Fairmile Books in Order

The Fairmile series is a multi generation family saga that steps away from royal courts and follows working people through some of the most turbulent decades in 17th century English history. At its heart is Alinor Reekie, a midwife and herbalist from the tidal marshes of the south coast, and her scattered descendants.

In Tidelands it is 1648 and civil war has left Alinor almost destitute, abandoned by a husband whose fate is uncertain and mistrusted by neighbours who already half believe she is a witch. On Midsummer’s Eve she waits in a churchyard for a sign that she is free of her marriage and instead meets James, a young priest on a dangerous mission. By helping him across the treacherous marsh she entangles her family in royalist plots, local gossip and the rising fear that surrounds any woman who lives by her own skills.

Dark Tides jumps forward more than twenty years to 1670. Alinor is now running a warehouse at Reekie Wharf in London with her daughter and granddaughter when two strangers arrive: James Avery, restored to favour with the returning monarchy and still obsessed with his lost love, and Livia, a beautiful widow from Venice who claims Alinor’s son Rob has drowned. As the story moves between the pleasure seeking court of Charles II, a city of narrow alleys and the glittering canals of Venice, the family must decide how much to trust these visitors and what they are willing to risk to keep hold of their fragile independence.

In Dawnlands the date is 1685 and England faces another crisis as James II takes the throne and rebellion brews in the West Country. Ned Ferryman returns from America with his Pokanoket companion Rowan, hoping to fight for a more just future, while Alinor and her daughter Alys are drawn into a dangerous promise to help the queen during a siege. The younger generation become entangled in plots involving a counterfeit heir, forced migration and the brutal realities of plantation slavery in Barbados.

Throughout the series Gregory is interested in trade, migration and ordinary resilience. Barges on muddy creeks, London wharves, Venetian workshops and Caribbean caves all become stages where questions of loyalty, profit and survival play out. Fairmile is a good entry point if you want historical fiction about people who are usually background figures in stories of kings and battles.