Happy Sunday! Today, I’m starting a new weekly post called the Series Spotlight. Each Sunday, I’ll highlight a book series that I really enjoyed — whether it’s a completed series I’ve loved for years or a newer one that grabbed my heart. I’ll share a few thoughts about why I love it, what makes it stand out, and what kept me coming back for more.
Want to join in on the Sunday Series Spotlight? Here’s how!
- Pick a series you love (it can be completed or still ongoing).
- Write a post spotlighting it! Share a little about what the series is, why you enjoy it, and anything else you want to include.
- Link back to my blog in your post or put a link in the comments, so I can check it out!
For my first spotlight, I’m highlighting a fantastic historical romance series by Barbara Russell. The Victorian Outcasts starts with Taming the Savage Duke (soooo good!), which first released in 2023, and the next book, Duchess Don’t Cry, releases next month. I’ve already read it and LOVED it!
Why Did I Choose This Series? The covers are gorgeous, the stories are captivating, and the romances are positively swoon-worthy! Russell has a knack for creating wonderfully layered characters, relationships, and plots, and I’ve enjoyed every book I’ve read in the series! Plus, they’re all available on Kindle Unlimited. Let’s check them out!!
Book 1: Taming the Savage Duke
Maddie doesn’t have dreams. She has plans.
Finally, after weeks of hard work, the painting she’s going to present to the Royal Women’s Academy of Art is finished. The next step? She’ll get a fellowship to study at the academy, become one of the few female artists in the British Empire, and live happily ever after.
Her mother abhors the idea of her daughter being an artist—how vulgar! But the fellowship will grant six thousand pounds per year to Maddie.
When eccentric Lord Hector ruins her precious painting and injures her hand—by accident, of course—she’s furious at first, distraught later. She lost the opportunity to receive the fellowship and maybe ever paint again because of Hector’s clumsiness.
Mortified, he promises to make amends after he returns from his trip to the Amazonian Forest. Botany is his passion, and as the brother of the Duke of Blackburn, he has the money and support to pursue his dream. Money he’ll share with Maddie to help her become a painter.
Not feeling particularly optimistic after being injured and witnessing her painting being destroyed, Maddie wishes to never see him again. Her wish is granted when his ship sinks in the middle of the ocean during a storm, and he’s pronounced dead.
Eight years later, an ocean liner rescues him. Hector spent those years on a secluded island alone, hunting, fishing, and fighting against wild primates. In the meantime, his brother died, and the dukedom passed to his cousin, who has no intention of yielding it to a demented, savage man with a baboon’s manners.
Maddie is the only person Hector trusts and confides in. Appalled by his cousin’s brutal treatment of the employees at the family’s factory, he’s determined to claim the title and help those workers, but first, he has to prove he’s in full possession of his mental capabilities. Maddie takes on the daunting chore of reintroducing the wild quasi-duke into society. If she succeeds, Hector, once he’s the Duke of Blackburn, will help her realise her dream.
Book 2: The Earl’s Red Hot Wedding
As one of the youngest earls in the empire, Brandon doesn’t find true friends easily. Everyone wants something from him—favours, money, help. So when he meets Emily on the Flying Scotsman, she wins him with her honesty and charm. The fact they have the same taste in books doesn’t hurt either.
After another train crashes against the Flying Scotsman, Brandon and Emily are injured, and Emily’s parents die. He’s determined to take care of her, but Emily’s aunt wants to be her niece’s guardian.
Years later, Brandon meets Emily at a ball. The bond they forged on the Flying Scotsman is still strong, and they get close although the tragedy changed them both.
Brandon learns her aunt is secretly planning to pocket Emily’s inheritance as long as Emily doesn’t marry in the next few weeks.
Wishing to protect Emily, he proposes a red-hot marriage—a quick wedding in Scotland, which means taking the Flying Scotsman. The only problem? Emily doesn’t travel on a train anymore, especially on that doomed train. She’d have a fit if she had to sit on a train for hours on end.
But she has only a few weeks before her parents’ legacy is gone forever.
Book 3: The Wrath of the Marquess
England, 1884
An earthquake brings Cora and Ethan close. Literally.
They find themselves trapped together under an altar in a half-collapsed church. With nothing better to do but wait for the rescue party to free them, they form a bond of friendship and shared secrets.
She endures a loveless marriage with her abusive husband, Lord Roxbury, who mistreats and neglects her and their son, David. Ethan, a soldier and the next Marquess of Hertford, is about to be deployed to a Pacific island to fight against pirates.
Cora and Ethan meet again a few years later after he returns to London to keep open the centre for veterans his father founded. Not an easy task since he needs Lord Roxbury’s support for legal reasons.
When Cora tries to leave her husband to start a new life and protect her son, he shoots her. Desperate to help his mama and scared, David takes Cora to Ethan’s house and begs him to save her.
Ethan hides them in his house and takes care of Cora’s injury. Helping Cora leave England and hiding her from Lord Roxbury proves to be a challenge for Ethan. The future of dozens of soldiers, who suffer from permanent physical and mental problems, depends on his good relationship with Lord Roxbury.
On top of that, he didn’t expect to develop strong feelings for both Cora and David. As they carve their places into his heart, he has to decide which path is the worst. If he helps Cora and David move somewhere Lord Roxbury won’t find them, he won’t see them again. But if Cora gets a divorce, Lord Roxbury will take his revenge on Ethan, destroying everything important to him. Including Cora.
Book 4: The Viscount’s Marriage of Inconvenience
England, 1882
Keith, a servant in a rich house, feels nothing but gratitude for the Sharpe family. They rescue him from a miserable life and welcome him into their home, and Miss Violante Sharpe teaches him how to read. She’s so kind and pretty that he can’t help but fall for her.
But when Keith learns that Mr. Sharpe is part of an anarchist organization planning to blow up a politician’s house and kill people, he doesn’t hesitate to warn the police, ready to pay the consequences.
Violante’s life goes from riches to rags after the police kill her father and storm Sharpe Manor. Discovering her beloved papa was an anarchist breaks her heart. If only Keith had talked to her instead of going to the police. Good thing she doesn’t want to see him again.
She has lived on the streets for years, stealing wallets and watches. Keith instead made a fortune and was even granted a title. Not recognizing him, she steals his pocket watch in the street. He catches her, but instead of calling the police, he offers her a marriage proposal. He needs a wife to secure a deal with a strict Italian count who won’t do business with bachelors.
She has nothing to lose, but does she want to pretend to be the wife of the man who ruined her family?
Book 5: The Baron Who Never Danced
England, 1887
After a near-death experience in the Theatre Royal fire, Angeline wants to find love and have a family. But her mother has other plans. Marriage is overrated. Power is the only thing that matters.
Angeline is supposed to follow in her mother’s become the mistress of many rich lords, collect compromising material on them, blackmail them, and make a lot of money. That’s the recipe for a happy life.
Not for Angeline.
A former cat burglar, turned footman, turned baron, Royston comes from the gutter, but the queen bestows him a title after he saved her grandson from the inferno of the Theatre Royal. London’s peers adore him; he’s a fascinating combination of wildness and courage, and well, the queen likes him. But no one wants to help him get a seat in the House of Lords. After all, he isn’t really one of the peers. If he wants to change society though, he has to be in Parliament. If only a peer supported him.
The Earl of Havisham proposes a deal. If Royston uses his thief skills to retrieve some compromising documents Angeline’s mother has on the earl, Lord Havisham will be Royston’s champion.
Royston accepts the deal. The only problem is his growing feelings for the beautiful and spirited Angeline.
Book 6: Lord Ravenscroft is Not a Gentleman
Edith wants only one to become a surgeon like her father. Who has time to make friends when she has anatomy books to study? Who wants to go to a ball when she has medical conferences to attend?
Peregrine, Perry to his friends, doesn’t share her enthusiasm for books. He’s the brother of the Earl of Ravenscroft, titled, and powerful. Studying? Why would he need to study? He’s the spare. With no title comes no responsibilities.
But after they risk their lives on the sinking steamship Princess Alice, they start to reconsider their priorities. Edith tries every pleasure London has to offer. Perry works hard to become a good earl after the title passes to him. Sudden seizures have plagued him since the incident, and he must keep his condition secret, not to be marked as deranged or worse, cursed, and locked up in an institution.
Edith’s hedonistic life comes to a grinding halt after the almost-nude painting she posed for is bought by Perry, now Lord Ravenscroft. She’s furious. The artist promised not to sell the compromising painting, and now she wants it back before a scandal ensues.
Perry proposes a deal. If she works for him as his secretary, he’ll give her the painting.
Book 7: The King of Whitechapel
Dartmoor, 1891
Nothing exciting ever happens in Elizabeth’s life, especially when she stays on her family’s estate in Dartmoor. Endless moorland, cold weather, sheep, and only her governess for company.
Boring.
So when Christopher, a boy she’s never met, arrives at her house to stay for a while, she’s curious and thrilled. Her parents are clear, she mustn’t talk to him under any circumstances. Officially, he isn’t there. He’s confined to a room in the guest wing, never to meet anyone. Elizabeth is supposed to pretend he doesn’t exist. So of course, she wants to talk to him.
Freshly expelled from Eton for a crime he didn’t commit, Christopher is the illegitimate son of a duke. He’s considered an uncomfortable, embarrassing acquaintance no respectable lady should ever deal with.
But when Elizabeth and Christopher find themselves alone for a few days in a cottage during the country’s most powerful snowstorm in centuries, they get close—too close for her parents’ liking.
He’s sent away without the chance to say goodbye to Elizabeth. Only to meet her years later when she’s his half-brother’s bride-to-be.
Book 8: Duchesses Don’t Cry
Anthony Beaufort, Duke of Gloucester, is in need of a wife, and his grandmother is in charge of choosing the perfect lady for him.
But when he meets Helen, he finds her lack of personal opinions and her affected manners too daunting for his taste. Instead, Isabella, Helen’s sister, impresses him with her laughter and spontaneity.
Clever, spirited, and beautiful, Isabella will be a great duchess, someone he could rely on and trust to share his work with.
His grandmother disagrees. Isabella is a romping young woman with delusions of adequacy. Not to mention she supports women’s suffrage.
Isabella enjoys Anthony’s company, but marriage isn’t her priority, and Helen’s biggest wish has always been to marry a duke.
How could Isabella hurt her own sister? But how could she refuse a duke?
I’m an entomologist and a soil biologist, which is a fancy way to say that I dig in the dirt, looking for bugs. Nature and books have always been my passion. I was a kid when I read Ivanhoe by Sir W. Scott and fell in love with medieval novels. Then I discovered medieval fantasy, and I fell in love again. In fact, I took it too seriously and believed that my elderly, bearded neighbor was Merlin and his black cat was Morgan le Fey. When I read Harry Potter and learned about Animagi, I knew I was right. Then I grew up and… nah, I’m joking. I didn’t grow up. Don’t grow up, folks! It’s a trap.
PS I hate gardening. There, I said it. Sorry fellow Kiwis.
