Below is the complete list of Tessa Bailey’s The Academy books in publication order. For this series, the chronological reading order is the same as the order of publication.
The Academy Books in Publication Order
- Disorderly Conduct (2017)
- Indecent Exposure (2018)
- Disturbing His Peace (2018)
About The Academy
Tessa Bailey’s The Academy series is a contemporary romance trilogy set around the New York City police academy, where cadets, instructors, and officers are trying to balance ambition, discipline, attraction, and the emotional mess that comes with wanting someone at the wrong time. The series is connected through the academy environment and a circle of characters moving through law-enforcement training, but each book focuses on a different couple with its own romantic conflict. Bailey uses the setting less as a procedural framework and more as a pressure chamber: rules matter, reputation matters, and personal choices can quickly become complicated when everyone is trying to prove they belong.
Disorderly Conduct begins the series with Charlie Burns and Ever Carmichael. Charlie is a police academy cadet from a law-enforcement family, a man who thinks he can keep romance casual while he concentrates on the future expected of him. Ever initially wants the same low-commitment arrangement, but she is quicker to recognize that their connection has become more than a convenient fling. The book has Bailey’s playful, high-heat style, but beneath the humor is a familiar emotional problem: Charlie has to learn that avoiding seriousness is not the same as staying in control.
The second book, Indecent Exposure, shifts the focus to Jack Garrett and Katie McCoy. Jack is another academy recruit, charming on the surface but carrying more private pain than he lets people see. Katie, an Irish Olympic gold medalist and expert markswoman, enters his life as a firearms instructor, which immediately creates a forbidden edge to their attraction. Their romance is built around authority, temptation, and the danger of hiding the truth from someone who is starting to see past the performance. Jack’s outward confidence gives the story much of its spark, but the stronger emotional thread is his fear of being known too clearly.
Disturbing His Peace brings Danika Silva and Lieutenant Greer Burns into the center. Danika is a police academy recruit with a bold, reckless streak, while Greer is controlled, stern, and deeply committed to rules. Their conflict has been simmering before the book begins, and the romance grows sharper when Danika ends up under Greer’s supervision after a dangerous mistake. The setup gives Bailey room to explore discipline and desire from both sides. Danika resents being managed, while Greer fears what can happen when an officer loses control. Their relationship works because the tension is not only about attraction; it is about risk, responsibility, and the vulnerability hidden beneath their opposing temperaments.
The Academy is a compact trilogy with a clear shared world rather than a sprawling series arc. The police academy setting gives the books continuity, but the emotional structure comes from characters caught between desire and the roles they are trying to inhabit. Charlie wants to be casual until jealousy exposes him. Jack wants to be charming without being honest. Greer wants to remain controlled until Danika makes that impossible. Bailey gives each romance a different rhythm, while keeping the tone bold, funny, sensual, and emotionally direct.
Compared with Bailey’s later, more widely known series, The Academy feels closer to her early category-romance style: fast-moving, trope-forward, and focused tightly on the couple. Its appeal lies in that concentration. The books are not trying to build a large crime universe or a detailed police procedural world. They are about people at the edge of professional identity, learning that discipline and desire do not always move in opposite directions.