The Veronica Speedwell Series in Order

The appeal is almost entirely the double act. Veronica says the unsayable and means it; Stoker objects and then does what she wants anyway. The mysteries are competent Victorian puzzles, but nobody reads ten of these for the puzzles.

The Veronica Speedwell books in order

1. A Curious Beginning (2015) — Veronica buries her guardian, is nearly abducted, and is deposited in the workshop of a man calling himself Stoker. Establishes the pair and the question of her parentage.
2. A Perilous Undertaking (2017) — A condemned woman, a secret society, and a case Veronica is asked to take by someone she cannot refuse.
3. A Treacherous Curse (2018) — An Egyptian expedition, a missing man from Stoker's past, and the book that finally explains him.
4. A Dangerous Collaboration (2019) — A Cornish island, a vanished bride and a house party. The most gothic instalment.
5. A Murderous Relation (2020) — The Ripper murders in the background and a royal scandal in the foreground. Ends on the series' biggest shift.
6. An Unexpected Peril (2021) — A mountaineer's death, an alpine principality and a suffrage-adjacent club of exploring women.
7. An Impossible Impostor (2022) — A man returns from a volcanic eruption claiming an identity that cannot be his. The most emotionally difficult book for Stoker.
8. A Sinister Revenge (2023) — An old crime, a reunion of former friends, and a killer working through them.
9. A Grave Robbery (2024) — A wax figure that turns out not to be wax. The series at its most macabre.
10. A Ghastly Catastrophe (2026) — The most recent instalment, published in March 2026.

Ten novels, no novellas. Note the gaps: nothing in 2016 and nothing in 2025.

Does the order matter?

Yes, though less absolutely than in Lady Sherlock. Each mystery resolves inside its own book, but two threads run continuously: the truth about Veronica's parentage, which develops across the first five, and the relationship with Stoker, which moves at a deliberately maddening pace.

A Murderous Relation in particular ends somewhere that makes reading the next book out of sequence a genuine spoiler. Start at A Curious Beginning.

Veronica Speedwell or Lady Julia Grey?

Raybourn wrote Lady Julia Grey first, and the two series get confused constantly. Lady Julia is earlier, darker and more gothic, narrated by a widow discovering that her husband was murdered. Veronica is later, funnier and considerably more forward.

If you want atmosphere and a slow, sombre unfolding, start with Lady Julia. If you want banter and a heroine who announces her own appetites without apology, start here. Most readers who try both prefer whichever they met first, which suggests the two are simply doing different jobs.

What to read next

Lady Sherlock for the same era with a colder intelligence at its centre, or the Belles of London for Victorian romance without a body in it. For the Egyptology and adventure strand, Loretta Chase's Mr. Impossible covers similar ground a few decades earlier.