Heirs & Spares Books in Order

Heirs & Spares is built around a smart idea: not everyone in an aristocratic family is the heir, but everyone still has to live inside the system the heir inherits. Frampton uses that gap to write romances about second sons, overlooked daughters, rival families, and people trying to carve out a life that is more than duty by the side door.

The first book, The Devil's Charm, follows Lord Lucian Blackwood, the charming younger son of a duke, and Lady Diantha Courtenay, the dutiful daughter of his father's longtime enemy. One kiss pulls them together, but the real story grows out of shared work and family politics, as the two are pushed into a project that might heal an old feud. The Scot's Seduction stays in the same world while shifting attention to Diantha's sister Drusilla, a woman who has no interest in marriage but plenty of interest in funding the work she wants to do. Her bargain with Murdoch, Earl of Cragmore, starts practical and ends much messier.

That is the sweet spot for this series.

These books care about rank, but not in a dazzled way. Lucian's role as a spare shapes how he sees himself, just as Drusilla's position shapes what freedoms she can and cannot claim. Frampton is interested in the people who stand close to power without fully owning it. That gives the romances a slightly different feel from her duke-heavy series. The questions are less about how to manage a title and more about how to build a life around the parts of the system that do not fit.

There is also a welcome practicality to the storytelling. Family rifts, charitable ambitions, social obligations, and negotiated bargains all matter. Love grows through proximity, shared purpose, and stubborn attraction, not just dramatic declarations. The tone is still warm and sexy, but the books also have a grounded, companionable quality.

If you like historical romances about second chances in the broadest sense, not only in love but in identity, family, and purpose, Heirs & Spares is a strong place to start.