Roseanna M. White Books in Order
Wondering where to start reading in the Roseanna M. White booksterverse?
Below is a list first of books in order (please note that series are grouped together)
and then also a Reader’s Guide that gives you short series descriptions
and how they may inter-relate to other series.
Biblical Fiction
A Stray Drop of Blood (A Visibullis Story ~ 1)
A Soft Breath of Wind (A Visibullis Story ~ 2)
Giver of Wonders (A Visibullis Story)
Jewel of Persia (Standalone)
The Prophet’s Songbird (Ordinary Women of the Bible)
At His Feet: Mary Magdalene’s Story (Extraordinary Women of the Bible)
The Shadow’s Song: Mahlah and No’ah’s Story (Extrordinary Women of the Bible)
Standalone Historical Romances
A Heart’s Revolution (Previously published as Love Finds You in Annapolis, Maryland)
Dreams of Savannah
Shadowed Loyalty
Yesterday’s Tides
The Culper Ring Series
Ring of Secrets (The Culper Ring ~ 1)
Fairchild’s Lady (The Culper Ring ~ 1.5 ~ novella)
Whispers from the Shadows (The Culper Ring ~ 2)
A Hero’s Promise (The Culper Ring ~ 2.5 ~ novella)
Circle of Spies (The Culper Ring ~ 3)
The Culper Ring Novellas (A compilation of Fairchild’s Lady and A Hero’s Promise)
Ladies of the Manor Series
The Lost Heiress (Ladies of the Manor ~ 1)
The Reluctant Duchess (Ladies of the Manor ~ 2)
A Lady Unrivaled (Ladies of the Manor ~ 3)
Shadows Over England Series
A Name Unknown (Shadows Over England ~ 1)
A Song Unheard (Shadows Over England ~ 2)
An Hour Unspent (Shadows Over England ~ 3)
The Codebreakers Series
The Number of Love (The Codebreakers ~ 1)
On Wings of Devotion (The Codebreakers ~ 2)
A Portrait of Loyalty (The Codebreakers ~ 3)
Secrets of Wayfarers Inn
Greater than Gold (Secrets of Wayfarers Inn ~ 4)
All the Inn’s a Stage (Secrets of Wayfarers Inn ~ 12)
There’s No Place Like Holmes (Secrets of Wayfarers Inn ~ 20)
Secrets of the Isles Series
The Nature of a Lady (Secrets of the Isles ~ 1)
To Treasure an Heiress (Secrets of the Isles ~ 2)
Worthy of Legend (Secrets of the Isles ~ 3)
Secrets from Grandma’s Attic
A Royal Tea (Secrets from Grandma’s Attic ~ 13)
Turn Back the Dial (Secrets from Grandma’s Attic ~ 21)
The Imposters
A Beautiful Disguise (The Imposters ~ 1)
A Noble Scheme (The Imposters ~ 2)
An Honorable Deception (The Imposters ~ 3)
Readers Guide
Biblical Fiction
Roseanna’s biblical fiction are known as some of her deepest (and longest) books. They often deal with difficult issues such as slavery, rape, spiritual warfare, polygamy, pagan religions, and more–always, of course, from a biblical perspective.
If you enjoy stories the bring the Bible to life and go deep into faith and the unchanging heart of humanity, then these biblical fiction books are a great place to start! She has stories with both Old Testament settings and with New Testament settings.
Roseanna’s first published work was A Stray Drop of Blood; it took her 6 years to write and underwent a complete rewrite a couple years later. Still one of her bestselling books, Stray Drop follows the life of a Hebrew slave girl in a Roman house in Jerusalem and pivots around the crucifixion and resurrection of Christ.
Jewel of Persia was her next published book and is the story of Esther…but not like you’ve ever read it before. Instead of following Esther herself as the primary heroine, our main character is instead Esther’s best friend Kasia, who is also a wife in Xerxes’s harem. Jewel of Persia has outsold all of Roseanna’s titles other than The Lost Heiress and looks at this familiar biblical story in conjunction with the Greek historian Herodotus’s account of the Greco-Persian war that Xerxes waged during the same time.
A Soft Breath of Wind is the direct sequel to A Stray Drop of Blood…though written seven years later. Soft Breath is about the next generation, which is also the first generation born into the Church, set in Rome. This story examines issues of spiritual warfare, free will, prophecy versus fortune telling, demon possession, and healing.
Giver of Wonders is a stand-alone story in the Visibullis series, set in the same world and family but hundreds of years later, during the early life of the man now known as St. Nicholas. This Christmas story is unlike any other Christmas story you’ve ever read, delving into one of the main tales about St. Nick‘s generosity and how some of our most beloved Christmas traditions got their start.
The Prophet’s Songbird is part of Guideposts’s stand-alone series, Ordinary Women of the Bible. Each book in the series explored through fiction a woman in the Bible, either named or unnamed. The Prophet’s Songbird is #14 in the series but can be read independently. It explores the story of Naaman’s miraculous healing of leprosy through the eyes of the handmaid who recommends he go to Israel to be healed by her prophet. The purpose of praise and song is explored in the pages, along with how to remain faithful to God in a foreign land. A quick, easy read that can be enjoyed independently.
At His Feet is part of Guideposts’s stand-alone series, Extraordinary Women of the Bible. Much like the Ordinary Women above, these are all based on biblical characters, but ones who go beyond “ordinary.” In At His Feet, I delve into a woman who is at once famous yet unknown. Very little is said about her in the Gospels, yet she was there for the most momentous events of all human history: Christ’s crucifixion and resurrection. For my research, I used the most ancient traditions we have about Magdalene as preserved by tradition in France, where she and her family fled from persecution in the years following the crucifixion.
The Shadow’s Song is another book in the Extraordinary Women of the Bible series, this one focusing on the five daughters of Zelophehad (specifically the eldest 2)–the only women to inherit land with their kinsmen when the Israelites took the Promised Land, because their father had no sons. Among the only women of that era named in Bible (repeatedly!), it was fascinating to explore what it must have been like to be the only Hebrew heiresses…and to be told by Moses that they could “marry whomever they pleased, so long as they choose husbands within their own tribe” after being granted their inheritence.
Stand-Alone Historical Romances
A Heart’s Revolution (originally published as Love Finds You in Annapolis, Maryland) was Roseanna’s first book published by a large press and was part of the popular Love Finds You line. Set in the winter of 1779-1789, this is a quick read that follows the heroine from Williamsburg, VA to Annapolis, MD as she flees the man she’s always loved but who doesn’t seem to love her back. During this time in history, Annapolis was actually the nation’s capital, which means that Lark was there for some historic events like the ratification of the peace with England and Washington’s resignation from the army. This book is a stand-alone, light and easy, and appropriate for younger readers as well as adults.
Dreams of Savannah comes much later in the chronology of Roseanna’s actual publication but was written directly after she wrote A Heart’s Revolution and had in fact originally been intended for the Love Finds You line as well. God had other ideas, though, and it was nine years later when this story of a fanciful storyteller in Civil War Savannah and her lost-in-the-war Confederate beau finally found a home. Though also a standalone, there are a few Easter eggs that tie it to A Heart’s Revolution. This story deals with issues of racial conflict and slavery so isn’t exactly light but is nevertheless an easy read.
Yesterday’s Tides is in many ways the book that draws together ALL (or at least most!) of my books! Set in Ocracoke, NC and London during both World Wars, this is my first time slip and so much fun. We have Elsie from Circle of Spies (Culper Ring, Book 3) as a grown up, Rem from the Codebreakers as the hero of the WW1 line, which means we get to see all the characters from both Codebreakers and Shadows Over England, and even a few guest appearances by Brook and Justin from Ladies of the Manor, and a mention of Lord Sheridan from Secrets of the Isles!
The Culper Ring Series
The Culper Ring series explores the true story of America’s first spy ring, the Culper Ring, through their historical actions in Ring of Secrets (though through the eyes of a fictional heroine) and then asks the question of “What if the Ring continued to operate as time went on?” in the later books in the series.
Ring of Secrets is set in the City of New York during the Revolution, following Winter Reeves, a fictionalized aid to the historical secret agent Robert Townsend and Bennet Lane, who returns to the city from Yale in order to root out the Patriot spies he discovered are operating there. This story explores some lesser known history as well as the infamous turning of Benedict Arnold to the side of the British.
One of the secondary characters in Ring of Secrets was Colonel Fairchild…who started out as a rival to Bennet but turned out to be such a nice guy that Roseanna had to give him his own love story. You can find that in Fairchild’s Lady, set during the early days of the French Revolution, when Isaac Fairchild is called upon by a friend to bring his wife and daughter out of the French courts and home to England before tragedy can find them.
Whispers from the Shadows follows the children of the characters from the first book into the War of 1812…when surely the Culper Ring was still operating, though history doesn’t confirm this for sure. But one of the main members of the Ring was a congressman at the time, who historically begged the President to focus more on intelligence work in times of peace, so of course he turned to his old friends, right? Whispers features an artist for a heroine and a sailor for a hero, exploring themes of what betrayal really is, where we find true rest, and how to hear the Lord’s whisper.
A Hero’s Promise bridges the considerable gap between books 2 and 3 in the series with a short read about the intervening generation and how they–one as an inflammatory anti-slavery columnist and one as a working Culper–foil an attempted assassination.
Circle of Spies wraps up the Culper Ring Series with a Civil War tale set in Baltimore, Maryland…where so many secret societies and secret agents were at work that there are no fewer than three involved in these pages! The Culpers here run into both Pinkerton agents and the infamous Knights of the Golden Circle, to whom John Wilkes Booth belonged. Both hero and heroine have a somewhat checkered past, and themes of brotherhood run strong throughout.
Each book in the Culper Ring series, being its own generation, can be read independently but may be best enjoyed in order if you don’t want any spoilers about who ended up with whom in previous books. (Or if you always assume you can figure that out anyway–they are romances, after all–then feel free to disregard order!)
Ladies of the Manor Series
After Roseanna finished up the Culper Ring Series, she finally got to resurrect the very first novel she ever wrote (at the age of 13!), the English-set The Lost Heiress. This book, twenty years in the making, underwent countless rewrites and titles before finally becoming what is hands-down her bestseller, outpacing every other story she’s ever penned. The story follows Brook as she moves from Monaco, where she was the presumed daughter of the prince, to England, where in fact her true father still resides. As she, with the help of her longtime friend and heir to a dukedom, seeks to unravel the mystery of her birth mother’s death and how she ended up in the care of an opera singer, she stumbles onto the same mystery that destroyed her family eighteen years before. Full of nobility, royalty, the aristocracy, lost treasure, homecoming, upstairs/downstairs tensions, and mystery, The Lost Heiress is a must read for fans of Downton Abbey or anyone who dreams of donning pretty dresses…and then galloping to freedom on a wild stallion. 😉
The Reluctant Duchess continues the mystery thread of The Lost Heiress with a new hero and heroine. The story begins in Scotland, where we meet a desparate daughter of a Scottish lord, and then travels to England. The mysteries and dangers mount, and Brice–a favorite secondary character in book one–shines as he learns to love under duress, even when the whisper of the Lord led him straight to heartache.
The series and its heirloom mysteries finally conclude in A Lady Unrivaled, when Brice’s little sister and Justin’s cousin are thrust into the crosshairs of the series villains. The hero, Cayton, is a closet artist and so doting a father to his toddler girl that everyone thinks he’s wallowing too much in the grief over his late wife. Ella is the most optimistic heroine you could ever ask for, clinging to hope against all odds. She is, Roseanna says, more like her than any other character she’s ever written.
The books in the Ladies of the Manor Series do all have independent storylines and plots and characters and can be read out of order but are best enjoyed in order.
Shadows Over England Series
The Shadows Over England series follows a ragtag family of former pickpockets on special assignments in the early days of the Great War.
The series begins with A Name Unknown, in which the eldest of the “sisters” of this family (not by blood but by choice) is sent to Cornwall by a mysterious client known only as Mr. V to determine whether a certain of gentleman of German ancestry is loyal to Germany or to England. The reclusive Peter Holstein is in fact harboring a secret…one that involves a typewriter, a keen imagination, and a pen name. Peter, whose stammer has kept him from really becoming part of society, is one of Roseanna’s favorite heroes, and the spunky Cockney Rosemary earns plenty of loyalty herself with her down-to-earth views that challenge “society’s” stance on many topic of the early 20th century.
In the second book, A Song Unheard, we follow another “sister” from the family, Willa, as her particular talents as a violin prodigy lead her to another assignment from Mr. V–to travel to Wales and get to know another violinist, the famous Belgian LuKas De Wilde, who is now a refugee after the German army invaded Belgium. V tasks her with finding a cryptography key developed by De Wilde’s father. Lukas, though intrigued by the prodigy Willa, is most determined to find and rescue his mother and teenage sister, who are still in Belgium. Music obviously plays a critical role in the story, which is also a bit of a prodigal son tale. We also meet Lukas’s little sister, Margot, who is behind enemy lines…and a prodigy herself, in mathematics. Margot becomes the heroine in the first book in the Codebreakers series. See below.
Throughout the first two books in the series we get to know this family of knit-together urchins, including their head, leader, and big brother, Barclay. Barclay finally gets his own story (much to the delight of fans everywhere!) in An Hour Unspent, when he’s tasked by V with befriending a clockmaker and trying to sway him into weapons building. Of course, Barclay ends up spending quite a lot of time with the clockmaker’s daughter too…who soon wishes her own family, broken after the death of her brother in her childhood, could be as loving as the odd family Barclay has built. Exploring interesting historical facts like the first wristwatch (Rolex) and how aircraft and weapons engineers had to work together to join guns to planes, this book asks the big question of how we all choose to spend our hours…and which hours we regret not spending with those we love.
The Codebreakers
In A Song Unheard and An Hour Unspent we get a tantalizing glimpse of Room 40–the intelligence division that was put in charge of codebreaking during the First World War. A precursor to the better known Bletchley Park during World War 2, Room 40 is a fascinating proof of what people can do in times of duress. These crytographers came to Room 40 from all walks of life but with a singular purpose: intercepting and decoding every piece of correspondence sent by the Central Powers during the war, all intercepted thanks to the new wireless telegraph. This series dives deep into the known history of Room 40 through three fictional characters.
The series begins in The Number of Love with Margot De Wilde, sister of Lukas from A Song Unheard. Now eighteen, she’s employed by Room 40 as a cryptographer…though everyone assumes she’s a secretary. A mathematical genius, Margot knows very well that she’s smarter than pretty much everyone else, but when tragedy upends her world, it challenges the way she always heard from God and makes her question everything…including her desire to focus on her career, when her friend’s brother, an agent she’d been praying for, returns home injured…and possibly followed by a dangerous enemy.
On Wings of Devotion follows two characters we meet in book one–Army pilot Phillip “Black Heart” Camden who is presumed a villain by the press after his squadron are all killed and then recruited into Room 40 rather than being courtmartialed, and the kind nurse (and heiress) Arabelle Denler. These two are an unlikely pair, especially since they meet when Camden “kidnaps” her in order to strong-arm her fiance into doing the right thing as concerned his sister. But as unlikely as their friendship is, they soon find that his protective nature and her calling to heal others, be it physically, spiritually, or emotionally, provide exactly what they need to fight the conspiracy out to use Camden’s infamy to stage an assassination.
The Codebreakers concludes with the Christy-Award winning A Portrait of Loyalty, based loosely on the true story of one of Russia’s primiere cryptographers who fled to England after the Bolshevik Revolution and remained in the English intelligence community for the rest of his days. Roseanna’s fictional verison of this man, Zivon Marin, arrives in England with only one bag of belongings, a ruby ring given to him by the Czar, and a burden of hatred toward the Bolsheviks and grief over the loss of his brother during their escape. He doesn’t know if Evgeny is alive or dead, but he does know that there was a plot underway that involved a mutiny in the German armed forces…if only he can piece it all together and then convince his knew superiors to take him seriously. Also featured in A Portrait of Loyalty is Lily, the Admiralty’s photography expert. Of course, that means that Room 40 is not only using her to develop their agent’s camera footage, but to create falsified photos as well–work of which her mother would disapprove. When Zivon’s loyalty is called into question and their world is upended by the arrival of the Spanish Flu, new questions arise. How do you love an enemy of such magnitude that they would destroy you and everyone you care about?
Secrets of Wayfarers Inn
This series of contemporary mysteries from Guideposts is written by many different authors; Roseanna wrote three of the 25+ books in the series. Her stories can be read independently of the others, as each book has its own mystery to be solved. However, there are some threads that run throughout the series and build on each other. The premise is that three longtime friends, now retired, decide to purchase a historic building in Marietta, Ohio and run it as an inn. They discover that it was a stop on the Underground Railroad during the Civil War and discover a diary of the Quaker woman who acted as a conductor. Each book has a short historical line following this woman, as well as a contemporary line in the point of view of one of the three friends.
Greater than Gold is Roseanna’s first title in the series. When the inn’s handyman goes missing, evidence makes them wonder if he vanished with a treasure he just found in the inn’s walls or if something even scarier is at play.
In All the Inn’s a Stage, a dinner theater group is borrowing the inn for a special performance, and when a rival steamship theater arrives in town too, they have to wonder if they’re behind the mysterious accidents happening on set.
There’s No Place Like Holmes sees a Sherlock Holmes society coming for a weekend stay during a blizzard…but instead of the snow shutting them down, they’re on the case when a new mystery unveils itself that seems to echo one of Sir Conan Doyle’s tales.
Secrets of the Isles
After writing so many books that dealt with war, Roseanna was ready for a lighter story and went in search of charming English islands on which to set a new idea she had. She discovered and fell in love with the Isles of Scilly (pronounced “Silly”) and soon had a tale of centuries-buried pirate treasure, archaeological discoveries, and shady antiquities hounds.
The Nature of a Lady follows would-be naturalist Lady Elizabeth “Libby” Sinclaire to the Isles of Scilly in an attempt to put some distance between her and her brother’s unfortunate matchmaking schemes. But she soon discovers that her holiday cottage’s former occupant–also called Elizabeth–left more behind than her clothing and books. She left mysterious deliveries, threatening men, and hints that it’s all linked to the islands’ most notorious pirate of history. When the missing Elizabeth’s brother, Oliver, shows up in serach of his sister, they not only get drawn into Beth’s treasure hunt, but into something far more precious as they explore what it means to really belong somewhere, the gift of being who you’re meant to be, how science and faith can interact, and the mysteries of the spiritual world.
The adventure continues in To Treasure an Heiress when the missing Beth has returned but is none too happy that others have invaded her treasure hunt…especially one Lord Sheridan, the best friend of Libby’s brother and the man in some ways responsible for this whole mess. Sheridan, however, in all his bumbling charm, is determined to show Beth what he knew from the moment she quite literally ran into him–that they’re a perfect match. Of course, first he has to convince her that he didn’t in fact steal her most treasured possession…and that he’s not a villain…and that if she would just trust him, they could solve this thing together. Exploring themes of spreading our wings, wanderlust, adventure, and fictionalizing the story of a historical pirate prince, To Treasure an Heiress is Roseanna’s most comedic book to date and will have you laughing through the adventurous pages.
The series wrapped up with Worthy of Legend, in which Arthurian legend surprises them all by popping up in their treasure hunt.
Secrets from Grandma’s Attic
Secrets from Grandma’s Attic is a contemporary mystery series from Guideposts featuring stories by many different authors that follow two sisters, Tracy and Amy, and their cousin Robin as they discover all the secrets stashed away in their grandmother’s attic from her 100 years of life.
I wrote two books in this series, the first being A Royal Tea, book 13. In the point of view of Tracy, the older sister, I uncover a mystery surrounding a unique vintage tea set that seems to be linked somehow to a war-torn Eastern European country…that their small Missouri town has more connections to than one might guess. Combining my love of tea parties with a royal flare, this one was tons of fun!
The other book I wrote in this series is number 21, Turn Back the Dial. Again in Tracy’s point of view, this time a local radio show has announced a contest challenging all of Canton to solve the mystery of what happened to a star from a 1940s radio mystery show who mysteriously vanished, and whose legacy was then buried. And the clues are hidden within the last episodes of the show itself.