Markham Hall Books in Order

Markham Hall is Sierra Simone’s original high-spice historical playground, the place where she first blended gothic atmosphere, intricate mystery, and unapologetically explicit romance. Set primarily in late Victorian England, the series begins with Ivy Leavold, a young woman left penniless by her brother’s death and sent to live with her cousin’s brooding widower, Julian Markham, at the isolated Markham Hall estate.

The core trilogy - The Awakening of Ivy Leavold, The Education of Ivy Leavold, and The Punishment of Ivy Leavold - follows Ivy as she uncovers the truth behind her cousin’s suspicious death and navigates a consuming relationship with Julian. The books lean into gothic staples: stormy weather, locked doors, whispered scandals, and a hero who might be dangerous in more ways than one. At the same time, Simone pushes the heat level far beyond what you find in a traditional Victorian romance, using the couple’s erotic connection as both a comfort and a threat.

As the story progresses, Ivy is not simply a naive governess swept along by events. She makes choices, sometimes disastrous ones, about who and what she is willing to forgive. Her journey moves from wide-eyed infatuation to a more complicated reckoning with Julian’s past and her own capacity for desire and anger. Readers who enjoy the “Jane Eyre, but filthier” elevator pitch tend to find Markham Hall especially rewarding.

The world expands in the companion novellas about Molly O’Flaherty and Silas Cecil-Coke, collected under the London Lovers label but tied directly into the Markham timeline. Those stories track a headstrong heiress and a shameless playboy who enter into a marriage of convenience that quickly becomes something deeper and much more dangerous to their hearts. The London-set installments keep the same mix of social stakes, financial pressure, and intensely negotiated kink that characterize Ivy and Julian’s arc.

Throughout the Markham Hall books, the estate itself functions almost like a character: a gothic house filled with secrets, surrounded by wild landscape, and haunted by what has already happened within its walls. That mood ties neatly into Simone’s later gothic-leaning work, like Thornchapel and the Far Hope Stories, so readers who love Markham Hall often find an easy path deeper into her catalog.

This page gathers the reading order, short descriptions, and cross-links to related series so you can move through Ivy’s story, then decide whether to follow Molly and Silas to London or head straight for other moody manors in Simone’s universe.