Showing results by narrator "Helen Taylor" in All Categories

Captain Charles Bassington of the 13th Light Dragoons is famed for his good luck, high spirits, and devil-may-care attitude. He escapes serious injury at Waterloo only to succumb to an inflammation of the lungs. When he returns home to recuperate, cracks begin to appear in his cheery façade. Lady Selena has adored Charles all her life, but when she receives a letter from him suggesting his friend Lord Carteret would make a good husband, she is forced to put aside childish dreams that he might one day love her.

Elizabeth Bennet is hiding a forbidden power. She can speak to draca, the fire-breathing creatures kept as status symbols by English gentry. But Mr. Darcy has noticed, and he has his own dark secret.

For as long as Prudence can remember, it has been understood her sister will one day wed the eldest son of their nearest neighbor. Prudence, an aspiring romance novelist, believes her sister is mad to consider marrying a man she hardly knows, even if he will one day make her a countess. Unable to stand by and do nothing, Prudence sets out to help the awkward couple discover the best in each other with the hope they will eventually find love. What she neglected to foresee, however, was the possibility she might fall in love with Lord Knave herself.

In her previous London Season, Jocasta had tripped through ballrooms delighting an army of admirers, one of whom (Lord Robert Paxton, heir to an earldom) had been invited by her papa to a house party at her home at Castle Fortune, to continue the acquaintance. Many things had happened at the house party, including the shattering of Jocasta’s naive confidence, when Paxton had preferred her younger sister, Portia.

London 1818: Destitute, disillusioned, and desperate, Lady Rosalind Marlowe sets the tongues of Regency London wagging when she becomes the "Mayfair Thief". Targeting only those who had won large sums of money from her father, bleeding him dry and causing him to take his own life, she decides to teach them a lesson. She takes something valuable from each, leaving her calling card with a bible quote behind. On her last outing, she is caught red-handed.

Beth Culpepper is a lady's maid who is mistaken for a lady! Cast off and stranded at an inn in the way to London, she doesn't feel strong enough to dispute it. The handsome Marquis of Wrexham mistakes her youthful appearance as that of a gently bred schoolgirl whom he feels impelled to help. How did a good girl, proud of her position as lady's maid to Miss Sophy Ludgate, come to this?

One day Jody was found lying at the foot of a staircase on her way to give a client a beauty treatment. When she recovered and talked of a man with a goat and a yellow-and-black front door, her brother-in-law and Charles, her fiancé, told her she was imagining things. But Jody was unconvinced, and determined to find the man she remembered, leading a small goat.

Soon after her twin Leonora's marriage a bereft Marguerite Fortune is going home to Castle Fortune, with only her self serving male relatives for company. But Baron Fortune, her papa, has a diversion planned on the journey…one that concerns getting his last daughter wed.

When her sister decides to throw an impromptu summer house party, Sophia reluctantly agrees to help. What she doesn’t realize is that her sister has plans of her own — plans that would bring a certain childhood friend back into Sophia’s life. It’s been nearly a decade since Sophia has seen Hugh Quinton. He’s grown into a handsome, charming, and successful — yet completely unacceptable — tradesman. Her mother looks down on him, her father detests him, and society would snub him in an instant. Sophia shouldn’t even consider him.

Dignified, reserved, and every inch the gentleman, Laurence Westerby, the fifth Viscount Carteret, finds his ordered and predictable world turned on its head when a mysterious lady steps into his private parlor. He thinks her spirited, reckless, and undoubtedly in need of his protection. Confident, frank, and used to managing her own affairs, Miss Cassandra Fenton does not like the role of damsel in distress. Laurence seems determined to help her out of her immediate difficulties, however. His chivalry reminds her of all the reasons she is so unsuited to marriage.

After fleeing her home, Lucy has spent the last two years at Ashwick Hall under Lady Westcliffe’s protection. Now that her godmother, Lady Frampton, has returned from abroad to take charge of her, the time has come for her to be reunited with her twin sister. Abby betrayed her, however, and she is unsure if she can forgive her. Lucy knows nothing of the world, and when she steps into it, she discovers far more than she ever imagined, not least that things are rarely quite as they seem.

Lady Georgianna Voss bids adieu to her friend Marianne with a heavy heart. Before their friendship blossomed, she had been a stranger to affection. She returns to her home uncertain of her reception. She has spurned the advances of the eligible but dull man her mama wished her to marry. Having witnessed the cold, unhappy union between her parents, she is not at all eager to follow their example. Enraged, Lady Westbury sends Georgianna to her impoverished aunt, hoping that she will realize just how much a lady needs a wealthy husband, regardless of her feelings for him.

When a dully dressed family arrive at Tremaine Towers, home of Cedric Marchmont, Earl of Tremaine, the other residents are shocked, thinking them some poor relations. The earl's family have been dubbed The Royals by his youngest sister Ophelia, for since unexpectedly becoming the family of an earl, they have been encouraged in every fashionable excess to fit their new position in society. Agatha, the countess, Charles the dandified brother, Ophelia and Queenie, the sisters, must hold themselves with new dignity, says the earl.

Alexander Wraxall, sixth Marquess of Eagleton, worries he may be cursed. Those close to him tend to die, and he believes he is, in part, responsible for their deaths. When he receives a packet of letters from a relative he thought long dead, he embarks on a journey that will change his life forever. Since washing up on the shores of Lake Garda, Nell Marsdon has put her nightmarish history behind her and, in the house of Angelica Montovani, has found some peace. It is shattered by the arrival of the Marquess of Eagleton, a man who represents everything she has learned to despise.

Four very different women, all wanting to escape cold and dreary London for different reasons, come together to share a month's holiday in an Italian medieval castle. There’s timid Lotty Wilkins, terrified of her domineering husband; sober and religious Rose Arbuthnot; rigid and judgemental Mrs Fisher; and the breathtakingly beautiful but disillusioned and unhappy Lady Caroline Dester. They are lured to the castle by the advertised 'wisteria and sunshine', but they end up finding there so much more than they had bargained for.

When Colin Cavendish, the new earl of Drayson, informs Lucy Beresford that she and her mother need to vacate the house they've called home for the past two years, Lucy is fit to be tied. They have no money, no relations they can turn to for help, and nowhere to go. How dare the earl break the promise his father had made to the Beresfords without so much as a twinge of conscience?

One of Canada’s most acclaimed horror writers, Gemma Files presents a mosaic of interconnected stories about interconnected families. After fleeing Scotland, five clans settled in the fictional town of Dourvale in northern Ontario. Known as the Five-Family Coven, they are the descendants of witches and witch-children, none of whom were spared persecution in their native country. Now shamans, spellcasters, singers, and thieves, the members of the Devize, Druir, Glouwer, Roke, and Rusk families survive by trading their occult powers and talents.

Still adjusting to her family's recent exoneration from the archaeological world (they stole an artifact, caused a ruckus...it's a long story), June decides to embark on a press tour to repair the image of her employer (Oxford University) and her (somewhat crazy, but altogether lovable) grandfather. When the opportunity arises to go to America to find a lost treasure belonging to the notorious outlaw Butch Cassidy, June know's it isn't something she can shy away from - even if she wasn't exactly the one who was assigned by Oxford to the task.

When Miss Coralynn Notley's father barters her off to the first titled gentleman to come along, she realizes she must flee her home or be forced to wed a despicable man. Driven by desperation, she applies for the position of housekeeper at Tanglewood Manor, the home of the handsome Mr. Jonathan Ludlow. The moment Jonathan sees Miss Notley, he is intrigued. She is far too young and inexperienced, yet there is something about her that that inspires a certain hope within him.

Leonora, one of two beautiful Fortune twins newly arrived in Town for their Season, had one aim in view: The Honourable Linton Carswell. She first met him at her home, Castle Fortune, three years ago, and now at 17, has arrived to claim her prize.