Brides by Chance Books in Order
Part ofElizabeth Bailey Books in OrderBrowse the Brides by Chance Regency adventures by Elizabeth Bailey in order, with story summaries, series background on her Cinderella style romances, and guidance on the best books to begin with.
Last updated: January 17, 2026
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Publication Order
10 books
Taming The Vulture
by Elizabeth Bailey
2021
Ambitious novelist Silvestre Latimer cares more about her writing than marriage, until she collides with Gausselin Degarre, a sardonic poet known as the vulture of the literary set. Drawn together in London’s salons, they must decide whether either of them dares to trust in love.
His Auction Prize
by Elizabeth Bailey
2021
Orphaned schoolmistress Felicity Temple is thrust into high society when her scheming guardian drags her to a London party, then abandons her. After Raoul, Lord Lynchmere, wins her company in a mock auction, he becomes the only man she can trust to untangle her mysterious past.
Disaster and the Duke
by Elizabeth Bailey
2021
Hetty Latimer has resigned herself to spinsterhood after her father’s disgrace leaves her without a dowry. A chance meeting with Theo Devenal, the new Duke of Charlton, sparks attraction and a sequence of mishaps that force both of them to question duty, pride and class.
Widow In Mistletoe
by Elizabeth Bailey
2020
Young widow Chloe Quilter’s peaceful country life is upended when a stranger crashes his curricle outside her home and loses his memory. As she nurses Lance, Lord Pettipher, back to health, Chloe must help him face the ghosts of his past and decide what future he truly wants.
Marriage For Music
by Elizabeth Bailey
2020
Living at the mercy of a demanding relative, Lily Daubney dreams only of a quiet life devoted to music. When scandalous Vincent, Lord Wintringham, must wed or lose his inheritance, he proposes a marriage of convenience that soon threatens to become something far more complicated.
Damsel To The Rescue
by Elizabeth Bailey
2020
After years on the marriage mart, Delia Burloyne expects nothing more exciting than another dull Season. A violent coach hold up throws her together with Giffard Gaunt, a dispossessed earl in hiding, and she finds herself risking her safety and her heart on his dangerous cause.
A Winter's Madcap Escapade
by Elizabeth Bailey
2019
Runaway heiress Appoline "Apple" Greenaway hides in Lord Dymond’s coach to escape scheming cousins who covet her inheritance. What begins as an impulsive flight becomes a madcap winter adventure as Alex realises his stowaway is under threat and perhaps the only woman who can upend his ordered life.
A Chance Gone By
by Elizabeth Bailey
2019
Taken in as a poor relation, Marianne Timperley has always loved Justin Crail, heir to an earldom, but knows he is promised elsewhere. When tragedy strikes his family, Justin leans on her friendship, forcing them both to confront whether they will sacrifice love to duty.
Knight For A Lady
by Elizabeth Bailey
2017
Newly made an earl, former army colonel Niall Lowrie would rather face battle than country house politics. In a quiet village he meets independent Edith Westacott, who yearns for more than vicarage life. When danger from her past resurfaces, Niall must decide what kind of knight he will be.
In Honour Bound
by Elizabeth Bailey
2016
Orphaned tomboy Isolde Cavanagh arrives at Bawdsey Grange expecting a welcoming guardian and instead finds his son, Richard de Baudresey, baffled by her existence. As he tries to turn his unruly ward into a society lady, buried secrets and inconvenient feelings threaten both their plans.
Series background & context
The Brides by Chance sequence gathers a loose constellation of Regency romances built around one simple idea: what happens to women with almost no marriage prospects when fortune, misfortune and sheer stubbornness throw them into adventure. Most of Bailey’s heroines here are orphans, poor relations or gently born women living on sufferance, with little money and even less power.
The first book, In Honour Bound, sends tomboyish army child Isolde Cavanagh to live with the son of a dead family friend, only to find he had no idea she was coming. Later stories follow shy Marianne, who loves a man far above her station, capable young women who want more than governess work, widows and wallflowers who expect very little of life and then discover how wrong they were. Each woman has to work out where her sense of honour lies before she dares to reach for happiness.
Against these determined heroines Bailey sets an array of male leads dukes, earls, colonels and poets who are often weighed down by rank or past mistakes. A disinherited duke who keeps rescuing an accident prone neighbour, a war scarred earl hiding from his enemies, a cynical rake forced to marry quickly for money or lose his inheritance, a brooding writer nicknamed the vulture, the men bring their own baggage and blind spots into the story.
Plotting tends to mix domestic scenes with high stakes incidents. Carriages overturn in snowstorms, highwaymen strike on lonely roads, elopements go awry, disguised fugitives arrive at the wrong house and old scandals suddenly matter again when a missing heir or hidden trust comes to light. Along the way Bailey lingers on balls, musicales, country house visits and seaside towns, filling out the texture of Regency society.
Although the novels form a series, they are only lightly linked through friendships, passing references and the shared theme of women who seem to have no chance at all. You can read them in order to watch familiar faces reappear, or dip in wherever a particular premise appeals. Either way, Brides by Chance offers a run of romances where resourceful heroines, once backed into a corner, discover they can bargain for much more than survival.
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