Great Britain book series in reading order

by Douglas Reeman / Alexander Kent

by David Donachie

by Rosemary Rowe / Aitken

by Emily Brightwell

by Paul Doherty

by Julian Stockwin

by Naomi Novik

by Vivian V.A. Stuart

by Stella Rimington

by Patrick O’Brian

by Veronica Heley

by Adam Hall

by M.J. Trow

by Candace Robb

by Susanna Gregory

by Bill James

by Alanna Knight

by Mick Herron

by Charles Stross

by Cynthia Harrod-Eagles

by John Wilcox

by Ruth Dudley Edwards

by James Barrington

by Ian Morson

by Elizabeth George

by C.S. Harris

by C.S. Forester

by Len Deighton

by Andy McNab

by David Gilman

by Margaret Duffy

by Deryn Lake

by Kathy Lynn Emerson

by Andrew Martin

by Duncan Falconer

by Mark Billingham

by Brian Freemantle

by John Buchan

by David Dickinson

by Anthony Powell

by Mark Hodder

by Edward Wilson

Douglas Reeman wrote naval fiction under his own name and as Alexander Kent. Richard Bolitho heads one series and the Blackwood Family books form a second. The catalogue lists 69 titles published between 1958 and 2011, from A Prayer for the Ship (1958) to In the King's Name (2011). Sea stories, the Royal Navy, the Second World War and the Napoleonic wars run through the subjects. The books are long, at a median 320 pages, and output peaked in the 1970s.

Victoria Holt's catalogue runs to 185 books published between 1940 and 1995, covering historical fiction, historical romance and mystery. Daughter of Anna (1940) is the earliest title, and Daughters of England (1995) the latest. The listing gathers several credits under other names, including titles marked as Jean Plaidy. Series include Tudor Saga, Plantagenet Saga, Georgian Saga, Stuart Saga, Norman Trilogy, Queen Victoria and Lucrezia Borgia. Kings, queens, England and France are frequent subjects.

Paul Doherty writes historical mysteries set largely in England, with 127 books catalogued from The Death of a King (1985) to The Meadows of Murder (2026). Recurring detectives include Hugh Corbett, Brother Athelstan, Kathryn Swinbrooke and Amerotke. Other series cover the Canterbury Tales Mysteries, Ancient Rome, Egyptian Mysteries, Nicholas Segalla, Mathilde of Westminster, Margaret Beaufort and Vlad Drakulya. Satan in St Mary's (1986) and Spy in Chancery (1988) are among the early titles.

David Donachie (1944 to 21 December 2023) was a British author of nautical historical novels, who also wrote as Tom Connery, Jack Ludlow and, from 2019, Jack Cole. The Privateersman Mysteries and John Pearce are series, and Harry Ludlow is a character named in the subjects. The catalogue lists 43 books from The Devil's Own Luck (1993) to If I'd Known You in a Better Time (2024), with Markham of the Marines, Nelson and Emma, Contraband Shore and SAS Boat Troop among the other series. Privateering, naval history and France appear in the subjects.

Chris Ryan

76 books• 16 series

Chris Ryan is the pen name of Colin Armstrong, a British author, television presenter and security consultant born in 1961 who served as a sergeant in the Special Air Service. After fellow patrol member Andy McNab published Bravo Two Zero in 1993, Ryan told the story of that mission in The One That Got Away (1995). Strike Back became a Sky 1 television series, and Ryan co-created the ITV action series Ultimate Force. The catalogue lists 76 Ryan books up to Traitor (2024), including Stand By, Stand by (1996) and The Kremlin Device (1998). Series include Danny Black, Agent 21, Geordie Sharp, Matt Browning and Special Forces Cadets.

Dudley Pope wrote nautical fiction and naval history. Pope lived from 1925 to 1997 and published 37 catalogued books between Flag 4 (1954) and Ramage & the Dido (1989). The Nicholas Ramage novels are the best known work, set in the Royal Navy during the Napoleonic Wars, and Ramage (1964) and Ramage and the Drum Beat (1968) sit early in that sequence. Buccaneer Ned Yorke is the second series. Histories of naval actions stand beside the novels, among them The Battle of the River Plate (1956) and 73 North: The Battle of the Barents Sea 1942 (1958). C.S. Forester was the acknowledged influence, and Pope's work is often set beside Patrick O'Brian's.

Georgette Heyer

65 books• 7 series

Georgette Heyer (16 August 1902 to 4 July 1974) was an English novelist and short-story writer in two genres, Regency romance and detective fiction. The Black Moth (1921), the first of 65 catalogued books, grew from a story Heyer invented for an ill younger brother. These Old Shades (1926) became popular even though it came out during the General Strike. Inspector Hannasyde, Inspector Hemingway and Alastair-Audley are the recurring series. The Chinese Shawl (2019) is the newest listed edition.

Edward Marston writes historical crime fiction, and the catalogue of 117 books runs to The Corpse on the Bristol Train (2026). Inspector Robert Colbeck, Elizabethan Theater, Domesday, Home Front Detective, Dillman & Masefield / Ocean Liner Mysteries, Christopher Redmayne, Captain Rawson and Bow Street Rivals are among the series. Nicholas Bracewell and Lord Westfield's Men appear in the subjects, together with theater, police work, railroad travel and World War I. Alan Saxon and Merlin Richards are further series, and Marston is still publishing.

Naval historical fiction is Dewey Lambdin's genre, following the Royal Navy officer Alan Lewrie through sea stories set in British waters and the Caribbean. The King's Coat (1989) opens the sequence, followed by The French Admiral, The King's Commission, The King's Privateer, The Gun Ketch, H.M.S. Cockerel and A King's Commander. Twenty-seven titles make up the catalogue, which ends with Much Ado about Lewrie in 2019.

Two bodies of work sit under Rosemary Rowe, who also publishes as Rosemary Aitken. The Libertus Mystery of Roman Britain novels follow Libertus through murder investigations in Roman Britain, beginning with The Germanicus Mosaic (1999) and continuing in A Pattern of Blood (2000), Murder in the Forum (2001) and The Chariots of Calyx (2002). The Cornish Sagas take in Cornwall and the First World War, starting with The Girl from Penvarris (1995). The catalogue runs to 36 books, ending with The Rewards of Treachery (2023).

Medieval England supplies the ground for Michael Jecks's crime writing. The Knights Templar Mysteries, featuring Sir Baldwin Furnshill and Simon Puttock, form the bulk of a catalogue that also holds the Bloody Mary Mysteries, Vintaine, Holy Wars and Shanghailanders. Murder investigation and English history run through the books. Jecks's 59 catalogued titles open with The Last Templar (1995) and reach Treaty of Blood (2026), with a further book announced for 2027.

John Gardner (20 November 1926 – 3 August 2007) was an English author of spy and thriller novels, best known for continuing the James Bond books. Gardner also wrote the Boysie Oakes series and three novels featuring Professor Moriarty, the villain created by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle. Gardner joined the Home Guard at 13 during the Second World War and went on to serve in the Fleet Air Arm and the Royal Marines; after demobilisation Gardner studied theology at St John's College, Cambridge, and was ordained a Church of England priest in 1953. The Liquidator (1964) opens a catalogue of 60 books that includes Understrike (1965), Amber Nine (1966), Madrigal (1967) and Traitor's Exit (1970) and ends with Moriarty (2008). Herbie Kruger, Derek Torry and Detective Sergeant Suzie Mountford are further series.

Captain Richard Woodman (1944-2024) was an English merchant navy officer, novelist and naval historian who served mainly with Trinity House and retired in 1997 after a 37-year career at sea to write full time. Nathaniel Drinkwater carries the Napoleonic naval fiction, opening with An Eye of the Fleet (1981) and running through A King's Cutter (1982), A Brig of War (1983), The Bomb Vessel (1985) and Baltic Mission (1986). William Kite, Kit Faulkner, James Dunbar and Sword of the State follow, with A History of the British Merchant Navy and Keepers of the Sea on the nonfiction side. The catalogue holds 74 books through 2023, at a median 250 pages.

Emily Brightwell is one of the pseudonyms of Cheryl Arguile, an American writer born November 10, 1948 in Richwood, West Virginia, who also writes as Cheryl Lanham and Sarah Temple. The Mrs. Jeffries mysteries run from The Ghost and Mrs. Jeffries and The Inspector and Mrs. Jeffries (1993) to Mrs. Jeffries Aims to Win (2023). Subjects include women household employees, Gerald Witherspoon, the Metropolitan Police and murder investigation in Great Britain. The 46 listed books begin with Kindred Spirits (1990), and a Dear Diary series also appears.

Susanna Gregory is the pen name of Elizabeth Cruwys, a Cambridge academic and former coroner's officer who writes historical detective fiction. Matthew Bartholomew, a physician investigating murders in fourteenth-century Cambridge, carries her longest sequence, which opens with A Plague on Both Your Houses (1996). Thomas Chaloner heads a second series. Under a further name, Simon Beaufort, she wrote the Sir Geoffrey Mappestone and Alec Lonsdale books. The catalogue holds 52 books published between 1996 and 2022, and nothing has followed The Pudding Lane Plot (2022).

Cynthia Harrod-Eagles is a British novelist of historical, romance and mystery fiction, born 13 August 1948 at Shepherd's Bush, London. The first Harrod-Eagles novel was written in 1972, during university. Most books carry the author's own name, though Emma Woodhouse and Elizabeth Bennett have also served as pseudonyms, and several 1970s titles on file appear as Emma Woodhouse. The catalogue lists 115 books from 1974 to 2026, and series include Morland Dynasty, Bill Slider, War At Home, Ashmore Castle and the Kirov Trilogy. Deadly Force (2026) is the newest.

Medieval England is Elizabeth Chadwick's period - knights, courts, kings and rulers. The Wild Hunt (1990) opens the catalogue and the trilogy named after it. Later sequences take real figures as their subjects: William Marshal, Eleanor of Aquitaine, the FitzWarin family and Jeanette of Kent. Thirty titles are catalogued, running to The Crownless Queen in 2026, and the novels are long, at a median of 504 pages.

Nautical historical fiction is Julian Stockwin's subject: seafaring life, naval history, and sailors of Britain and France. His 30 catalogued books span 2001 to 2024 and are dominated by Thomas Kydd, a sequence opening with Kydd (2001), Artemis (2002) and Mutiny (2003). Two standalone novels sit outside it, The Silk Tree and The Powder of Death, alongside non-fiction. Stockwin, an MBE born at Basingstoke in 1944, writes books of a median 352 pages.

Andy McNab is the pen name of Steven Billy Mitchell, born 28 December 1959, a British novelist and former Special Air Service soldier. Public recognition came with Bravo Two Zero, an account of a Gulf War mission McNab led with the SAS, for which the Distinguished Conduct Medal followed; the Military Medal had come in 1979 for gallantry with the Royal Green Jackets in Northern Ireland. The catalogue lists 57 titles, among them two autobiographies, thrillers built around the intelligence officer Nick Stone, and books for younger readers in the Boy Soldier and Street Soldier sequences. The Rescue (2023) is the newest entry, and no further title is scheduled.

John Creasey (17 September 1908 to 9 June 1973) was an English novelist of detective and crime fiction who also wrote science fiction, romance and westerns, producing more than six hundred novels under twenty-eight pseudonyms. Creasey characters include The Toff (Richard Rollison), Commander George Gideon of Scotland Yard, Inspector Roger West, The Baron (John Mannering), Dr Emmanuel Cellini and Dr Stanislaus Alexander Palfrey. Gideon, introduced in Gideon's Day (1955), was the basis for the 1958 John Ford film Gideon's Day and the television series Gideon's Way (1964 to 1966). The catalogue lists 497 books from Seven Times Seven (1932), with early titles as M.E. Cooke and Margaret Cooke.

Angus Donald

28 books• 5 series

Angus Donald is a British writer of historical fiction, born in China in 1965. Ten novels and three novellas follow Alan-a-Dale, with the Robin Hood legend, outlaws, England and the Crusades supplying their material. Outlaw (2009) opens a catalogue of 28 books that reaches Templar Assassin (2026); Outlaw Chronicles, Fire Born, Broken Kingdom, Holcroft Blood and Mongol Knight are the series. Donald continues to publish.

Matthew Hervey, an officer of the fictional British 6th Light Dragoons, carries Allan Mallinson's fiction from the late Napoleonic Wars into colonial campaigns in India, North America and South Africa. A Close Run Thing (1999) opens the sequence, followed by The Nizam's Daughters (2000), A Regimental Affair (2001), A Call to Arms (2002), The Sabre's Edge (2003) and Company of Spears (2006). Mallinson, born in 1949, is an English author and a retired British Army brigadier, and also writes military history, reaching the First World War. The catalogue holds 19 books through 2020, at a median 448 pages.

M.J. Trow is the pen name of Meirion James Trow, a Welsh crime writer born 16 October 1949. The 105 catalogued books open with The Adventures of Inspector Lestrade (1985), and Lestrade, Peter Maxwell, Kit Marlowe and Margaret Murray each feature in a mystery series. Other series are Grand & Batchelor, Britannia, Calidus and Geoffrey Chaucer Mystery. Historical mystery, murder investigation and teachers are among the subjects, and Maxwell's Enigma (2026) is the newest title.

Philippa Gregory

46 books• 11 series

Philippa Gregory is an English historical novelist, born in Kenya on 9 January 1954, publishing since 1987. The Other Boleyn Girl (2001) won the Romantic Novelists' Association's Romantic Novel of the Year Award in 2002 and became two films. AudioFile magazine named Gregory the queen of British historical fiction. The catalogue holds 46 books from Wideacre (1987) to Royal Witch (2026). Series include Plantagenet and Tudor, Order of Darkness, Wideacre, Fairmile, Tradescant and Princess Rules, alongside children's books and non-fiction. Queens, kings and rulers, England and sisters recur in the subjects.