When Dorthea Black whisks thirteen-year-old Sarah out of an orphanage into wealthy Mayfair for unknown reasons, the secret Dorthea harbors and the truth of Sarah's birth threaten to make them both outcasts among London's elite.
If the Truth is Revealed, Will She Lose All She's Grown to Love? An orphanage in the slums of London is the only home Sarah Matthews has ever known. When she is suddenly whisked away to a wealthy widow's home in the prestigious Mayfair district, Sarah can't fathom what has happened. Why would this elderly woman, a stranger, want her company? But Dorothea Blake has reasons she isn't revealing. As Sarah blossoms into a young woman, the secret Mrs. Blake harbors threatens to make them both outcasts among London's elite. When a visitor unknowingly stumbles upon the truth, he puts Sarah at risk of losing everything she holds dear, including the attentions of a new curate. Will the mystery of her birth remain buried forever?
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • From the beloved author of the Vampire Chronicles, the second installation of her spellbinding Mayfair Chronicles—the inspiration for the hit television series! “[Anne] Rice’s descriptive writing is so opulent it almost begs to be read by candlelight.”—The Washington Post Book World In seventeenth-century Scotland, the first “witch,” Suzanne of the Mayfair, conjured up the spirit she named Lasher—a creation that spelled her own destruction and torments each of her descendants. Now, the beautiful Rowan Mayfair, queen of the coven, must flee from this darkly brutal yet irresistible demon. The magic of the Mayfairs continues: THE WITCHING HOUR • LASHER • TALTOS
Book 2 of Tales of London. Eighteen-year-old Catherine Rayborn is thrilled with her first taste of independence when she begins Girton College in Cambridge in 1880. Amid all the excitement, however, comes the painful realization of the vast difference between true love and shallow infatuation. Lawana Blackwell skillfully endears a cast of loveable characters to readers in a story that will linger long after the last page is turned.
". . . a lively trip to Ireland and an action packed adventure with lots of mischief, mystery and passionate characters." ~Jennifer Blake Miles Cavanagh just wants to hunt in the Shires, but instead he finds himself the guardian to a twenty-year-old heiress hell-bent on marrying a fortune-hunting wretch. Refusing to let Felicity throw her life away, Miles kidnaps his ward and carries her off to England. But Felicity's determination is proving equal to his. As fierce wills clash, and fiery hearts ignite into passion, Felicity faces a choice: pursue her mission, or trust the tyrant she's come to love. From The Publisher: Author Jo Beverley is known for her consumate attention to historical detail that wisks the reader back in time to a near first-hand experience. Fans of Regency romance and historical British fiction set in the 19th century, as well as readers of Jess Michaels, Mary Balogh, Christi Caldwell, Stephanie Laurens, Madeline Hunter and Mary Jo Putney will want to read every book by Jo Beverley. "Brimming with sensual adventure and daring wit." ~RT "...a fast paced, fun romance that will keep you glued. First rate keeper!" ~Aromancereview.com
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • From the beloved author of the Vampire Chronicles, the first installation of her spellbinding Mayfair Chronicles—the inspiration for the hit television series! “Extraordinary . . . Anne Rice offers more than just a story; she creates myth.”—The Washington Post Book World Rowan Mayfair, a beautiful woman, a brilliant practitioner of neurosurgery—aware that she has special powers but unaware that she comes from an ancient line of witches—finds the drowned body of a man off the coast of California and brings him to life. He is Michael Curry, who was born in New Orleans and orphaned in childhood by fire on Christmas Eve, who pulled himself up from poverty, and who now, in his brief interval of death, has acquired a sensory power that mystifies and frightens him. As these two, fiercely drawn to each other, fall in love and—in passionate alliance—set out to solve the mystery of her past and his unwelcome gift, an intricate tale of evil unfolds. Moving through time from today’s New Orleans and San Francisco to long-ago Amsterdam and a château in the Louis XIV’s France, and from the coffee plantations of Port au Prince, where the great Mayfair fortune is made and the legacy of their dark power is almost destroyed, to Civil War New Orleans, The Witching Hour is a luminous, deeply enchanting novel. The magic of the Mayfairs continues: THE WITCHING HOUR • LASHER • TALTOS
They were shrewd and uncompromising, the Watsons, and all the arrogance and acumen with which old Tom Watson had built up the family's banking business was there in his children and grandchildren. Their methods were as aggressive as their lifestyle was opulent, and they could stab each other in the back or drive a competitor to ruin as calmly as a bank clerk counting out change. In time, their empire was to encompass the great financial capitals of the world. As it grew, so too did their power and influence. First published in 1984, Lady of Fortune is the story of the Watson family, and of the remarkable woman at its head. Graham Masterton has created a pulsating saga of seven decades of ambition and ruthlessness, of public feuding and private passions, of a will to succeed so powerful that not even the ties of kinship could hope to contain it.
A man controlled by his desires . . . Infamous for his wild, sensual needs, Lazarus Huntington, Lord Caire, is searching for a savage killer in St. Giles, London's most notorious slum. Widowed Temperance Dews knows St. Giles like the back of her hand - she's spent a lifetime caring for its inhabitants at the foundling home her family established. Now that home is at risk . . . A woman haunted by her past . . . Caire makes a simple offer - in return for Temperance's help navigating the perilous alleys of St. Giles, he will introduce her to London's high society so that she can find a benefactor for the home. But Temperance may not be the innocent she seems, and what begins as cold calculation soon falls prey to a passion that neither can control - one that may well destroy them both. A bargain neither could refuse.
Los Angeles, 1929: a glittering metropolis on the crest of an epic crash. A mysterious prophetess and her alluring daughter have relieved an oil tycoon's nephew of his fortune. But the kid won't talk. To find the money, the old man calls on a trusted executive, Raymond Chandler, who in turn enlists the aid of his devoted secretary/mistress, Muriel Fischer, and their idealistic patrolman friend Tom James. Soon the nephew is revealed as a high-ranking member of a murderous cult of angel worshippers, and the trio plunges into an investigation that sends them careening across Southern California, from sinister sanitariums to roadside burger stands, decaying Bunker Hill mansions to sparkling cocktail parties, taxi dance halls to the morgue, all in search of the secretive Great Eleven. But when Muriel goes undercover to infiltrate the group's rural lair, she comes face to face with disturbing truths that threaten to spoil everything, not just for the cult's members, but for herself as well. A work of fiction inspired by actual events and featuring the real-life cop who is a likely model for the mature Chandler's greatest creation, private eye Philip Marlowe, Kim Cooper's The Kept Girl exposes a mystery so horrifying, it could only be true.