Smallhope & Pennyroyal Books in Order

The Smallhope and Pennyroyal books grow out of a short story set in the wider St Mary's and Time Police universe that refused to stay small. They follow an unlikely partnership between Lady Amelia Smallhope, a titled trouble magnet who prefers strong drinks and stronger opinions, and Pennyroyal, a man who presents as the perfect butler and is anything but. Together they work as so called recovery agents, time travelling specialists who retrieve lost or stolen items and occasionally people.

In The Ballad of Smallhope and Pennyroyal readers get the duo's origin story. Amelia is supposed to be a well behaved member of the aristocracy and has never been very good at it. Pennyroyal is supposed to be unflappable, discreet and entirely under control, and he is mostly those things until Amelia barrels into his life. A botched job, a scandal and a badly judged duel set them on the path to working together, which is where they discover that their combined talents are uniquely suited to dangerous, highly unofficial assignments.

Their work takes them across the timeline in pursuit of smugglers, thieves and clients who are not telling the whole truth. The same mix of history, humour and catastrophe that runs through St Mary's is present here, but with a slightly different flavour. Amelia and Pennyroyal have expense accounts instead of grant funding, a taste for luxury hotels instead of crumbling priory buildings, and a professional code that is more guideline than rule.

The planned follow up, A Family Affair, finds them reeling from the events of the first book and hoping for some quiet recovery time. Instead they discover that someone with a long memory has decided to come after them via Pennyroyal's murky past. What starts as a threat to their business quickly becomes a threat to everyone they care about, forcing them to dig deep into old secrets and decide who, exactly, they can trust.

These stories sit neatly alongside the Time Police novels, brushing up against the same institutions and historical events from a different angle. Where the Time Police enforce the rules, Smallhope and Pennyroyal specialise in bending them without quite breaking them, at least in theory. The tone is quick and quippy, with moments of real emotional weight when the cost of their work lands.

For readers who enjoy Taylor's blend of sharp dialogue, high stakes and affectionately drawn chaos, the Smallhope and Pennyroyal books offer another corner of the shared universe to explore. You do not need to have read every St Mary's or Time Police book to follow their adventures, but knowing the wider setting adds an extra layer of fun as familiar names and places drift through the background.