Coming of Age

A Frogmorton Farm short story from the million-copy bestselling author of the Chronicles of St Mary's. Perfect for fans of Sarah Addison Allen, Kristen Ashley and Genevieve Cogman.

Daisy Hastings has always thought she was born in the wrong era. So when she bags a summer job at the Tower of London helping to run their Knight school, it feels like a step in the right direction. Theodore ‘Teddy’ Fairfax is a loose cannon. A disgraced distant relative of the royal family, he’s tall, dark and now (begrudgingly) helping with the Tower of London’s summer programme – and there’s nowhere he’d like to be less. When Teddy’s oath to be an obstruction almost gets Daisy fired, she declares war. But as the two cross swords, they start to discover they both need a little rescuing.

Young Abbie struggles to cope with the traumatic experiences in her life. Ripped from everything familiar after her parents’ divorce, she is dropped into an unknown neighborhood and is emotionally abandoned by her mentally unstable mother. Abbie is caught up in the cruel nature of one sister’s addictions and is often rescued by her other sister’s love and sense of familial responsibility. The story reveals family secrets and the shift of cultural norms as it leaves the 1970s and enters the 1980s.

When Lettie’s parents call her and her brother back to Hollyhock Farm on the island of Jersey, the last thing they expect to be told is that their childhood home is up for sale. Back on the island, with its rolling hills and golden sands, Lettie immediately remembers what it feels like to breathe in the fresh air in the green fields, and be part of this tight-knit community – a far cry from the life of events and high fashion she leads in London. But she surprises even herself when she suggests that she instead could take over Hollyhock Farm.

At birth, Violet and Rose Flowers were identical, save for a tiny bluish-purple mark gracing Violet’s slender neck. By nineteen, their temperaments distinguish them, as different as the flowers their mother named them for—Violet, wild and outgoing, and Rose, solitary and reserved. Still, they are each other’s world. Then, on a sweltering, terrible August night in 1928, an explosion rocks Lamb’s Dance Hall in Possum Flats, Missouri, engulfing it in flames, leaving one twin among the dozens dead, and her sister’s life forever changed.

Pumkin Patterson lives in a tiny two-room house in Kingston, Jamaica, with her grandmother, who wants to improve the family’s social standing; her Aunt Sophie, who wants to take Pumkin with her to a new life in Paris; and her mother, Paulette, who wants to keep her at home out of spite.

As a teenager, for a moment, Ella Fitchburg found love—yearning, breathless love—that consumed both her and her boyfriend, Jude, as they wandered the streets of New York City together. But her life was unexpectedly upended when she was accused of trying to murder Jude’s father, an imperious superior court judge, and sentenced to twenty-five years in prison. When she learns she’s pregnant shortly after sentencing, she reluctantly decides to give up the child. Ella is released after serving six years. While she is desperate to turn the page on a new life, she can’t seem to let go of her past.

Tilda has done everything she can to make her life neat, protected, tidy. No longer the girl who was scared of everything, whose family pushed her away, who hit rock bottom. Now she runs her life – as she does her successful business – with the utmost organization. As long as she keeps everyone at arm’s length, she will be fine. She will be safe. But then a chance encounter with a man who’s fallen on hard times changes everything.

Before Jodie Rattler became a star, she was a girl growing up in St. Louis. One day in 1955, when she was just six years old, her uncle Drew took her to the racetrack, where she got lucky—and the roll of two-dollar bills she won has never since left her side. Jodie thrived in the warmth of her extended family, and then—through a combination of hard work and serendipity—she started a singing career, which catapulted her from St. Louis to New York City, from the English countryside to the tropical beaches of St. Thomas, from Cleveland to Los Angeles and back again.

With her first novel, Alana S. Portero strikingly underscores the ties between gender and class, the search for identity, and the power of sisterhood and community. Gentle but blistering, Bad Habit is a mesmerizing story of self-realization that speaks to the outsider in all of us.

The short story The District Doctor by Turgenev, written in 1848, is part of the "Sportsman's Sketches" cycle. It tells the tale of a hopeless love between a dying girl from a noble family and a humble county doctor. Other famous works, such as "Asya", "Fathers and Sons", "A Nest of Noblemen", "Biryuk", "On the Eve", "Mumu","Fire at Sea", "The Wayside Inn", "The Watch", "Three Portraits", "A Strange Story", "The Meeting", etc.

Emma Rivers' life has dripped on like a leaky faucet since her mother’s sudden passing seven-years ago. The dripping water has nearly drowned her with one constant question: was it really her fault? Her brother thinks so, her dad does not... and Emma, well, she’s not quite sure. Not for the Faint of Heart follows Emma as she copes with her past in order to embrace her present and future.

Dutch Cross is rich, powerful, and possessive. I gave him too much of me and now it’s too late to run. Yet it’s what I do. Far, far from the villain of the story. But the thing about villains is… They always drag you back to the dark. And when a secret that should have stayed buried rises from the grave, I have no choice but to join hands with the enemy.

Emily rents a room in a boarding house in London where she makes a modest living as an assistant to aristocratic ladies. One summer, Lady Maria Bayne asks Emily to her country estate and it’s there that Emily receives a very surprising offer of marriage from a wealthy widower in need of a wife. But Emily’s new life is not without its own obstacles and challenges.

After a horrific incident, Swayze finds herself trapped between two lives. Patchy memories and fear for her own safety thrust her into a gut-wrenching journey to uncover the truth. Will she let her dreams slip away to seek retribution and find the missing pieces to a puzzle that existed a lifetime ago?