Victorian Society

When her overprotective family tries to curtail her activities, spirited debutante Fiona Garrity decides marriage is her surest way to freedom. All she needs is an accommodating—and preferably not too perceptive—husband with his own hobbies so that he will not interfere with hers. Destiny puts her into the path of a scholarly earl. He would be the perfect candidate…if only his gray eyes were not so magnetic, and his virile nearness didn’t affect her in such a stimulating manner….

When crime creeps into the drawing rooms of the elite, even Sherlock Holmes must tread carefully. In this new collection, Watson recounts cases where Holmes was drawn into the glittering — and treacherous — world of London’s high society. Behind every curtsey and champagne toast lies scandal, deception, and murder. From grand balls to fox hunts, country estates to gentlemen’s clubs, the great detective must navigate etiquette as deftly as evidence, with Watson as his ever-steady guide through a landscape of whispered threats and deadly secrets. A vanished viscount. A deadly ...

At a masquerade ball hosted in a sprawling London townhouse, a mysterious woman in a crimson velvet mask catches the eye of a disillusioned barrister. She lures him through shadowed corridors to a hidden parlor, where an exclusive society gathers to indulge in whispered fantasies. Behind the anonymity of their masks, they shed the rigid propriety of Victorian society, and their encounter becomes a dance of power, seduction, and fleeting intimacy—leaving him haunted by her identity long after the night fades. Written in first person from the male POV.

Heartwarming Regency romances filled with mystery, intrigue, surprising twists, and of course, love! An Earl’s Agreement An arranged marriage turns dangerous when he will stop at nothing to make her his bride! Will her hero prevail? Married to a Marquess After her wedding day, Alice never saw her husband again. She must now take charge of her own life if she is to ever know happiness! A Viscount’s Second Chance Henry is thrilled to have a second chance at love, but he risks losing Eleanor again when a scandal threatens to tear them apart! A Duke for Christmas Isabella did not want to ...

A three AM knock at the door of 221B Baker Street, soon sends Sherlock Holmes and Dr. Watson out into the blanketing fog of a cold London night, where they are led by Inspector McPherson of Scotland Yard to an empty building, where four bodies, each the victim of a different manner of foul play, lie discarded like so much refuse. Amid the room the clues Holmes uncovers are strange, even contradictory, and seem to lead to more questions than answers, as he finds himself set about solving a mystery that taxes even the considerable powers of his brain, and leads to a conclusion as horrifying ...

Some secrets refuse to stay buried... When Liv returns to her grandmother Eleanor's Victorian mansion in Heartwood Haven, she expects to find solace among the herb gardens and faded memories. Instead, she discovers a body among the rosemary—Walter Pembroke, head of the Historical Society, clutching a mysterious document that could change everything. As Liv reluctantly steps into her inheritance, she finds herself at the center of a town divided between preservation and progress. The suspicious Detective Marcus Rivera considers her the prime suspect, while the Knitting Circle's whispers ...

Alexia Tarabotti, Lady Maccon, has settled into domestic bliss. Of course, being Alexia, such bliss involves integrating werewolves into London High society, living in a vampire's second best closet, and coping with a precocious toddler who is prone to turning supernatural willy-nilly. Even Ivy Tunstell's acting troupe's latest play, disastrous to say the least, cannot put a damper on Alexia's enjoyment of her new London lifestyle.

This brilliant satirical novel, tracing the life and loves of Ernest Pontifex, has continued in popularity since its original publication in 1903. Every generation finds in The Way of All Flesh a reaffirmation of youth's rightful struggle against the tyranny of harsh parents and its admirable will for freedom of personal expression.

In Secrets of the Nile, Lady Emily and her husband, Colin Hargreaves, have joined his formidable mother on a holiday to visit the exotic treasures of Egypt. Their host, Lord Bertram Deeley, is a renowned amateur British collector of antiquities, who has invited his closest friends on a lavish cruise up the Nile to his home at Luxor. But on the first night of their journey, he suddenly collapses after offering a welcome toast, a victim of the lethal poison cyanide. Who amongst this group of his nearest and dearest would want to kill their generous host?

After an odd encounter at a grand masquerade ball, Lady Emily becomes embroiled in the murder investigation of one of the guests, a sometime actress trying to pass herself off as the mysterious heiress and world traveler Estella Lamar. Each small discovery, however, leads to more questions. Was the intended victim Miss Lamar or the imposter? And who would want either of them dead?

In the fourth of the ‘Palliser’ stories, Trollope follows Phineas Finn’s return to the dangerous world of Westminster politics. When his political rival is murdered, Phineas is thrown under suspicion and eventually finds himself standing trial at the Old Bailey. The situation is complicated by the presence of two women in his life: his old flame Lady Laura, whose estranged husband is determined to destroy Phineas’s reputation, and the wealthy and enigmatic widow, Madame Max.

Emily and Colin Hargreaves make it a rule to spend as little time as possible with her parents in Kent, but are unable to refuse Lady Catherine Bromley’s invitation to join them for a pre-Christmas party that includes the family of Ala Kapur Singh, a powerful Punjabi maharaja who has come to England after receiving the Order of the Star of India.

After the final curtain of Swan Lake, an animated crowd exits the Mariinsky theatre brimming with excitement from the night's performance. But outside, the scene is somber. A ballerina's body lies face down in the snow, blood splattered like rose petals over the costume of the Swan Queen. The crowd is silenced by a single cry - "Nemetseva is dead!" When the dead ballerina's aristocratic lover comes begging for justice, Emily must apply her own set of skills to discover the rising star's murderer.

Lord Farrington is returning from what had been a wonderful evening at White’s, when he is struck suddenly and knocked unconscious. Waking up to find himself in a locked room, he has no knowledge as to why he is there or who attacked him. With no means of escape, he struggles between fear and anger, only to be greeted by a veiled lady who promises to explain everything. Lady Josephine Rutherford has spent five years searching for the truth about her husband’s death. Believing that Lord Farrington is responsible, she uses her wealth and influence to have him captured and brought to her ...

The Duke's Children is the sixth and final audiobook in the Palliser series. Plantagenet Palliser, the Duke of Omnium and former Prime Minister of England, is widowed and wracked by grief. Struggling to adapt to life without his beloved Lady Glencora, he works hard to guide and support his three adult children. Palliser soon discovers, however, that his own plans for them are very different from their desires. Sent down from university in disgrace, his two sons quickly begin to run up gambling debts.

In 1903, tensions between Britain and Germany are starting to loom over Europe, something that has not gone unnoticed by Lady Emily and her husband, Colin Hargreaves. An agent of the Crown, Colin carries the weight of the empire, but his focus is drawn to Italy by a series of burglaries at his daughter’s palazzo in Florence - burglaries that might have international ramifications. He and Emily travel to Tuscany where, soon after their arrival, a stranger is thrown to his death from the roof onto the marble palazzo floor.

On a quest to distract her lifelong friend Jeremy from his recent heartbreak, Lady Emily organizes a holiday in Greece. As a lover of all things Greek, she quickly finds herself occupied with tours of ancient ruins, lively debates with Margaret, a devoted Latinist, and slightly more scandalous endeavors with her dashing husband, Colin Hargreaves. But the pleasantries are brought to an abrupt halt when a man long believed dead greets the party at their island villa. Lord Philip Ashton, Colin's childhood best friend and Emily's first husband, has returned.

Meg Swift has a tiny problem with stealing. What else is she to do when her uncle triples the estate rents? She learns how to mend roofs, plant turnips—and how to steal. She's too busy for her godfather's parade of single gentlemen at the Cinderella Ball. Dougal Black has just been plucked from a millhouse as the last of the Thorncroft duchy bloodline. And if he's not married by the end of the year, the Prince of Wales will choose his bride for him. But Dougal doesn't know the rules of this new world. Luckily, Meg does.

When Queen Victoria stepped onto the throne of Great Britain and Ireland in 1837, gone were the days when the monarch had supreme authority over the kingdom. Victoria ruled at the head of a government with which she was meant to converse, debate, and ultimately guide, and it was a job she sometimes struggled to perform. Victoria described herself as an emotional creature and blamed her gender for what she believed were her shortcomings as a monarch.

A lady should never be obliged to think of matters financial! But when Lady Wilhelmina Bascombe's carefree, extravagant lifestyle vanishes with the demise of her husband, her only hope lies in retrieving a family treasure - a Renaissance masterpiece currently in the hands of a cunning art collector in Venice. Thankfully, the Lady Travelers Society has orchestrated a clever plan to get Willie to Europe, leading a tour of mothers and daughters...and one curiously attentive man.