Agents of the Crown

About the Agents of the Crown series

Agents of the Crown is an early Julia Quinn duology built around undercover work for the British crown rather than the ballroom-centered courtships of her later books. To Catch an Heiress follows Caroline Trent, who's been kidnapped by Blake Ravenscroft, an agent of the crown convinced she's a dangerous criminal — a mistaken premise that throws them together on the run and, against both their better judgment, into love, while Caroline (who has in fact been fleeing a string of unwanted marriage proposals arranged by her guardian) tries to convince him of the truth. How to Marry a Marquis turns to Elizabeth Hotchkiss, who stumbles across a very on-the-nose etiquette book of the title while working as a governess and, needing to marry well to support her three younger siblings, sets her sights on her employer — never suspecting he's a crown agent living under an assumed identity.

Both books lean into adventure-romance territory more than Quinn's later, dialogue-driven Regency comedies, with kidnappings, disguises, and undercover missions providing the plot engine alongside the central courtships.

How to read this series

The two Agents of the Crown books can be read in either order, since each follows a different agent and heroine with no continuing plot between them, though publication order — To Catch an Heiress, then How to Marry a Marquis — is the conventional listing. Both are standalone historical romances with an adventure-plot bent, and neither requires familiarity with any of Julia Quinn's other series.