Line of Duty

About the Line of Duty series

Line of Duty is Tessa Bailey's first ongoing series and the one that established her signature pairing: no-nonsense, often uniformed heroes (cops, firefighters, correctional officers) matched with sharp-tongued heroines who give as good as they get. Set around a tight-knit circle of first responders and the women who refuse to be handled by them, each book is a fast, self-contained, high-heat romance built on workplace friction, protective-hero tropes, and a lot of banter before the walls come down. There's no season-long mystery or overarching villain running through the six books; instead the connective tissue is the recurring social circle -- siblings, coworkers, and friends who cameo in each other's books -- so returning characters get happy update sightings as the series goes on.

The series began with Protecting What's His in 2013 and closed out with Staking His Claim in 2014, all published in a concentrated burst that helped make Bailey's name in the newly-exploding indie/small-press romance scene. Readers who like their contemporary romance blunt, physical, and unapologetically horny -- with heroes who fall hard and fast and heroines who make them work for it -- start here.

How to read this series

Publication order, starting with Protecting What's His. Each book pairs off a different couple within the same friend group of cops, firefighters, and their partners, so while you can technically read any entry alone, going in order lets you watch supporting characters from earlier books get their own happy endings later. Protecting What's Theirs is a shorter, 1.5-numbered follow-up novella slotted right after book one; it's optional but rounds out that couple's story. There's no cliffhanger structure -- every book ends with its central couple fully resolved.