Regency Thriller

As the eldest daughter of an English earl and his Indian mistress, Lila Marleigh knows what it’s like to be an outsider from “polite” society. As children, she and her sisters were wrenched from their home and sent to England, never quite accepted by those who claimed to care for them. Now Lila has set herself up as hostess of an exclusive gaming club, charming the ton that flocks to her establishment each night, though it shuns her by day.

Philip Hawksbury, the Earl of Rothermere, obeying his father's dying wish, hies himself to Scotland to offer for one of the daughters of Alexander Kilbracken, the Earl of Ruthven. Frances Kilbracken, informed of the earl's arrival and his mission, disguises herself as a bespectacled dowd so she won't be the one selected by the young earl. But choose her he does, and for all the wrong reasons.

A play manuscript written in Shakespeare's own hand! Between rogue rare-books dealer John Dryden and his prize is an obsessed librarian who wants to destroy it... and the heiress who can lead him to it, but only if he's willing to risk his life, his freedom, and his loner's heart.

Fitzwilliam Darcy is devastated. The joy of his recent wedding has been cut short by the news of the sudden death of his father’s beloved cousin, Samuel Darcy. Elizabeth and Darcy travel to Dorset, a popular Regency resort area, to pay their respects to the well-traveled and eccentric Samuel. But this is no summer holiday. Danger bubbles beneath Dorset’s peaceful surface as strange and foreboding events begin to occur. Several of Samuel’s ancient treasures go missing, and then his body itself disappears.

Spinster and secret novelist Clarissa Knightley and her gruff American engineer, Captain Huntley, along with their friend and cousin, the Honorable Jack de Sackville and Lady Elspeth, are to wed at last! In anticipation of the double wedding, friends and family are gathering at moldering Wycliffe Manor—until a dying stranger is discovered on the neglected grounds. Despite the tragedy, aristocratic wedding guests and their retinues, foreign and domestic, continue to arrive, not all by invitation.

As headmistress of the Scarfield Academy for Young Ladies, Miss Charlotte Boscastle is tasked with keeping her charges free from notoriety. But when Charlotte's diary goes missing, she can't imagine having her most intimate secrets fall into the wrong hands. Although the confessions in the diary he found spark his interest, the Duke of Wynfield has every intention of returning the journal. But when Gideon's encounter with Charlotte takes on an unexpectedly passionate nature, his indiscretion causes a scandal that only marriage can cure.

When the willfully independent Isabel Drake refuses to marry the man her parents want her to, her mother decides, as punishment, she will be forced to take lessons on how to be a proper lady. But the man sent to instruct her makes her feel anything but proper. Her attraction to Mr. Weston is instant, but the confusing man seems set in keeping her in her place - even if she detects he feels something for her?

Edward Archer walks right into the den of lioness Charity Stonewright when he sails across the pond to South Carolina to resolve a property dispute for his cousin, the Duchess of Peckham. Astute but bookish, the Englishman isn't prepared for Charity, a strong-willed woman determined to prove the Charleston mansion is hers. And unbeknownst to Edward, Charity has a secret purpose. She is searching for the lost Stonewright fortune, hidden over 60 years ago, somewhere within the walls of the old, decaying mansion.

The options for the penniless daughter of a deceased earl are few indeed in Regency England. So, following the suspicious death of her father, the Earl of Morton, and the discovery that she and her much younger sister have been left without income or home, Lady Caroline takes a post as a lady's companion to the wealthy widow Frogerton. Just as Caroline is getting accustomed to her new position, her aunt, Lady Eleanor Greenwood, invites her and her employer to a house party in the countryside to celebrate her youngest daughter's birthday. But all is not well at the Greenwood estate.

The Lord of the Manor is a Bit Gruff – But He Has Captured the Heart of the Lovely Sophia. Given their stations in life, Can There Ever Be Anything More Between Them? Lord Zachary Moorshead: I yearn to claim sweet young maiden Sophia as my own, but our ages are not compatible and she is the daughter of my closest friend. Lord Hamish has allowed his only daughter to grace my Moorshead Manor Lodge as the new chief cook, but I doth think he will not embrace a union between us two. Sophia: My heart aches for a forbidden love, an older man, my father’s closest friend, but I fearest he doeth ...

Uncovered: a list of noblemen's names - each one guilty of treason. To save his family legacy, Rafe Densmore must seize a courtesan's infamous register. No one can ever know how his father betrayed his country! One person stands in Rafe's way-the beautiful Cornelia, Comtesse de Vane. In the card rooms of Paris, Rafe and Cornelia made an unbeatable...intimate team. Until, convinced of Rafe's desertion, desperate Cornelia married an elderly comte. Now, returning to London an impoverished widow, she'll do anything to possess the register.

Bridget longs to meet a gentleman who doesn't mention her beautiful sister upon shaking her hand. But since being branded a shrew after a disastrous social season, Bridget knows she’s lucky to even have a man come near her. It's enough to make a lady flee the country. So Bridget heads to Venice for music lessons with the renowned Italian composer Vincenzo Carpenini, with whom she's been corresponding. But not only is Carpenini not expecting her, he doesn’t even remember her!

A gifted but troubled physician, Blue Calhoun runs a thriving medical practice from his Nob Hill mansion in San Francisco while raising his son alone after an unthinkable tragedy. Then one day a female fugitive with a gunshot wound appears in Blue's surgery. Even though she holds a pistol aimed at his heart, the desperation in her eyes awakens Blue's compassion. Reluctantly he is drawn to her fragile beauty, her nerves of steel, and the mystery surrounding her circumstances.

Grieving after the death of his younger brother, Hugh Castle, the Earl of Monnow, finds evidence to suggest it was not an accident, but a failed attempt to kill him. He vows revenge, planning to take advantage of the rumor that he is also dead to uncover the murderer. But Hugh doesn't count on meeting another desperate adventurer, Helen Archer. She has lost the fabled Peckham Necklace at Hugh's home, Ormsby, and risks censure if she doesn't find it. So together, Helen and Hugh hatch the perfect plan.

MURDER IN MAYFAIR is Book 2 in MARILYN CLAY's Juliette Abbott Regency Mystery Series. Clever young Miss Juliette Abbott and Miss Cathleen Haworth have catalogued a house-full of priceless artifacts in order to sell to a London Curiosity Dealer, but before the girls can approach the handsome man, he turns up dead! With only two likely suspects and no funds to hire a Bow Street detective to investigate the crime, Juliette takes on the task of solving the mystery herself. Attempting to uncover who killed the kind gentleman who made female hearts flutter keeps Juliette awake at night and on her...

MURDER AT MORLAND MANOR, Book One in Marilyn Clay's Juliette Abbott Regency Mystery Series features clever, young Miss Juliette Abbott as sleuth. A former companion to a titled London lady, Miss Abbott has now agreed to serve as lady’s maid to one of the young ladies invited to the country estate of Morland Manor, each girl hoping to win the heart of the wealthy Morland heir. But nothing at the house party goes as planned and suddenly Juliette finds herself the suspect in a shocking murder! The only way to escape the muddle is to solve the mystery herself, otherwise she'll lose this ...

Lady Jane Haven had to find a reason to survive. Widowed after an abusive marriage, Jane seeks solace in the arms of the one man she has always loved. But her scars run deep, and the physical comfort her lover brings does little to heal her pain. Richard Black, the Duke of Lofton and spy for the British War Office, waited for her, watching as the agony of marriage broke the woman he loved. His instincts tell him to protect her at all costs now that she has come to him, but when Jane stumbles into his current case investigating a bodysnatching ring, his intentions prove harder to keep.

Beakers and ball gowns don’t mix. So when lady chemist and avowed spinster Miss Liliana Claremont receives a coveted invitation to the earl of Stratford’s house party, no one expects her to accept. After all, it’s well known Lord Geoffrey Wentworth, a rising political star, is in need of a suitable bride, and it’s assumed he will choose one from the select group of attendees. Yet Liliana has no desire to lure the rich and powerful earl into marriage. She’s come to Somerton Park for one reason - to uncover what the Wentworths had to do with the murder of her father.

Orphaned as a child, Hortense has had to fight her way to becoming the ton’s favorite private investigator. But for a woman who lives on the edge, the past is never dead. When her former spymaster asks her to find his wastrel brother Jamie, the Marquess of Clare, she thinks it’s just one more job uncovering the ton’s dirty secrets. She has no idea that she’s about to find her future…

In defiance of society's strictures, Lady Olivia is determined to share her fascination with fencing with other ladies and enjoy the thrill of facing an opponent like the dashing Lord Milbourn. Ignoring convention comes at a cost, however. If she wants to start a fencing academy for ladies, then her family insists that she agree to a betrothal to the wealthy, but conventional, Lord Saunders. Despite her secret longing for Lord Milbourn and their shared passion for fencing, she reluctantly agrees.