The Loyal League Books in Order

The Loyal League series by Alyssa Cole is a historical romance series set during the American Civil War that centers on the Loyal League — a network of Black spies and intelligence operatives working for the Union cause in the Confederate South. Cole combines meticulous historical research with deeply developed romance to illuminate the lives of people whose contributions to the Union's victory have been systematically overlooked by conventional Civil War history.

The first novel An Extraordinary Union (2017) follows Elle Burns, a Black woman with an eidetic memory working as an undercover spy, and Malcolm McCall, a Pinkerton agent, as they navigate both a dangerous mission and an impossible attraction in the Confederate South. Cole writes both the historical stakes and the romantic development with the craft and seriousness the material demands.

The series has been praised for its combination of romantic tension, historical authenticity, and its centering of Black characters as heroic agents of their own history rather than as peripheral figures in a story about white protagonists. Begin with An Extraordinary Union (2017).