Proper Romance Victorian / Dread Penny Society Books In Order

Publication Order of Proper Romance Victorian / Dread Penny Society Books

Sarah M. Eden is a successful American author of fictional novels.

The USA best-selling writer is known in particular for her charming historical romances. Sarah combines her obsession with history and her love of tender romantic stories into her novels. She enjoys coming up with deep characters and penning heartfelt romances that all take place against different historical backdrops.

Sarah has a bachelor’s degree in research. She loves to happily spend hours hanging out in her local library looking at the reference shelves.

Sarah has won a variety of awards for her writing. In 2020, she won the Foreword Reviews Indie Awards Gold Winner for Romance for her book Forget Me Not. She was also a 2020 Holt Medallion finalist for her book Healing Hearts. She has also been a Gold Medal Winner for best of state two times for her fiction and has won the Whitney Award three times.

She has also been a finalist and won many other awards. She was a Whitney Award finalist in romance in 2008 for her book Seeking Persephone. She was also a finalist in the same category in 2010 for Courting Miss Lancaster. Her novel The Kiss of a Stranger was a USA Today best seller. She’s had several books win awards, such as her Longing for Home winning the AML Novel of the Year and her book Longing for Home: Hope Springs winning best novel of the year and best romance for the 2014 Whitney Awards. Many other of her novels have also won awards and recognition.

Sarah M. Eden is the creator and the author of the Proper Romance Victorian series, also known as the Dread Penny Society series. The series first got started in 2019 with the publication of the debut novel, The Lady and the Highwayman. Eden followed that up with the second novel in the series in 2020, a book called The Gentleman and the Thief. This was followed in 2021 with the third book, The Merchant and the Rogue. The fourth novel in the series came out in 2022 and is called The Bachelor and the Bride.

The Lady and the Highwayman is the first novel in the Dread Penny Society series by Sarah M. Eden. If you have been looking for a unique new book to read, check this one out!

Main character Elizabeth Black serves as the headmistress at a very well-respected girl’s school. She also happens to be the author of some ‘silver-fork’ novels that have been written for the upper-class ladies that belong to Victorian society, as well as inspired and about them. While these are all well and good, at night it is a different story (literally).

When the sun goes down, Elizabeth sits down and pens stories of a very different kind. These are the Penny Dreadfuls, stories that are very popular among working class men. She uses the pen name of Mr. King to hide her true identity. Using the pseudonym to cover her, Elizabeth has the freedom to write about handsome heroes that fight off threats of a supernatural kind or outlaws romancing women that are helpless. She enjoys writing the stories because they allow her to experience and express all of the mystery and the adventure that her own life in reality is sorely lacking.

Then there’s Fletcher Walker. He started out in life in a position of lower privilege as a street urchin. But as an adult, he worked hard to rise up and is now arguably the most successful writer in the Penny Dreadful market. Or he was, until another writer started muscling in on his business. Out of nowhere, a Mr. King has been began siphoning off his readers, and that means Fletcher’s profits, too.

On top of that, no one appears to have any idea who this Mr. King is. That extends to the members along with Fletcher of the Dread Penny Society, a group of authors that have a mission to secretly fight for the rights of those less fortunate than they are. Fletcher wants to find the author, so he goes to Miss Black.

She’s another author and is known among writers. Fletcher wonders if she could make some inquiries as to where the mysterious author is. Elizabeth says she will help him out, but it’s also in her own interest in protecting her secret identity and making sure no one ever finds out that she is in fact Mr. King.

Elizabeth is finally going through the type of adventure that one of her stories would be about. She’s trying to keep Fletcher from finding out the author is her, but she’s losing heart as they spend more time together. With readers and reputations on the line, can Elizabeth keep her identity a secret? Read this book to find out!

The Gentleman and the Thief is the second novel in the Dread Penny Society series by Sarah M. Eden. If you liked the first book in this series, check out this follow-up with all-new characters!

In this story, a man writes penny dreadful books at night and starts falling for a woman who teaches music in the day and is a thief when nighttime rolls around. The setting is London, 1865.

Hollis Darby is from an established wealthy family, and Ana Newport isn’t. But from the second he meets her, he’s enchanted. He wants more than anything to live a life with her by his side. But she doesn’t know what he’s been keeping secret, either. Hollis knows that the money that kept his family alive for generations is no more.

As a result, he has to use a pen name to write penny dreadfuls to keep himself afloat. If he didn’t have the income from his novels, he’d have nothing at all. Ana has a secret as well. She used to be in society, but her father’s business going bankrupt and the scandal ended all that and her father’s fortune is whittled to just an old townhouse.

To make money, she teaches music– and turns into the ‘Phantom Fox’ at night. Then she breaks into the wealthy’s homes to get back treasures and small things she thinks were stolen from her family unfairly as they were struggling. Hollis recommends Ana when his brother needs a music tutor for his daughter.

She takes the job as she needs the money and wants to get to know Hollis more. All the while, they try to hide their secrets from each other. Ana and Hollis decide to work together when robberies hit the city. They’re growing more affectionate of each other, but can they save the day and keep their secrets hidden too? Read this book to find out!