Below is the complete list of Sarah Adams’ Dalton Family books in order. For this series, the chronological reading order is the same as the order of publication.
Publication Order of Dalton Family Books
About Dalton Family
Sarah Adams’s Dalton Family series is an early historical-romance sequence set in Regency England, well before she became best known for contemporary romances such as The Cheat Sheet and the Rome, Kentucky books. The series is officially grouped under the Dalton Family name and consists of two full-length novels, To Con a Gentleman and To Catch a Suitor, with the novella Seeing Mary serving as a related companion story. The books share characters and family connections, but each romance has its own central couple and emotional conflict family connections, but each romance has.
To Con a Gentleman introduces Rose Wakefield, a young woman who has survived on the streets of London by becoming skilled at separating wealthy gentlemen from their money. Her latest scheme goes wrong when she approaches Carver Ashburn, Earl of Kensworth, believing him to be someone else. Carver quickly recognizes what Rose is attempting, but instead of exposing her, he plays along and proposes a false engagement.
Carver has his own reasons for embracing the deception. He is grieving and eager for a distraction from the responsibilities and emotions he has been avoiding. When circumstances force Rose to accompany him to his family estate, their temporary arrangement places two guarded people in much closer proximity than either intended.
The romance combines a fake engagement with a pronounced class divide. Rose has spent her life depending on intelligence and deception for survival, while Carver belongs to the aristocratic world from which she normally extracts money. Adams uses that contrast more for romantic comedy and emotional vulnerability than social realism, keeping the story lighter in tone even as both characters carry painful histories.
Seeing Mary is a shorter Regency novella connected to the same family circle. Lady Mary Ashburn has endured several London Seasons without marrying and has largely decided that remaining single is preferable to risking another humiliation. Her reluctance stems from an earlier heartbreak that left her wary of trusting another man with her feelings.
That resolve becomes more difficult to maintain when Lord Robert Hatley appears and begins courting her. At the same time, the man Mary once loved returns claiming that he has changed and wants another chance. The novella therefore revolves around second chances, competing possibilities, and Mary deciding whether she truly wants the future she has chosen for herself or has simply been protecting herself from further disappointment.
To Catch a Suitor follows Elizabeth Ashburn and her longtime best friend Oliver Turner. Elizabeth has loved Oliver for years but believes he still thinks of her as “Little Lizzie” rather than a woman he could marry. Frustrated by waiting for feelings she assumes will never be returned, she enters her first London Season determined to find another husband.
Oliver’s perspective creates the central complication. He has realized that Elizabeth is no longer the child he grew up beside and is deeply in love with her, yet he believes he has compelling reasons not to marry her. He therefore sets out to help Elizabeth find someone else even while continually interfering with her attempts to move on. The resulting friends-to-lovers romance relies on mutual yearning, protective instincts, social expectations, and two people repeatedly misreading the sacrifices the other is trying to make.
The Dalton Family books are much gentler than Adams’s later contemporary work in setting but already display qualities that remain central to her writing: affectionate family relationships, humorous romantic situations, emotionally restrained heroes, determined heroines, and considerable emphasis on longing rather than explicit intimacy. Publication order provides the smoothest introduction, while Seeing Mary can also be treated as a companion novell alongside the two principal novels.