Holcroft Blood Books in Order

The Holcroft Blood books move Donald’s historical fiction into Restoration and Stuart Britain, a world of court intrigue, secret plots, street violence, and shifting loyalties. At the center is Holcroft Blood, a semi-fictional version of a real historical figure, the son of the notorious Colonel Thomas Blood, the man remembered for trying to steal the Crown Jewels. That family connection gives the series its spark from the start, but the real draw is Holcroft himself.

He is an unusual hero.

Holcroft is clever, socially awkward, brave in a quiet way, and far more comfortable with numbers, artillery, and ciphers than with ordinary human behavior. He notices patterns other people miss. He is not a swaggering swordsman who wins every room the moment he enters it. Instead, he has to think his way through danger, politics, and betrayal. That makes the books feel a little different from many historical adventures, even when the action gets fierce.

In Bloods Game, the story begins in London in 1670, with Holcroft drawn into the orbit of powerful men at court while his father edges toward the Crown Jewels plot. The setting is full of danger, but it is not battlefield danger yet. It is the danger of Charles II’s court, where wit, treachery, patronage, and revenge all matter. As the series continues through Blood's Revolution and Blood's Campaign, the scale widens. Holcroft becomes a gunnery officer and moves through the upheavals around the Monmouth rebellion, the fall of James II, the rise of William of Orange, and the fighting in Ireland.

The books have a strong sense of place. London feels crowded, grubby, and unstable. Court life feels performative and risky. The later military scenes, from Sedgemoor to the Boyne, bring in cannon, engineering, and the practical side of war in a way that fits Holcroft’s mind. Donald clearly enjoys the big historical movements of the period, but he keeps them tied to one man trying to work out whom he can trust and what loyalty actually means when kings, generals, and spies keep changing sides.

Family matters here too. Colonel Thomas Blood is not just colorful background. He is a force in Holcroft’s life, reckless, cunning, and morally slippery, and that father-son tension helps shape the whole series. Holcroft is always measuring himself against a legacy that is both impressive and toxic.

The tone is adventurous, political, and a little sharper edged than cozy historical mystery. These books like danger, but they also like ideas, statecraft, gunnery, code-breaking, and the uncomfortable business of serving flawed rulers. If you want 17th-century fiction with battles, spies, court maneuvering, and a hero who wins more often with brains than bluster, Holcroft Blood is the series to look at.