Showing results by narrator "Gabrielle Baker" in All Categories

The Bellamy family has four months before they'll lose the roof over their heads. While Phoebe's older sisters venture out into the world to earn the necessary funds, Phoebe herself stays home to care for her younger siblings and parents. But then she meets Viscount Needham, a wealthy new peer, and everything changes.

One should never judge a duke by his cover. As far as London society knows, Giles Drew, the Duke of Basingstoke, is everything a proper aristocrat ought to be. But when a notorious scandal sheet publishes details of Giles's questionable bedroom antics, only one bride can salvage his reputation. Prim and penniless, Francesca Stanhope has resigned herself to a season full of the ton's snickering—until the Duke of Basingstoke's dizzying courtship transforms her fate. Yet wedded bliss quickly turns into a clash of wills as Franny realizes her handsome duke is a devil in disguise.

The expectation used to be that men would be masculine and women would be feminine, and this was assumed to come naturally to them in virtue of their biology. On this view, sex is gender and gender is sex. A new view of gender has emerged in recent years, a view on which gender is an "identity," a way that people feel about themselves in terms of masculinity or femininity, regardless of their sex. On this view, sex is dismissed as unimportant, and gender is made paramount.

Romance isn't for the plain, shy, and awkward—a painful truth that Hyacinth knows better than anyone. But Hy refuses to let anything or anyone stop her from living life on her own terms. Independence—and the opportunity to secure her family's future—is finally within her grasp. But then Hy crosses paths with a meddling duke and everything changes.

It's Christmastime at the Bellamy ancestral home and all the Bellamy sisters have gathered to celebrate. But it isn't just the Bellamy siblings who've made the journey to Wych House with their spouses and families. Andrew Derrick, the Marquess of Shelton, would rather spend Christmas anywhere else but in the home of the woman he once abducted. But if he's ever going to mend his scandalous reputation and build a life for himself, then he'll need to face up to the actions that have defined his past.

Seven years ago a woman with too many secrets and a man with too many lies fell in love. Then she left him. Isabel's quiet life as an assistant to one of London's famous apothecaries hides a deadly secret. A secret that could see her put on trial for witchcraft if the authorities uncover the truth. But when the authority figure who turns up at her shop is Sir Nicholas Merritt, she's at risk of losing more than her life. She could lose her heart and soul, and the man she loves.

Desperate to escape a loveless marriage and society's constraints, pampered heiress Sophia Hathaway jilts her groom, packs up her paints and sketchbook, and assumes a new identity, posing as a governess to secure passage on the Aphrodite. She wants a life of her own: unsheltered, unconventional, uninhibited. But it's one thing to sketch her most wanton fantasies and quite another to face the dangerously handsome libertine who would steal both her virtue and her gold.

When the local Banned Book Club loses their meeting room, Mina volunteers to host the group at Nevermore Bookshop (against Heathcliff's muttered protests, of course). Little does she know this old biddies book club is about to turn murderous. First, someone poisons Mrs. Scarlett, then members of the book club start dropping like flies. Who in the village will turn to murder just to stop people reading a few dusty old books? Mina's got to figure it out quick, or her beloved teacher Mrs. Ellis is next to die. Luckily, she's got Moriarty, Heathcliff, and Quoth to help.

Alarmed by the sound of an intruder, Rose St. Claire fetches her pistol. She's shocked to discover that the trespasser is a handsome gentleman—one who states that the house, which Rose recently inherited from her late benefactor, was stolen from his father decades ago. He claims it is now his. And it is—but not entirely. As it turns out, Hammond Court has been left to them both—and neither can evict the other without forfeiting their right to the property.

It's one thing to wake up outside in the middle of the night with a decapitated man for company. It's another to have no memory of how you got there—or who you are. She might not know her own name but she knows that several people are out to get her. It could be because she has strange magical powers seemingly at her fingertips and is some kind of fabulous hero. But then why does she appear to inspire fear in so many? And who on earth is the sexy, green-eyed barman who apparently despises her? So many questions . . . and so few answers.

Jasper enjoys London's illicit delights too much to wed. Too bad his grandfather has decided that a woman with the nerve to blackmail might be exactly the sort of wife to tame him. Pressed into a marriage neither wanted—and fighting a desire neither expected—Prue and Jasper torment and tempt each other beyond reason. Surely a proper duchess should be subdued, obedient, and dignified? Yet just as he begins to get his wish, Jasper realizes how much he wants his unconventional wife—and only her—if it's not too late to win her . . .

Lady Ludmilla Windmere is mortified. The spinster extraordinaire has fallen in love with her best friend, and that cannot be. The problem? She hasn't met him. Not once. For they have only ever corresponded by letter. When she sets out to uncover his identity, her world shatters. For Addy turns out to be none other but London's worst rake. Adrian St. Addington is perturbed. The rakehell extraordinaire is developing a marked tendre for a spinster, and that cannot be. The problem? She might be mistaking him for someone he is not. Or, what is worse, know precisely who he is.

Oxford—celebrated city of dreaming spires and class warfare—is an ambition come true for geeky upper-middle-class lesbian Charlotte and charismatic working-class straight Millie. Against the odds, theirs is an instant best friendship. Forever. Exuberant Millie is a breath of fresh air for polite Charlotte and a force of nature within the university's hallowed walls. And they are going to be the best lawyers of their year and change the world. But their world changes instead when things go queerly sideways, and they haven't seen each other since.

Driven into exile years earlier, due to family scandal, Declan Sinclair is called home, devastated to discover his brother has been murdered and he's the new Duke of Darington. When clues point to the man he blames for both his exile and his brother's death, Declan resolves to ruin the culprit. If only the daughter of the man's business partner, lovely Lady Alethea Swinton, didn't tempt his resolve.

After being fired from her fashion internship in New York City, Mina Wilde decides it's time to reevaluate her life. She returns to the quaint English village where she grew up to take a job at the local bookshop, hoping that being surrounded by great literature will help her heal from a devastating blow. But Mina soon discovers her life is stranger than fiction - a mysterious curse on the bookshop brings fictional characters to life in lust-worthy bodies.

Brishen Khaskem, prince of the Kai, has lived content as the nonessential spare heir to a throne secured many times over. A trade and political alliance between the human kingdom of Gaur and the Kai kingdom of Bast-Haradis requires that he marry a Gauri woman to seal the treaty. Always a dutiful son, Brishen agrees to the marriage and discovers his bride is as ugly as he expected and more beautiful than he could have imagined.

Kelly MacGregor is the CEO of an internationally renowned whisky distillery in her hometown in the Scottish Highlands. But she's unsettled and has let her adventurous side take a back seat. When she meets a younger woman at a gig, she can't help but be drawn to her, and when this young woman turns out to be the new owner of her whisky distillery, Kelly is put in a compromising situation.

Rescued by ruin, American heiress Daisy Vanreid is desperate to avoid marriage to the aging aristocrat her abusive father chose for her. She'll do anything, even entrap the notorious Duke of Trent into marriage, to escape her fate. Losing her heart to her handsome husband after the wedding isn't part of the plan. Nothing is as it seems.

Mina, Heathcliff, Morrie, and Quoth are tying the knot in an extravagant ceremony. But when someone sabotages the decorations and Heathcliff receives a threatening note, they realize that a saboteur in the village doesn't want them to have their happily-ever-after. Their wedding misadventures turn deadly when the wedding saboteur murders the celebrant. Add in a duck-napping, disastrous dance lessons, absent book reviewers, Mina's mother's newest business venture, and visits from old friends . . . and enemies, and Mina has a matrimonial catastrophe on her hands.

With grudging permission from Heathcliff, Mina Wilde has transformed Nevermore Bookshop. She's running author events, hosting Quoth's art show, and using her creative flair to attract more customers. But when crime writer Danny Sledge is murdered moments before his writing workshop, the bookshop goes from bustling to broke. No one in the village will set foot inside Nevermore.