Below is the complete list of Julia Quinn’s Smythe-Smith Quartet books in publication order. For this series, the chronological reading order is the same as the order of publication.
Smythe-Smith Quartet Books in Publication Order
- Just Like Heaven (2011)
Just Like Heaven was published in 2011 and is listed as book #1 in the Smythe-Smith Quartet series. - A Night Like This (2012)
Published in 2012, A Night Like This is listed as book #2 in the Smythe-Smith Quartet series. - The Sum of All Kisses (2013)
The Sum of All Kisses is a 2013 release and appears as book #3 in the Smythe-Smith Quartet series. - The Secrets of Sir Richard Kenworthy (2015)
In the Smythe-Smith Quartet series, The Secrets of Sir Richard Kenworthy is book #4 and was published in 2015.
About Smythe-Smith Quartet
Julia Quinn’s Smythe-Smith Quartet is a Regency romance series built around one of the funniest recurring jokes from the Bridgerton world: the annual Smythe-Smith musicale, a family performance famous not for its beauty, but for its terrible music. What began as a comic background event in earlier Quinn novels becomes the foundation for a full series, giving the famously untalented musicians their own romances, vulnerabilities, and emotional lives beyond the joke.
The series begins with Just Like Heaven, which follows Honoria Smythe-Smith and Marcus Holroyd, Earl of Chatteris. Honoria is one of the young women expected to perform in the family musicale, and Marcus is a quiet, reserved earl with a long connection to her family. Their romance is gentle compared with some of Quinn’s more dramatic setups, built around friendship, familiarity, and the slow recognition of feeling. Marcus is not a flamboyant hero; his appeal lies in loyalty, restraint, and the emotional steadiness that becomes more visible as Honoria begins to understand him differently.
A Night Like This shifts to Anne Wynter, a governess with a hidden past, and Daniel Smythe-Smith, who has returned to England after years away because of a duel and its consequences. This second book adds a stronger thread of danger and concealment to the series. Anne’s position as a governess places her in a socially vulnerable role, while Daniel’s return brings unresolved conflict back into the Smythe-Smith circle. The romance has Quinn’s usual wit and warmth, but it also depends on questions of identity, safety, and whether two people can trust each other when parts of their lives are deliberately hidden.
The Sum of All Kisses centers on Sarah Pleinsworth and Hugh Prentice, whose connection begins with resentment tied to the duel that affected Daniel’s life. Sarah blames Hugh for damage done to people she loves, while Hugh carries his own physical and emotional consequences from the same event. Their romance is one of the sharper enemies-to-lovers arcs in the quartet because the conflict is not invented merely to create banter. There is real history behind their hostility, and Quinn uses that tension to explore apology, pride, pain, and the possibility of seeing someone more clearly after years of anger.
The final book, The Secrets of Sir Richard Kenworthy, follows Iris Smythe-Smith and Richard Kenworthy. Iris is observant, understated, and often less dramatic than the people around her, which makes her a quietly compelling heroine. Richard’s sudden interest in marrying her creates unease beneath the romance, because his urgency suggests that he is hiding something. The book gives the quartet a more mysterious closing note, with the marriage plot tied to family obligation, secrecy, and the difficult question of whether love can grow from a beginning shaped by incomplete truth.
The Smythe-Smith Quartet works especially well because Quinn takes a comic family tradition and reveals the people trapped inside it. The musicale remains funny, but the young women performing are not punchlines. They are sisters, cousins, friends, and daughters navigating expectation, embarrassment, loyalty, and love. The series also rewards readers familiar with Bridgerton, because it shares the same social world and occasionally brushes against recognizable families and events, while still standing as its own sequence.
Compared with Bridgerton, the Smythe-Smith books feel slightly more intimate and playful, but they are not weightless. Each romance turns on a different emotional problem: quiet devotion, hidden danger, old blame, and concealed motive. Quinn’s gift is making those conflicts feel warm rather than heavy, using humor and family chaos to soften the edges without removing the stakes. The result is a charming Regency quartet about love blooming in the shadow of bad music, social obligation, and the surprising depth of characters who were once only heard off-key in the background.