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Series Hub · Johanna Lindsey · 9 on the shelf
The Malory-Anderson Family
An aristocratic English family with a pirate in it, an American shipping family with four protective brothers in it, and forty years of the two colliding. The longest-running run on this shelf.
The English half is the Malorys, an aristocratic family built on four brothers. Jason is the eldest and the responsible one. Edward is the money. Anthony is the rake. And James is the black sheep, which in this family means he spent years as a pirate under another name and the rest of them would rather not discuss it.
The American half is the Andersons, a shipping family of sea captains, and they arrive properly in book three when Georgina Anderson boards a ship called the Maiden Anne disguised as a cabin boy in order to get home to America. The ship is James Malory’s. What follows is the book most people name when they name a favorite, and it welds the two families together for the rest of the run.
Regina, known as Reggie, is the family member everyone is protective of and the reason the first book exists.
Why it holds up over twelve books: the Malorys are genuinely funny together. The romances vary in quality across four decades, but the family scenes are the engine, and Anthony and James insulting each other is the load-bearing joke of the entire series.
The books
The nine on this shelf, in order
Book 1 · 1985Love Only OnceReggie’s book, and the one that establishes how far the Malory brothers will go for one of their own.Book 2 · 1988Tender RebelAnthony, the rake, and a Scottish heiress who needs a husband rather than a suitor.Book 3 · 1990Gentle RogueJames and Georgina. The cabin boy, the Maiden Anne, and the book the series is remembered for.Book 4 · 1993The Magic of YouAmy Malory decides what she wants and simply goes and gets it, which is refreshing in a genre full of waiting.Book 5 · 1996Say You Love MeAn orphaned gentlewoman at an auction she should never have been at, and the Malory who buys her out of it.Book 6 · 1998The PresentA Christmas book, and a flashback to the previous generation that answers a family question.Book 7 · 2004A Loving ScoundrelJeremy, James’s son, and a girl who picks pockets. The next generation takes over.Book 9 · 2008No Choice but SeductionBoyd Anderson, the youngest of the American brothers, finally gets his turn.Book 11 · 2014Stormy PersuasionJacqueline Malory, James’s daughter, and a return to the sea the series started on.
The three not on this shelf are book 8, Captive of My Desires, book 10, That Perfect Someone, and book 12, Beautiful Tempest. Book 8 in particular is the one worth filling in, because book 9 follows directly from it.
Coverage
Where this sits
Nine of twelve, and the significant ones are all here: the opener, the Anthony book, Gentle Rogue, and the two later books that hand the series to the next generation.
No individual book hubs yet, and no fan art on this page. Nothing in these novels has been read directly. Family structure, the Maiden Anne and the publication order come from the publisher’s descriptions and the series bibliography. Where a book’s one-line description here is a characterisation rather than a verified plot point, it is written as such rather than as fact.
One of the writers who built the modern historical romance market, publishing from 1977 until her death in 2019. Fourteen of her books are on this shelf, nine of them this series. Besides the Malorys there are the Straton family, the Reid family and the Sherring Cross books, several of which are also here.
Cover images are the publishers’ official covers, used to identify the editions discussed. No part of these novels has been read directly for this page.
