellas over twenty-five years, won RITA Awards from Romance Writers of America for Stealing Heaven in 2003 and Lessons of Desire in 2008, and placed titles on the New York Times and USA Today bestseller lists. She was known for unusually researched period detail and for heroines with trades and professions. She died of cancer on 15 April 2025; her last novel, The Lady Takes on London, was published posthumously in September 2025.
Do you have to read Madeline Hunter in order?
Her series are independent of one another, so you can start with any of them and never need to have read an earlier series. The medievals are the loosest set: the author's own guide says each stands alone, and they can be read in publication order or in the internal chronological order she gives. The Regency series do carry recurring characters, so read each one in order - A Duke's Heiress in particular has a mystery that runs across all three books and only resolves in The Heiress Bride. The five novellas are all standalone stories from multi-author anthologies and can be read at any point.
Genres and eras: Entirely historical romance, with no contemporary fiction at all. Two distinct periods: fourteenth-century England for the six medieval novels (2000-2002) and two medieval novellas, and Georgian and Regency England for everything published from 2003 onwards. The Georgian and Regency books make up roughly three quarters of the catalogue.
Pen names: Madeline Hunter — A pen name. Wikipedia gives her birth name as Madeline Cirillo, later Archer. All of her fiction was published as Madeline Hunter and all of it is included here; her academic art-history writing under her legal name is not romance and is not counted.
Medievals in order (2000-2002)
Listed here in publication order. The author's own reading-order guide gives the internal chronological order as By Possession (1326), By Design (1328), Stealing Heaven (1341), By Arrangement (1346), The Protector (1348-49), Lord of a Thousand Nights (mid-1350s), and states that each stands on its own. Goodreads numbers the series by that chronology, which is why some sites list By Possession as book one.
| Book | Title | First published |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | By Arrangement | 2000 |
| 2 | By Possession | 2000 |
| 3 | By Design | 2001 |
| 4 | The Protector | 2001 |
| 5 | Lord of a Thousand Nights | 2002 |
| 6 | Stealing Heaven | 2002 |
The Seducer Series in order (2003-2006)
Regency England. Her own reading-order guide numbers only the first five as the series proper and calls Lord of Sin and Lady of Sin spin-offs; Goodreads and most retailers list all seven together, which is how they are given here.
| Book | Title | First published |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | The Seducer | 2003 |
| 2 | The Saint | 2003 |
| 3 | The Charmer | 2003 |
| 4 | The Sinner | 2003 |
| 5 | The Romantic | 2004 |
| 6 | Lord of Sin | 2005 |
| 7 | Lady of Sin | 2006 |
The Rothwell Series in order (2006-2009)
Also sold as the Rothwell Brothers. Lessons of Desire won the 2008 RITA Award for Historical Romance.
| Book | Title | First published |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | The Rules of Seduction | 2006 |
| 2 | Lessons of Desire | 2007 |
| 3 | Secrets of Surrender | 2008 |
| 4 | The Sins of Lord Easterbrook | 2009 |
The Rarest Blooms in order (2010-2011)
Her most popular series. Four heroines connected by a flower nursery that shelters women in trouble. The first three were published within a single year.
More on the The Rarest Blooms series →
| Book | Title | First published |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Ravishing in Red | 2010 |
| 2 | Provocative in Pearls | 2010 |
| 3 | Sinful in Satin | 2010 |
| 4 | Dangerous in Diamonds | 2011 |
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The Fairbourne Quartet in order (2012-2014)
Regency England, built around a London auction house.
| Book | Title | First published |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | The Surrender of Miss Fairbourne | 2012 |
| 2 | The Conquest of Lady Cassandra | 2013 |
| 3 | The Counterfeit Mistress | 2013 |
| 4 | The Accidental Duchess | 2014 |
The Wicked Trilogy in order (2015-2016)
| Book | Title | First published |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | His Wicked Reputation | 2015 |
| 2 | Tall, Dark and Wicked | 2015 |
| 3 | The Wicked Duke | 2016 |
The Decadent Dukes Society in order (2017-2019)
| Book | Title | First published |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | The Most Dangerous Duke in London | 2017 |
| 2 | A Devil of a Duke | 2018 |
| 3 | Never Deny a Duke | 2019 |
A Duke's Heiress in order (2020-2023)
Three women who each inherit part of a dukedom's fortune. The trilogy carries a single mystery thread that is resolved in The Heiress Bride, so these should be read in order.
| Book | Title | First published |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | Heiress for Hire | 2020 |
| 2 | Heiress in Red Silk | 2021 |
| 3 | The Heiress Bride | 2023 |
Madeline Hunter: books outside the series
These sit outside the numbered series and can be read in any order.
| Title | First published | |
|---|---|---|
| — | An Interrupted Tapestry novella | 2002 |
| — | The Duke's Dressmaker novella | 2016 |
| — | A Christmas Abduction novella | 2019 |
| — | Never If Not Now novella | 2020 |
| — | An Unexpected Christmas Gift novella | 2021 |
| — | The Lady Takes on London | 2025 |
Where to start with Madeline Hunter
Ravishing in Red
Book one of The Rarest Blooms, her most popular series and the easiest entry point to her Regency work.
The Rules of Seduction
Opens the Rothwell series, whose second book, Lessons of Desire, won her a RITA Award.
By Arrangement
Her 2000 debut and the best-known of the medievals, if you want the fourteenth-century half of her catalogue.
Frequently asked questions
Do Madeline Hunter's books need to be read in order?
Not across her catalogue - her eight series are separate and any can be read first. Within a series it is worth reading in order because secondary characters become the next book's leads. A Duke's Heiress is the one set that really requires it, because a mystery runs through all three books and is only resolved in The Heiress Bride.
What order should I read Madeline Hunter's medieval books in?
Either works. Publication order is By Arrangement, By Possession, By Design, The Protector, Lord of a Thousand Nights, Stealing Heaven. Her own website gives the internal chronological order as By Possession (1326), By Design (1328), Stealing Heaven (1341), By Arrangement (1346), The Protector (1348-49), Lord of a Thousand Nights (mid-1350s), and notes that each stands on its own.
How many books did Madeline Hunter write?
Forty: thirty-five full-length novels and five novellas, published between 2000 and 2025. They are spread across eight series - the medievals, The Seducer, Rothwell, The Rarest Blooms, the Fairbourne Quartet, the Wicked Trilogy, the Decadent Dukes Society and A Duke's Heiress - plus one final standalone novel.
Is Madeline Hunter still writing?
No. She died of cancer on 15 April 2025, aged 72. Her publisher Kensington and the romance community marked her death that month. Her final novel, The Lady Takes on London, was published posthumously in September 2025.
What was Madeline Hunter's last book?
The Lady Takes on London, published by Kensington in September 2025 after her death. It is an enemies-to-lovers Regency about Caroline Montgomery, sister to the Earl of Larchmont, and a barrister she cannot stand, and was announced as the first of a new trilogy that will not now be completed.
Which Madeline Hunter books won awards?
She won two RITA Awards from Romance Writers of America: Stealing Heaven took Long Historical Romance in 2003 and Lessons of Desire took Historical Romance in 2008. Her debut By Arrangement won a Reviewers' Choice Award for Best First Historical Romance in 2000, and she had fifteen books on the USA Today bestseller list.
Did Madeline Hunter write contemporary romance?
No. Every one of her forty published titles is historical romance - six medieval novels and two medieval novellas set in fourteenth-century England, and Georgian and Regency England for everything from 2003 onwards.
How this list was counted
This guide lists 40 titles — 34 across 8 series and 6 outside them. Thirty-five full-length novels plus five novellas published as Madeline Hunter between 2000 and 2025. Each work is counted once at its first publication, so a novella that first appeared inside a multi-author anthology is counted under its own title and year, not under the anthology's. Reissues, box sets and the anthologies themselves are not counted separately - which is why A Christmas Abduction appears once, at 2019, and not again for its 2023 standalone ebook release. FictionDB's count of 41 titles appears to include a reissue or a bundle.
The five novellas all first appeared inside multi-author anthologies and are listed under their own titles rather than the anthology titles: An Interrupted Tapestry in Tapestry (2002, with Mary Jo Putney and others); The Duke's Dressmaker in Dressed to Kiss (September 2016, with Caroline Linden, Megan Frampton and Myretta Robens); A Christmas Abduction in Seduction on a Snowy Night (2019, with Mary Jo Putney and Sabrina Jeffries), reissued as a standalone ebook in 2023, which is why some listings date it 2023; An Unexpected Christmas Gift in A Yuletide Kiss (2021, with Sabrina Jeffries and Mary Jo Putney); and Never If Not Now, her seventh-position entry in the multi-author Midsummer Knights medieval serial project (July 2020). Several book databases list the anthology titles as if they were Madeline Hunter books in their own right; counting them that way would double-count. Source disagreements found. (1) The Sinner: Goodreads and orderofbooks give 2003, but a mass-market listing suggests January 2004; 2003 is used as the two-source majority. (2) The Lady Takes on London: Kensington and multiple 2025 listings give September 2025, but Fresh Fiction lists June 2024 and some retailer pages carry obvious placeholder dates (one shows 2079). The book was long delayed and then published after her death; September 2025 is used, but this is the single least certain date in this file. (3) Medieval series numbering differs between the author's own chronological guide and Goodreads' numbering - both orders are given above. (4) FictionDB claims 41 titles against the 40 counted here; the extra is most likely a reissue or bundle. Fantastic Fiction and FictionDB both refuse automated fetches and could not be used as direct cross-checks.