Historical Letters

In the summer of 1905, Katherine Arthur's mother arrives on her doorstep, dying, forcing her to relive a past she wanted to forget. When Katherine was young, the Arthur family had been affluent city dwellers until shame sent them running for the prairie, into the unknown. Taking her family, including young Katherine, to live off the land was the last thing Jeanie Arthur had wanted, but she would do her best to make a go of it. For Jeanie's husband, Frank, it had been a world of opportunity. Dreaming, lazy Frank.

Genevieve Amsel is recovering from a canceled engagement when her dear friend, Tillie, invites her to move to Ellis Creek for a fresh start. While she settles into life in the friendly Montana town, one thing is for certain—Genevieve will never fall in love again, no matter what marriage prospects come her way. Becoming the new postmaster in Ellis Creek is not for the faint of heart. Attempting to do his best to replace the popular Mr. Norman, who recently retired, Oliver Bessell relocates from Bozeman and attempts to win the hearts of Ellis Creek residents, especially one in particular.

Long, lonely years have passed for the crumbling Château Clement, nestled well beyond the rolling lavender fields and popular tourist attractions of Provence. Once a bustling and dignified ancestral estate, now all that remains is the château's gruff, elderly owner and the softly whispered secrets of generations buried and forgotten. But time has a way of exposing history's dark stains, and when American photographer Cady Drake finds herself drawn to the château and its antique carousel, she longs to explore the relic's shadowy origins.

Fiercely romantic and hugely influential, The Scarlet Letter is the tale of Hester Prynne, imprisoned, publicly shamed, and forced to wear a scarlet for committing adultery and bearing an illegitimate child, Pearl. In their small Puritan village, Hester and her daughter struggle to survive. In this searing study of the tension between private and public existence, Hester Prynne’s inner strength and quiet dignity secure her place as one of the first great heroines of American fiction.

Margaret Lovell tries her best to love everyone. But when it comes to Lord Blackwell, she doesn't care to succeed. After the young Earl of Blackwell accused her father of cheating and tricked him out of his fortune, she has despised him for causing their disgrace and lack of security. So when she learns that Lord Blackwell is on his deathbed, she cannot help but feel a lack of sympathy. With her family's financial situation worsening, she doesn't have time to think of anything else, especially the man who caused it.

Victorian Countess Amelia Amesbury’s secret hobby, writing an advice column for a London penny paper, has gotten her into hot water before. After all, Amelia will do whatever it takes to help a reader in need. But now, handsome marquis Simon Bainbridge desperately requires her assistance. His beloved younger sister, Marielle, has written Amelia's Lady Agony column seeking advice on her plans to elope with a man her family does not approve of. Determined to save his sister from a scoundrel and the family from scandal, Simon asks Amelia to dissuade Marielle from the ill-advised gambit.

By day, Reginald Sinclair works in the post office, but by night, he is the increasingly infamous Paladin, the gallant highwayman making young women swoon all over Somerset. With a vendetta against the wealthy that spans both past and present, Reggie's escapades allow him to take justice into his own hands while helping his uncle avoid insolvency.

It is a stormy evening in 1920s London. When newly qualified almoner Alice stepped into the home of Charlotte, a terrified teenager who has just given birth out of wedlock, she did not expect to make a pact that would change her life forever. Thrown into secrecy after an unexpected turn, Alice is determined to keep bewildered Charlotte and her newborn baby safe. But when a threatening note appears, she realises that Charlotte may need more protection than she first thought. But from whom?

Carl Brooke, a scholar of ancient Near Eastern languages, now spends his twilight years chronicling the adventures of his youth as a leading member of the Agora Society, a society dedicated to the betterment of man. Fans of Sherlock Holmes or Hercule Poirot will enjoy Carl Brooke and his Agora Society in these five very different cases.

When renowned war hero Farias of Narsia returns to his home kingdom, he isn’t greeted with the warm welcome he expects. To his great dismay, his controversial talks of an invisible god discovered in his travels contradict Narsia’s firm belief in their stone idol Dionexes. Some choose to follow his teachings while others reject them, leading to widespread disagreements and a decades-long civil war within the kingdom.

Kent, 2019. With her marriage in tatters, school teacher Lizzie Armstrong moves to sleepy Elm Heath for a fresh start and her pupils and the community soon steal her heart. So when the school is threatened with closure Lizzie knows she has to fight and she looks to the school’s founder for inspiration. What makes Esther, born and bred in London, a proud Suffragette, suddenly leave the city and escape to Elm Heath? And when Lizzie uncovers Esther’s heartbreaking secret, could it give her the strength she needs to save not just the school, but her new beginning too?

Becky Nelson fled her childhood home and risked irreparable damage to her relationship with her only sister for an independent life in Kansas. The bookish bachelorette had no sooner settled in the Sunflower State when her path crossed with Henry, a ruggedly handsome farmer. The draft selects the seemingly untouchable Henry, and the couple rushes to make their union permanent before the war carries him to far-off lands. As the days turn to months, their letters give Becky and Henry the strength to go on as he serves his country, and she shares their home with an unlikely guest.

Mary fears she’s losing the two people she most admires—her lover and her father—after she’s lost her reputation. She regains them with the publication of Frankenstein. As Scott is crafting his biography of the Shelleys and Godwins a century later, he fears that he’s losing his audience and his wife. He regains them with the publication of his other “work” he’s authoring at the same—The Great Gatsby. As eternal celebrities of Western culture—the Shelleys, the Godwins, and the Fitzgeralds—their brief victories are dramatically retold in What Light Was as dialogues, verse, and meditations.

It is 1828. Fate has brought four people together in a modest house in Abingdon, Virginia. All of them have experienced great losses in their lives, with the three adults consumed by their grief and regret. The fourth, an innocent, is a recently orphaned young boy working through his own sadness but learning to adapt to his new living situation. Alexander Dromgoole, a Revolutionary War veteran and Indian trader, is a frail and ailing old man, living out the last years of his life being boarded out by the town's Overseers of the Poor.

It is 1890. In the twilight of his years, Carl Brooke records his reminiscences as a member of the Agora Society. Each letter describes the society's involvement in solving a crime, often coming to the aid of Captain Barnwell of the Boston police.

Sicily, 1939. Seventeen-year-old Concetta has just received life-changing news: her family is leaving their sun-drenched Sicilian village and moving to America. Desperate to stay with her secret love Gaetano—a fisherman's son her father would never accept—Concetta spends one last night with him beneath a blanket of stars. There, among the citrus-scented air and cricket song, he hands her a leaving gift: a fountain pen, with a promise to keep their love alive through letters – and return to one another one day.

When her sister volunteers to help renovate the two cottages she owns in France, Merle is happy to have company. The cottages are a disaster–especially one that has mostly been inhabited by rodents for years. But inside the cottage are surprises. A packet of letters dating from World War One intrigue Merle. What happened to this soldier who was writing to his girlfriend back in England? Does his last letter, telling her to forget him, mean something terrible happened to him?

Katherine Arthur and her family are back and it’s time to collect the money Mrs. Mellet left them in her will. The tidy sum will allow the family peace of mind and a future that’s stable and fulfilling. But when things don’t go exactly as planned, Katherine steps up to do more than her share. Hired as a kitchen mistress, her intuition (with the help of a mysterious recipe book), cooking prowess, and work ethic make her the perfect partner for the enigmatic, wealthy woman next door. Then Aleksey Zurchenko arrives.

Letters discovered in a tin box hidden in the foundation of a small cottage in Normandy reveal a terrible secret, a desperate whisper between the lines. Antoine's world was collapsing. His beautiful Marianne, his precious daughter Ariéle, missing. The lives of hundreds - perhaps thousands - of allied soldiers preparing to storm Juno Beach on D-Day literally are in his hands.

Miss Arabella Leeds, the teenage daughter of a prominent New York family, and Aubrey Paxton, the pampered "high-yellow" house servant of wealthy New Orleans slaveholders, are destined to meet and fall in love. But before their paths can cross, and their romance commence in London, each must forsake complacency and comfort, the familial and familiar, for a journey toward self-discovery and the allure of the forbidden. Arabella must abandon the gentlewoman's prescribed path and redefine her convictions - particularly those regarding her own sexuality.