Judith James Books in Order

If you want the linked Restoration books in order: Libertine's Kiss → Soldier of Fortune: The King's Courtesan → The Highwayman
If you want her darkest, most emotional standalone: Broken Wing
If you want Scottish politics, battles, and a reluctant marriage story: Highland Rebel
If you want one strong sample of court intrigue and wounded characters: Soldier of Fortune: The King's Courtesan

Judith James grew up in Montreal, Quebec, the kind of reader who could happily disappear into history, adventure, and romance for hours. She has described herself as a history buff and an adventure junkie, and those two sides of her work well together on the page. Her novels tend to be full of movement, danger, and people trying to find their footing again.

A love of the Stuart era got hold of her early. In seventh grade she was already fascinated by that world, and later a bargain-bin history of Restoration rogues and scandal pushed the interest even further. That mix of curiosity and deep reading would eventually shape the books she became known for.

Her route to writing was anything but tidy.

Before fiction, she worked a wide range of jobs, including trail guide, horse trainer, legal assistant, counselor, and clinical and forensic psychologist. She also traveled, worked, and lived in places far from each other, including the Arctic, Ireland, London, and France. Those experiences seem to feed the books from several angles at once. She knows horses, hard weather, uneasy power dynamics, and the way old wounds can sit quietly inside a person for years.

In 2005, after leaving a government job, she decided to stop keeping stories in her head and start writing them down. Broken Wing was her first manuscript. It took her about ten months to write, and about another year to find an agent and publisher. Along the way she heard that the book was too dark, too historical, and too unusual. She kept it intact anyway.

That stubborn streak mattered.

Broken Wing introduced many of the things Judith James keeps returning to: battered heroes, second chances, emotional repair, and love stories set against real upheaval. Gabriel St. Croix, the book's damaged hero, is not smoothed into something easier or safer. The novel went on to win an IPPY Gold medal, which helped open doors, but more important, it showed the kind of story she wanted to tell.

Her next books kept building on that approach. Highland Rebel brings war, politics, and a forced marriage into the Jacobite world of 17th-century Britain. The linked Restoration novels, Libertine's Kiss, Soldier of Fortune: The King's Courtesan, and The Highwayman move through the court of Charles II, battlefields, country roads, and dangerous social bargains. Readers who connect with her work often like that the romance never floats free of the history. The past is always pressing in.

Her background in psychology also seems to leave a clear mark. She has said that it helped her think about character and motivation, and her fiction often circles trust, shame, loyalty, survival, and the long work of healing. Even when the setting is glittering, the emotional world usually has some rough edges. That gives her best books a grounded feel.

She is also a hands-on researcher. For different books she has taken fiddle lessons, fencing lessons, and sailed on a tall ship, while her knowledge of horses helps keep the practical details honest. It is an appealingly direct way to build a historical romance.

These days she has said she lives on the East Coast with an ocean view, and at one point a very cranky elderly cat who liked to interfere with the writing process. That seems right for Judith James. Her books feel written by someone who likes a little wildness in both landscape and people.