Victorian Society

For 12-year-old Ottilie Finch, London is an exciting playground to explore. Her family have recently arrived in Hampstead from Durham, under a cloud of scandal that Otty is blissfully unaware of. The only shadow over her days is her mother’s mysterious illness, which keeps her to her room. When young local girl Mabs is offered the chance to become Mrs Finch’s companion, it saves her from a desperate life on the canals. Little does she know that all is not as picture-perfect as it seems.

Really, it's too much to expect any normal man to behave like a staid accountant in order to inherit the fortune he deserves to support the lifestyle of an earl. So when Derek Saunders's favorite elderly aunt and her ill-conceived - and possibly fraudulent - Lady Travelers Society loses one of their members, what's a man to do but step up to the challenge? Now he's escorting the world's most maddening woman to the world's most romantic city to find her missing relative.

When former lovers Hawker and Mrs. Peabody are paired on a spy mission over the holidays, the pair battle a deadly enemy…and a desire that neither can deny. As they surrender to passion, secrets emerge that could destroy their chance at happiness. Can they work together to vanquish their foes and win the love of a lifetime?

When the genteelly born, impoverished Frankie Turner's impulsive younger sister goes missing, Frankie has no idea where to begin the search to find her. But when she discovers hasty marriages materializing between “troublemaking” women and men who don’t deserve them, she knows her sister is somehow involved. The only thread connecting the groomsmen is a membership to Rockford’s, an exclusive gambling hell owned by the devilish Jasper Jones. And it just so happens that Jasper has recently become the guardian of a sullen fifteen-year-old.

A visitor to Baker Street comes amid the rains of March in 1889, speaking of the shadowy world of séances and mediumship, subjects about which the ever-rational Holmes has little patience, nor is he any more approving when an accusation is made concerning his role in a past case that saw a convicted murderer hanged, yet when events unfold to draw Holmes to a manor in Wiltshire where the British Séance Society makes its headquarters, he soon finds himself caught up in a case that appears to Watson to have the involvement of the paranormal as its most likely explanation. It’s all inside ...

The Bronx, 1891. Virginia Loftin, the boldest of four artistic sisters in a family living in genteel poverty, knows what she wants most: to become a celebrated novelist despite her gender and to marry Charlie, the boy next door and her first love. When Charlie proposes instead to a woman from a wealthy family, Ginny is devastated; shutting out her family, she holes up and turns their story into fiction, obsessively rewriting a better ending.

The utterly charming Emily Leverton has a dark past and is determined to leave it behind in her respectable new role as a governess. But when she is recruited by a secret network of governesses who spy on the ton, it may just be a way to redeem the dark secrets of her past. An ex-solider turned railroad magnate, Zach hunts killers for the Metropolitan Police by day and dutifully attends balls at night. In neither world has he met a woman with the brazenness to mock him.

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.

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.

Harry Armstrong has spent years in Egypt. Now, he’s back in England with a new title and a new purpose: penning his exploits. But his efforts are overshadowed by London’s favorite writer about Egypt - a woman they call "The Queen of the Desert". Worse, her stories - serialized in newspapers and reprinted in books - are complete rubbish. Miss Sidney Honeywell didn’t set out to deceive anyone. It’s not her fault readers assumed her tales were real! The earl of Brenton challenges her to travel to Egypt to prove her expertise.

The last novel completed by Jane Austen before she died at 41, Persuasion is often thought to be the story of the author's own lost love. Sir Walter Elliot of Kellynch Hall has three daughters: Elizabeth, who shares his haughty vanity and, at 28 has found no one good enough to marry; Mary, who has, with some condescension, married the son of the local squire; and admirable Anne, who "was nobody with either father or sister".

Penelope Clayton knows a lot more about sanitary engineering than she does about polite society. When her father sends her to London to stay with a well-connected cousin, she has little expectation of securing the society marriage he would like, for she’s never been taught to curtsey, nor can she dance a step. Despite these shortcomings, her natural aristocratic grace, with the help of some beautiful new gowns, ensures she catches the eye of apparent reprobate Lord Alexander Forsyth, who’s seeking a wife to enhance his budding political career. But philandering Viscount Midhurst is in ...

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.

One of Jane Austen's most complex and mature works, Mansfield Park shows the writer at the top of her form, tackling the manners and customs of early 19th-century society with wit and irony that still resonate with readers two centuries after the book's initial publication. Flo Gibson's compelling narration gives perfect voice to the trials and tribulations of Fanny Price, sent at a young age to live with her rich relations.

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.

In Phineas Finn, the second of the Palliser series, Trollope balances the rival demands of public and private life. Phineas Finn, an irresistible but penniless young Irish barrister enters Parliament and comes to London leaving behind him an Irish sweetheart, Mary Flood-Jones. In London, Phineas wins friends on all sides and is admitted into high society. However, he also falls more-or-less in love, first with politically-minded Lady Laura Standish, then with Violet Effingham, and finally with wealthy widow Madame Max Goesler.

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?

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.

Plantaganet Palliser, Prime Minister of England - a man of power and prestige, with all the breeding and inherited wealth that goes with it - is appalled at the inexorable rise of Ferdinand Lopez. An exotic impostor, seemingly from nowhere, Lopez has society at his feet, while well-connected ladies vie with each other to exert influence on his behalf - even Palliser’s own wife, Lady Glencora.

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.