The history of Virginia reflects the character and goals of the people who lived there, including the women who often ran the plantations and made the deals that became the foundation of the wealth and the basis of the laws. William Roscoe, young Virginia planter and sheriff, and Sarah Harrison, daughter of one of Virginia’s wealthiest planters, are engaged and in love, but Sarah is forced by her father for business reasons to break the engagement and marry James Blair, Commissary of the Church of England. She retains her dowry and wealth, and while Blair goes to England to lobby for a college of which he’d be President, she continues her relationship with William. She has a baby to be raised by her brother as Benjamin Harrison IV, and continues accumulating property. She and William come to own two sailing ships, and William begins trade with pirates in the new city of Charles Towne. Blair returns to Virginia and raises disputes with Governor Andros and his council. Blair goes back to London and accuses Andros of various offenses before an ecclesiastical court there. With the war with France finished, Andros decides to retire and return to England. Blair takes credit for removing the governor and selecting the new governor. He returns to a colony that is bursting with wealth and growth and excitement, over which he wants to exercise power, but which he doesn’t understand.
In 1895 San
Francisco young debutantes don’t commit suicide at festive parties, particularly
not under the watchful eye of Sabina Carpenter. But Virginia St. Ives evidently
did, leaping from the foggy parapet at Sutro Heights in a shimmer of ghostly
light. The seemingly impossible disappearance of her body creates an even more
serious problem for the firm of Carpenter and Quincannon, Professional
Detective Services. Sabina hadn’t wanted to take the assignment, but her
partner John Quincannon insisted that it would serve as entrée into the world
of the city’s ultra rich and powerful. That meant money, and Quincannon loves
the almighty dollar. Which was why, on his own, he is hunting the bandit who’d
robbed the Wells, Fargo office of $35,000. Working their separate cases (while
Sabina Carpenter holds John Quincannon off with one light hand), the detectives
give readers a tour of The City the way it was. From the infamous Barbary Coast
to the expensive Tenderloin gaming houses and brothels frequented by wealthy
men, Quincannon follows a dangerladen trail to unmask the murderous
perpetrators of the Wells, Fargo robbery. Meanwhile, Sabina works her wiles on
friends and relatives of the vanished debutante until the pieces of her puzzle
start falling into place. But it’s an oddly disguised gent appearing out of
nowhere who provides the final clue to the solution of both cases – the shrewd
“crackbrain” who believes himself to be Sherlock Holmes.
At
30, Victorian bookshop owner Georgia Fenchurch knows she’s considered a
middle-class old maid. That’s all right with her. She has the bookshop
she inherited when her parents were murdered before her eyes, providing
her with a living and something to keep her busy during the day. At
night, she has another occupation. Driven by her need to see people
rescued and justice done, she works with the Archivist Society. In the
foggy London of coal fires and carriages, glittering balls and Sherlock
Holmes, the Archivist Society digs through musty records searching for
the truth. They also don disguises and assume identities as they hunt
for missing people, stolen treasures, and cunning murderers. Between her
efforts for the Archivist Society and her management of the bookshop,
Georgia doesn’t have time to be lonely. When a respectable middle-class
woman comes into her bookshop complaining that a duke has abducted her
next door neighbor, Georgia thinks the investigation will be a short
one. Instead, she finds herself embroiled in theft, blackmail, lies,
secret marriages, and murder. The man Georgia is asked to find may be
royalty, may be dead, and is definitely missing. The woman who hired her
won’t reveal the truth. The accused duke may be a victim or a killer,
but he certainly is involved in the hunt for the missing man. And every
aristocrat who knew the missing man seems to be hiding their own
dangerous lie. As Georgia crosses London searching for the missing man,
she finds herself staring into the face of the one person she has
wanted to capture for a dozen years. The one who got away. The man who
killed her parents.
Still
troubled by the events in The Sanctity of Hate, Prioress Eleanor goes on a
pilgrimage in the spring of 1277 to a famous East Anglian shrine. There are
rumors that King Edward may also come here soon to seek God’s blessing for his
invasion of Wales. Lurking in this sacred place, however, is an assassin
hoping to murder a king. Soon after Prioress Eleanor and Brother Thomas
arrive, a nun falls to her death from the priory bell tower. Brother Thomas
finds the body, leading some to fervently pray that the monk and his prioress
do not grow curious. But the pair quickly grasps that this nun’s death was not
a simple tragedy. The circumstances point to murder, but this slaying is
further tainted with treason. Amongst the pilgrims, merchants, and religious,
too many betray an interest in this death, including a canny street child. At
least one of that number is most certainly a killer. Can Prioress Eleanor and
Brother Thomas succeed in exposing the assassin or will they also fall victim
to one who has made a covenant with hell?
After years of abuse as the
emperor’s captive in Rome, Cleopatra Selene has risen to prominence as the most
powerful queen in the empire. Ruling over the exotic land of Mauritania, she
intends to revive her dynasty. But when Augustus Caesar jealously demands to
keep her children with him in Rome, Cleopatra Selene is drawn back into the web
of imperial plots that she vowed to leave behind.
Light Up in Wonder by Patrick
Gooch (Dec 4th)
When Sam Lockhart is captured on film by George Albert
Smith, the result alters both their lives. The year is 1896, and cinematography
is in its infancy. Smith, a showman and illusionist, believes moving pictures
could add to his Brighton-based theatrical acts. Lockhart and Smith soon gain a
reputation for producing entertaining films. Sam travels to New York to find a
new distributor, and is helped by Carl Laemmle, a German émigré. Laemmle
foresees the future. Instead of investing his savings in a clothing store, he
buys two nickelodeons. When a number of small film producers band together, an
organization is created called the Universal Film Manufacturing Company. Carl
Laemmle emerges as president, and makes the decision to move to California and
establish Universal City. Light Up In Wonder highlights the romance and
the exhilaration felt with the advent of motion pictures. It also exposes the
less welcome aspects: the in-fighting, greed, and conflict when this exciting,
new form of entertainment first caught the public's imagination.
When seventeen-year-old Stella Whittaker is offered the chance to study at the Academy of Music and Performing Arts in Vienna it's a dream-come-true, made possible by old family friends, Rainer and Marthe Kraus, who offer her a room in their apartment. Seduced by the elegant beauty of the city, Stella explores the magnificent palaces, gardens and fashionable coffee houses, and after a chance meeting in an art gallery, falls in love with Harri Reznik, a young Jewish doctor. But as the threat of war casts a dark shadow over Europe, Stella soon discovers that both the household where she lives, and the city she has come to call home, are not as welcoming as they once seemed. And at the dawn of this terrifying new world, no one is safe. An exquisitely crafted novel about a young woman who risks everything for love.
Carolina Gold by
Dorothy Love (Dec 10th)
Charlotte Fraser returns to her late
father's once-flourishing rice plantation on the Waccamaw River, determined to
continue his tradition of growing the special kind of rice known as Carolina
Gold. But Fairhaven Plantation is in ruins, the bondsmen are free, and money is
scarce. To make ends meet, Charlotte reluctantly accepts a position as tutor to
the young daughters of Nicholas Betancourt, heir to the neighboring Willowood
Plantation. Then Nick's quest to prove his ownership of Fairhaven sends
Charlotte on a dangerous journey that uncovers a family mystery . . . and
threatens all that she holds dear.
Duty
and love collide on the arid plains of central South Africa. Previously
released as 'Karoo Plainsong' this is a fully revised debut novel.
Cathleen Harrington leaves her home in Ireland in 1919 to travel to
South Africa and marry the fiance she has not seen for five years.
Isolated and estranged in a harsh landscape, she finds solace in her
diary and the friendship of her housemaid's daughter, Ada. Cathleen
recognizes in her someone she can love and respond to in a way that she
cannot with her own husband and daughter. Under Cathleen's tutelage, Ada
grows into an accomplished pianist, and a reader who cannot resist
turning the pages of the diary, discovering the secrets Cathleen sought
to hide. When Ada is compromised and finds she is expecting a mixed-race
child, she flees her home, determined to spare Cathleen the knowledge
of her betrayal, and the disgrace that would descend upon the family.
Scorned within her own community, Ada is forced to carve a life for
herself, her child, and her music. But Cathleen still believes in Ada,
and risks the constraints of apartheid to search for her and persuade
her to return with her daughter. Beyond the cruelty, there is love, hope
- and redemption.
It
is 1644, and Parliament’s armies have risen against the King and laid
siege to the city of York. Even as the city suffers at the rebels’
hands, midwife Bridget Hodgson becomes embroiled in a different sort of
rebellion. One of Bridget’s friends, Esther Cooper, has been convicted
of murdering her husband and sentenced to be burnt alive. Convinced that
her friend is innocent, Bridget sets out to find the real killer.
Bridget joins forces with Martha Hawkins, a servant who’s far more
skilled with a knife than any respectable woman ought to be. To save
Esther from the stake, they must dodge rebel artillery, confront a
murderous figure from Martha’s past, and capture a brutal killer who
will stop at nothing to cover his tracks. The investigation takes
Bridget and Martha from the homes of the city’s most powerful families
to the alleyways of its poorest neighborhoods. As they delve into the
life of Esther’s murdered husband, they discover that his ostentatious
Puritanism hid a deeply sinister secret life, and that far too often
tyranny and treason go hand in hand.
The
New Countess by Fay Weldon (Dec 17th)
England,
1903. Lord Robert and Lady Isobel Dilberne and the entire grand estate, with
its hundred rooms, are busy planning for a visit from Edward VII and Queen Alexandra
just a few months away. Preparations are elaborate and exhaustive: the menus and
fashions must be just so, and so must James, the new heir and son of Arthur
Dilberne and Chicago heiress, Minnie O'Brien. But there are problems. Little
James is being reared to Lady Isobel's tastes, not Minnie's. And Mrs. O'Brien
is visiting from America and causing trouble. Meanwhile, the Dilbernes' niece,
Adela, is back and stirring up hysteria in the servants' hall by claiming the
house is cursed. The royal visit is imperiled, but so are the Dilberne finances
once more. His Lordship is under tremendous stress, and the pecking order will
soon be upset as everything at Dilberne Court changes.
Proof of Guilt by Charles Todd (in PB Dec 17th)
London,
summer 1920. An unidentified body appears to have been run down by a
motorcar and Ian Rutledge is leading the investigation to uncover what
happened. While the signs point to murder, vital questions remain: Who
is the victim? And where, exactly, was he killed? One small clue leads
Rutledge to a firm built by two families, famous for producing and
selling the world’s best Madeira wine. Lewis French, the current head of
the English enterprise, is missing. But is he the dead man? And does
either his fiancée or his jilted former lover have anything to do with
his disappearance—or possible death? What about his sister? Or the
London office clerk? Is Matthew Traynor, French’s cousin and partner who
heads the Madeira office, somehow involved? The experienced Rutledge
knows that suspicion and circumstantial evidence are not proof of guilt,
and he’s going to keep digging for answers. But that perseverance will
pit him against his supervisor, the new acting chief superintendent.
When Rutledge discovers a link to an incident in the French family’s
past, the superintendent dismisses it, claiming the information isn’t
vital. He’s determined to place the blame on one of French’s women
despite Rutledge’s objections. Alone in a no-man’s-land rife with
mystery and danger, Rutledge must tread very carefully, for someone has
decided that he, too, must die so that cruel justice can take its
course.
Painter of Silence by Georgina Harding (in PB Dec 17th)
It
is the early 1950s. A nameless man is found on the steps of the
hospital in Iasi, Romania. He is deaf and mute, but a young nurse named
Safta recognizes him from the past and brings him paper and pencils so
that he might draw. Gradually, memories appear on the page: The man is
Augustin, son of the cook at the manor house that was Safta’s family
home. Born six months apart, they had grown up with a connection that
bypassed words, but while Augustin’s world stayed the same size, Safta’s
expanded to embrace languages, society, and a fleeting love one long,
hot summer. But then came war, and in its wake a brutal Stalinist
regime, and nothing would remain the same.
The Devil’s Breath by Tessa Harris (Dec 31st)
A man staggers out of his cottage into the
streets of Oxfordshire, shattering an otherwise peaceful evening with the
terrible sight of his body shaking and heaving, eyes wild with horror. Many of
the villagers believe the Devil himself has entered Joseph Makepeace, the
latest victim of a "great fog" that darkens the skies over England
like a Biblical plague. When Joseph's son and daughter are found
murdered--heads bashed in by a shovel--the town's worst suspicions are
confirmed: Evil is abroad, and needs to be banished. A brilliant man of
science, Dr. Thomas Silkstone is not one to heed superstition. But when he
arrives at the estate of the lovely widow Lady Lydia Farrell, he finds that
it's not just her grain and livestock at risk. A shroud of mystery surrounds
Lydia's lost child, who may still be alive in a workhouse. A natural disaster
fills the skies with smoke and ash, clogging the lungs of all who breathe it
in. And the grisly details of a father's crime compels Dr. Silkstone to look
for answers beyond his medical books--between the Devil and the deep blue sea.
. .
Readers are fascinated with the wives of famous men. In Becoming
Josephine, debut novelist Heather Webb follows Rose Tascher as she sails
from her Martinique plantation to Paris, eager to enjoy an elegant life at the
royal court. Once there, however, Rose’s aristocratic soldier-husband dashes
her dreams by abandoning her amid the tumult of the French Revolution. After
narrowly escaping death, Rose reinvents herself as Josephine, a beautiful
socialite wooed by an awkward suitor—Napoleon Bonaparte.
Somewhere in France by Jennifer Robson (Dec 31st)
Somewhere in France by Jennifer Robson (Dec 31st)
Lady
Elizabeth Neville-Ashford wants to travel the world, pursue a career,
and marry for love. But in 1914, the stifling restrictions of
aristocratic British society and her mother’s rigid expectations forbid
Lily from following her heart. When war breaks out, the spirited young
woman seizes her chance for independence. Defying her parents, she moves
to London and eventually becomes an ambulance driver in the newly
formed Women’s Army Auxiliary Corps—an exciting and treacherous job that
takes her close to the Western Front. Assigned to a field hospital in
France, Lily is reunited with Robert Fraser, her dear brother Edward’s
best friend. The handsome Scottish surgeon has always encouraged Lily’s
dreams. She doesn’t care that Robbie grew up in poverty—she yearns for
their friendly affection to become something more. Lily is the most
beautiful—and forbidden—woman Robbie has ever known. Fearful for her
life, he’s determined to keep her safe, even if it means breaking her
heart. In a world divided by class, filled with uncertainty and death,
can their hope for love survive. . . or will it become another casualty
of this tragic war?
Eve
Williams is about to discover just how the other half really live...
Above stairs: Lord Netherwood keeps his considerable fortune ticking
over with the profits from his three coal mines in the vicinity. It’s
just as well the coal is of the highest quality as the upkeep of
Netherwood Hall, his splendid estate on the outskirts of town, doesn’t
come cheap. And that’s not to mention the cost of keeping his wife and
daughters in the latest fashions—and keeping the heir, the charming but
feckless Tobias, out of trouble. Below stairs: Eve Williams, is the
wife of one of Lord Netherwood’s most stalwart employees. When her
ordered existence amid the terraced rows of the miners’ houses is
brought crashing down by the twin arrivals of tragedy and charity, Eve
must look to her own self-sufficiency, and talent, to provide for her
three young children. And it’s then that ‘upstairs’ and
‘downstairs’collide in truly dramatic fashion...
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