Showing results by author "Victoria Thompson" in All Categories

Gideon is preparing wills for soldiers before they ship out for the Great War. Corporal Tom Preston is part owner of Preston Shoes, a company that is making footwear for the army, so he has a rather large estate. He needs a new will, however, because he has just been secretly married to a woman whom his family would never approve. He wants to make sure she and their unborn child are provided for if he does not return. When Tom is later reported killed, Elizabeth and Gideon learn that the new will has gone missing after Tom's bride revealed her identity to his family. 

The Prodigal Son Mission on Mulberry Bend stands as a refuge for girls who otherwise would have to live by selling the only thing they have of value - themselves. The work being done there so impresses midwife Sarah Brandt that she volunteers to help out however she can - with clothes, with medical assistance, and with the organization of a benefit dinner. And when one of the girls is found dead and refused burial because of her former life, Sarah's passion for justice is aroused.

When the affluent Lintons of Lenox Hill summon Sarah Brandt to examine their teenage daughter, their worst fear is confirmed: she is with child. The pregnancy is a mystery, however, as the young woman - mentally still a child herself - is never left on her own and denies that any man has ever hurt her. It's a delicate situation, one which casts suspicion on those close to the Lintons, including their beloved minister, the Reverend Oliver Upchurch.

When an explosion kills wealthy industrialist Gregory Van Dyke, police commissioner Teddy Roosevelt presumes that anarchists are responsible and personally asks detective sergeant Frank Malloy to track them down. Malloy is up to the task, but he faces a different kind of challenge when he encounters Sarah Brandt paying a condolence call on the Van Dykes.

In this compelling Gaslight Mystery by Edgar Award-nominated author Victoria Thompson, a lady of means helps midwife Sarah Brandt rescue a young woman and her newborn from a brothel. But when the wealthy benefactor is found murdered, Sarah uncovers some unpleasant truths about the victim, her charity, and the woman and child Sarah risked her own life to save.

Sarah Brandt is shattered when she learns that a woman has inquired at Hope’s Daughters Mission for Catherine, the abandoned child she has taken as her daughter. The woman claims she was Catherine’s nursemaid, now acting on behalf of the girl’s mother to reunite them. Unwilling to simply hand Catherine over to a complete stranger, Sarah asks Malloy to investigate. But when he goes to interview the woman at her tenement in Chelsea, he finds she has been murdered. Though her death leaves Sarah’s claim to Catherine unchallenged, her sense of justice compels her to work with Malloy to find the killer.

When midwife Sarah Brandt visits Little Italy to check up on a new mother who delivered her baby just the day before, she finds the young woman dead. The family insists that the death was from complications of childbirth. Sarah disagrees. So does the woman's own mother, an Irishwoman who spreads the story that the girl was murdered by her Italian in-laws, the Ruoccos - an accusation that inflames tensions between the two immigrant groups.

The Great War is over, and Elizabeth and Gideon are busy planning their wedding. Gideon is happily welcoming home old friends who have been discharged from the army. One of them, Archie Carstens, the son and heir of a wealthy Knickerbocker family, served as a captain in the army and now seems less happy to be home than Gideon had expected. While Archie was in France, he met and fell in love with a beautiful French woman named Noelle. He would have gladly proposed, but he was already engaged to a girl he had known all his life back in America.

A year has passed since Elizabeth Bates ran her last con. Life has been simpler, although not nearly as exciting, but she has thrown herself into working to get the 19th Amendment ratified by thirty-six states to become the law of the land. Since every other Southern state has already rejected the amendment, it seems unlikely Tennessee will be an exception … but it's their only hope, so the suffragists descend on Tennessee for the final battle. Elizabeth’s ability to interact with difficult men and to persuasively explain all the advantages of allowing women to vote.

When a day at the races reveals sabotage and subterfuge, Elizabeth Miles must use every ounce of her craftiness to even the score in this all-new Counterfeit Lady novel from USA Today bestselling author Victoria Thompson.

Elizabeth Miles Bates has returned from her honeymoon cruise and is taking great pride in having completely forsaken her past life as a con artist. Then her friend, Anna Vanderslice, begs her to use her talents to help save her widowed mother from a disreputable medium. Since the war and the flu epidemic left so many families bereaved, interest in contacting the dead has experienced a revival. Once quite popular, séances have come back into vogue as desperate families mourn their loved ones and long to communicate with them.