Love By Numbers Books in Order

Love By Numbers is the trilogy that introduced many readers to Sarah MacLean's version of Regency England. The books are loosely linked through the Ralston family and their circle of friends, with each numbered title built around a different heroine who is tired of doing what is expected. Together they feel like three variations on the same question, what happens when a woman who has always followed the rules finally decides to write her own.

Nine Rules to Break When Romancing a Rake belongs to Lady Calpurnia Hartwell, a 28 year old wallflower whose spotless reputation has bought her nothing but boredom. One sleepless night she makes a list of all the scandalous things she has never been allowed to do, from gambling in a gentlemen's club to sharing a truly passionate kiss. To pull it off she turns to Gabriel St John, Marquess of Ralston, a rake who expects to be amused and instead finds himself disarmed by her honesty.

The second book, Ten Ways to Be Adored When Landing a Lord, moves the action to a crumbling country estate in Yorkshire. Lady Isabel Townsend is trying to keep her younger brother's inheritance intact while quietly running Minerva House, a hidden refuge for women who have nowhere else to go. When antiquarian and reluctant celebrity Lord Nicholas St John arrives to catalog her collection of marble statues, his search for a missing duke's sister collides with Isabel's need for secrecy and control.

Eleven Scandals to Start to Win a Duke's Heart returns to London and hands the spotlight to Juliana Fiori, the Italian born half sister of the Ralston twins. Branded a scandal before she even arrives in England, Juliana refuses to pretend to be demure just to soothe the ton. Her opposite in every way is Simon Pearson, the duty bound Duke of Leighton, whose life is arranged around reputation and restraint. Their battle of wills, played out in carriages, ballrooms, and back alleys, becomes a test of how much either is willing to risk for happiness.

Read together, the trilogy tracks three women who start on the fringes of society and end up reshaping their worlds without surrendering what makes them distinctive. There are brothers and sisters drifting through all three books, bits of running jokes, and a shared sense that desire and decency can live in the same story. You can technically drop into any volume, but starting with Callie's list in Nine Rules to Break When Romancing a Rake lets you watch the world widen with each book.