Game of Dukes Books in Order

If you like your historical romance with criminals, bodyguards, self-made power, and a lot of secrets, this is the set to pick up. The Game of Dukes books live in London's shadow world, where respectable society keeps brushing against the underworld and pretending not to notice.

The men at the center of this series are not drawing-room ornaments. They are policemen, moneylenders, industrialists, wounded aristocrats, and survivors who built themselves the hard way. Some have titles. Some have influence that matters more than a title. All of them are carrying baggage, and Grace Callaway gets a lot of mileage out of putting them opposite women who refuse to be managed, protected, or underestimated.

That pattern shows up right away in The Duke Identity, when Harry Kent is assigned to protect Tessa Todd, a clever young woman from London's criminal underworld who has no interest in being controlled. From there the series keeps widening. Enter the Duke brings in a disguised duke, a reunion, and a secret child. Regarding the Duke turns a marriage inside out through amnesia and buried motives. Later books like The Duke Redemption and The Return of the Duke lean into redemption arcs, business conflict, beauty-and-the-beast tension, and marriage bargains that get far more real than either side expected.

These books like a good secret.

The setting matters as much as the chemistry. The stories move through gambling hells, alleys, masquerades, drawing rooms, country estates, and the places where money and danger change hands. Even when a book starts with a familiar romance setup, a bodyguard job, a lost memory, a marriage arrangement, there is usually a hidden enemy or an old wound pushing the plot forward. That suspense thread is one reason the series feels so fast and addictive.

Another draw is how often the power balance shifts. The heroines here are not passive prizes. Tessa fights back. Maggie protects her business and her child. Gabriella has to rethink everything she thought she knew. Bea builds a refuge on her own land. Fancy enters a world designed to exclude her and does not quietly accept the rules. The romances work because both people have something real to lose.

Although the books connect to the wider Callaway universe, this series stands nicely on its own if you want danger first and drawing-room manners second. Start with The Duke Identity for the clearest doorway in, then keep going if you enjoy underworld intrigue, fierce attraction, and damaged characters trying to earn a second chance. Steamy Winter Wishes later gives the whole group a warm holiday reunion.