The Six Sisters

About The Six Sisters

The Six Sisters follows the daughters of the impoverished Armitage family of Hopeworth -- Minerva, Annabelle, Deirdre, Daphne, Diana and Frederica -- as their formidable mother maneuvers each one, in turn, toward a well-married future despite the family's chronic lack of money. Beginning with Minerva, in which the eldest sister catches the eye of a marquess while quietly managing her chaotic household, each novel gives one sister her own Regency romance: a mismatched courtship, a misunderstanding rooted in pride or gossip, and a resolution that usually requires the sister in question to stop performing what's expected of her and say what she actually wants.

Written under the Marion Chesney name in the early-to-mid 1980s, before Beaton's mystery career began, the series is an early showcase for the mix of social comedy and genuine sentiment that would carry through her later work -- the sisters' scheming mother and vague, sermon-writing father provide a steady source of comic friction across all six books, even as each daughter's story stands on its own. It's a good entry point for readers who want a classic multi-sibling Regency series with a consistent family voice rather than one continuous plot.

How to read this series

Publication order, starting with Minerva (1983). Each of the six novels centers on a different Armitage sister finding her own match, so the books are self-contained as romances -- but the family's running situation (genteel poverty, a socially ambitious mother, siblings comparing notes on their prospects) carries across the series and pays off best read in order, sister by sister, as originally published.