Manners and Monsters Books in Order

Manners and Monsters drops you into a version of Regency England where drawing-room etiquette still matters, but so do monsters, curses, and the awkward social reality of the undead. At the center is Hannah Miles, a quiet, clever young woman who helps her father with scientific research into the Affliction, a cursed condition that has left some society figures technically dead but still walking about. It is one of those series where the world is odd from page one, yet quickly feels completely natural.

Hannah is a big part of why the books work. She is observant, practical, and used to staying out of sight. That changes when a murder at her best friend's engagement party pushes her into an investigation alongside Viscount Wycliff, a rude, disgraced nobleman with a talent for irritation and a habit of hiding things. Their partnership begins as a reluctant one and becomes the spine of the whole series.

The setting does a lot of work here. Wallace takes parlours, ballrooms, house parties, libraries, country estates, and London streets, then fills them with stitched horrors, gorgons, possible vampyres, selkies, hellhounds, and more than one corpse that refuses to behave properly. The result is part cozy mystery, part paranormal adventure, and part slow-burn relationship story. The murders matter, but so do reputation, class, grief, and the strange rules society invents to keep functioning after magic has clearly broken something.

There is a larger story running under the individual cases. Hannah's family is tied to the problem of the Affliction in deeply personal ways. Questions about cures, hidden history, dangerous magic, and who gets protected by society keep surfacing. As the books go on, the scope widens from clever investigations to matters that could reshape whole communities.

It is cozy, but never sleepy.

What Wallace does especially well is tone. These books can be gothic, funny, romantic, and unsettling in the space of a few pages. Hannah and Wycliff bicker, care for each other badly and then better, and stumble through one bizarre case after another while gathering a small circle of memorable allies. Even when the stakes get larger, the series keeps its human scale.

If you are wondering where to start, start with Manners and Monsters. This is not a series to skip around. The relationship arc, the family secrets, and the deeper magical history build book by book, and Mistletoe and Mireworth works best once you have made it through the main run.