Vanessa Riley Books In Order

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Vanessa Riley is a bestselling author of historical romance and historical fiction. She writes works of fiction that emphasize strong sisterhood, showcases the hidden histories of black women, and documents the amazing life of multicultural communities.

She writes stories that elicit laughs and tug at heartstrings, as she shares insights into the diverse history of the Victorian, Regency and Georgian eras.
In her earlier years, Vanessa Riley went to Stanford University from where she earned her masters degree in engineering management and industrial engineering. She would also get a mechanical engineering doctorate from the same institution.

Prior to that she had graduated to a bachelors and masters degree from PennState University where she studied mechanical engineering.
After graduation, she got into research and worked for the likes of Hewlett Packard, NASA and GM among several other startups. But her love for lattes and history soon overwhelmed her passion for engineering and she published “Swept Away,” her debut novel, in 2014.

She has never looked back since and has now published more than twenty one novels.

She has received starred reviews from “Booklist” and “Publishers Weekly” and had her works reviewed by the “New York Times,” “Entertainment Weekly,” “Library Journal” and “NPR.”

Outside of her writing, Vanessa Riley is very active in the writing community and is the Regency Fiction Writers president, a Christian Book Lovers Retreat Board of Directors member, and a member of the Historical Novel Society and the NINC.

When she is not writing her novels, she keeps herself very busy as a mother of a teenage daughter and wife to a military man. She can often be found speaking at STEM and women’s events.

When she is at home, she can be found baking cake recipes she got from her Trinidadian grandmother and also collects Irish crochet lace. She loves her coffee and can usually be found writing with a cup of coffee from her porch in Atlanta, Georgia.

Vanessa Riley first got interested in historical fiction and historical romance when she first read about Miss Lambe in “Sanditon,” the unfinished novel by Jane Austen.

Since there were hardly any black people in British literature during the 18th and 19th century, she was interested in learning about where the wealthy woman of color making her debutante debut was from.

The quest to find Miss Lambe soon turned into a meaningful and long decade long quest. It revealed to the author that Austen may have been intended to be progressive even though her characters could not have been said to have been a product of fantasy.

According to Riley, finding the women of the “Entertainment Society,” Dorothy Kirwan Thomas and several other black women that had their own agency restored her soul.

Vanessa would become determined to restore the glory of these unsung heroes in the popular imagination and this is what would result in her transformative and riveting new novel.

“The Bittersweet Bride” by Vanessa Riley is a tender and sweet story of second chances and love at first sight. The lead is Theodosia Cecil, a widow that is in desperate need of her husband to be a father to her young son. She puts her ad in the paper and is shocked when her first love who she believed long dead contacts her.

It turns out that Ewan Fitzwilliam who is the son of a very powerful nobleman was in a war for the past half a dozen years. He is looking for a wife and thinks Theodosia is a perfect fit but she is reluctant to consider him.

Theo believes Ewan had left her in a lurch and while she still has feelings for the scarred, handsome soldier, she vehemently denies them. Ewan who is now a playwright needs to get over the drive for revenge and the bitter lies that ruined what had been a dream youthful romance.

To reclaim the beautiful love, she may have to reveal her deepest secrets. Riley writes an interesting modern take on the historical romance genre.

Vanessa Riley’s novel “The Bashful Bride” makes for an emotional work that takes its readers on a real journey and tugs at the heartstrings. It is clear that the author put her soul and heart into this as she writes a deeply personal story full of emotion.

When her friend puts an ad in the paper looking for a husband, they never expected that Arthur Bex, a famous London actor, would reply to it. Ester Croome is a shy heiress who has been secretly in love with Bex for more than two years.

She thinks she now has an opportunity to get away from an unwanted engagement proposed by her family. If she can elope with the actor, then her family would be unable to force her to do anything.

On the other hand is Bex who is trying to banish the ghost of his villainous uncle by marrying a good woman. The beautiful and smart Ester seems like the woman he needs. But dangerous abolition rallies and a horrific trip to Gretna Green set a very dangerous precedent for the two lovers.
Mutual love and infatuation for Shakespeare just might not be enough to make them cleave together. They need to be more united than ever if they are to outrun the secrets and chains of the past.

“The Butterfly Bride” by Vanessa Riley is a beautiful friends to romance tale that keeps its readers guessing right up to the very end. The lead in the series is Federica Burghley, who is determined to be married to a man of her choice to avoid an arranged marriage to one of her father’s friends.

She is the illegitimate fun loving daughter of a nobleman who wants to go against tradition by selecting her own husband. She advertises in the paper but after several threats on her life and a bizarre response she enlists Jasper Fitzwilliam, a handsome friend to help her.

The widower and father has the task of helping her find a suitable husband and also keeping her safe. But the more he works on finding her a good husband, the more he falls for her. In their quest, they have often risked their lives for each other and think maybe they should risk taking a chance on themselves.