Poor Relation

About the Poor Relation series

Six down-on-their-luck aristocrats -- the widowed Lady Fortescue, spinster Miss Tonks, the flighty Mrs. Budley, dissolute old soldier Colonel Sandhurst, ex-army Sir Philip Sommerville and hard-up gentleman Mr. Davy -- pool what little they have left to open a fashionable hotel in Bond Street, staffing and running it themselves rather than face the poorhouse or a humiliating dependence on relatives. Beginning with Lady Fortescue Steps Out, each of the six novels centers on one member of the makeshift household finding an unlikely late-life or unexpected romance while the group's Poor Relation hotel scheme lurches between near-ruin and surprising success.

Written under the Marion Chesney name in the early 1990s, the series stands out among Beaton's Regency work for centering older, previously overlooked protagonists -- most of the sextet are well past the usual Regency-heroine age -- and for its ensemble structure, since the same core cast of genteel-poor hoteliers recurs across all six books even as the romantic spotlight moves from one to the next. It's a warm, character-driven series for readers who want Regency romance with some grey hair and real financial stakes rather than another debutante's first season.

How to read this series

Publication order, starting with Lady Fortescue Steps Out (1993). The hotel scheme and its full ensemble of genteel-poor proprietors run continuously across all six books, with the romantic focus shifting to a different member of the household each time, so reading in order is the intended way through -- though each volume's central romance resolves on its own.