Historical Thriller

It's late 1936, and King Edward is in turmoil, having fallen in love with the scandalously divorced and even more scandalously American Wallis Simpson. He wants to marry her but knows that doing so will jeopardize his crown. Edward confides in his dear friend Darcy, Georgie's husband, and the couple agree to hide Wallis in their home while Edward figures out what to do. But unbeknownst to Georgie and Darcy, Sir Hubert, the owner of the estate, has given a film crew permission to shoot a motion picture about Henry the Eighth and Anne Boleyn on the grounds

Summer 1924. On the eve of a glittering Society party, by the lake of a grand English country house, a young poet takes his life. The only witnesses, sisters Hannah and Emmeline Hartford, will never speak to each other again. Winter 1999. Grace Bradley, 98, one-time housemaid of Riverton Manor, is visited by a young director making a film about the poet’s suicide. Ghosts awaken and memories, long consigned to the dark reaches of Grace’s mind, begin to sneak back through the cracks. A shocking secret threatens to emerge – something history has forgotten but Grace never could.

London, 1888. As colorful and unfettered as the butterflies she collects, Victorian adventuress Veronica Speedwell can't resist the allure of an exotic mystery - particularly one involving her enigmatic colleague, Stoker. His former expedition partner has vanished from an archaeological dig with a priceless diadem unearthed from the newly discovered tomb of an Egyptian princess. This disappearance is just the latest in a string of unfortunate events that have plagued the controversial expedition, and rumors abound that the curse of the vengeful princess has been unleashed as the shadowy figure of Anubis himself stalks the streets of London.

Amidst the Hundred Years' War, alliances must be brokered. The Duke of Clarence, second son of King Edward III, journeys from Paris to marry the daughter of the powerful Lord of Milan. Little does he know that he is heading into a trap. Luckily the Duke is preceded on the road to Milan by Sir Thomas Blackstone, Master of War, on an urgent mission of his own. Blackstone must get his hands on the gold the Prince of Wales needs to wage successful war in France. But there is a price on Blackstone's head, and assassins willing to risk everything to claim it before he even gets to Milan.

Lady Eleanor Swift’s marriage to dashing Chief Inspector Hugh Seldon is just days away. There’s a lot to organise from the dress to the catering, including, of course, the all-important wedding cake. But Eleanor is heartbroken when their chef, apple-cheeked Annie Tibetts, dies of poisoning. And as the doctor confirms her death wasn’t an accident, accusations fly around the whole community.

For years, Lady Bancroft’s Valentine’s Ball at Bancroft Hall had been a glittering gathering of high society’s most eligible men and women. Countless happy couples owe their love stories to her matchmaking, their gratitude keeping Lady Bancroft in the genteel comfort of her grand Cotswolds estate. But this year tragedy strikes. A murder threatens to ruin everything. Desperate, Lady Bancroft turns to her neighbour, the dashing Major Heathcliff Lennox. A decorated war hero and now a consultant to Scotland Yard, Lennox would much rather be fishing.

Abandoned by his father, Gareth Inglis grew up lonely, prickly, and used to disappointment. Still, he longs for a connection. When he meets a charming stranger, he falls head over heels—until everything goes wrong and he's left alone again. Then Gareth's father dies, turning the shabby London clerk into Sir Gareth, with a grand house on the remote Romney Marsh and a family he doesn't know. The Marsh is another world, a strange, empty place notorious for its ruthless gangs of smugglers. And one of them is dangerously familiar…

Back home in the Kootenays after her Arizona honeymoon, Lane offers her assistance when neither the outgoing teacher, Rose, nor her replacement, Wendy, show up at the local schoolhouse one blizzardy Monday in December. But when she finds the teachers’ cottage ransacked with Rose unconscious and bleeding, and Wendy missing, Lane delivers Rose to the hospital in Nelson and turns the case over to her exasperated husband, Inspector Darling, and his capable colleagues, Sergeant Ames and Constable Terrell.

Ken Follett’s The Key to Rebecca took readers and critics by storm when first published forty years ago. Today, it remains one of the best espionage novels ever written. A brilliant and ruthless Nazi master agent is on the loose in Cairo. His mission is to send Rommel’s advancing army the...

Powerful, prosperous, and expanding ever farther into the untamed world, the Roman Empire has reached its zenith under the rule of the beloved Emperor Trajan. But neither Trajan nor his reign can last forever...

Molly Murphy is starting to think the cards are stacked against her. She's determined to be a private detective, but hampering her investigations is the fact that she's finding many places in turn-of-the-century New York City where women are not welcome, something that's as frustrating to her fiery Irish pride as it is to her rapidly emptying pocketbook. Then two business opportunities pop up simultaneously. An aristocratic family in Dublin fears their daughter has fled to the New World with her unsavory boyfriend, and they hire Molly to track the two down and send the young woman back home.

A woman private eye in a man's world, Molly Murphy is having a hard time succeeding as a New York shamus. That's why she agrees to go undercover for the NYPD to expose a pair of spiritualist sisters as con-artists even though the offer comes from police captain Daniel Sullivan. Sullivan had once won Molly's heart - until she discovered he already had a socialite fiancée and an upcoming wedding. Now Molly's masquerading as a cousin from Ireland at the Hudson River mansion of Senator Barney Flynn. Flynn's invalid wife hopes the psychic sisters can contact her dead son, kidnaped and lost in a sensational crime.

At the dawn of the Jazz Age, Morris Markey arrives in New York to become a writer. Having served in France, he needs to be in a place so distracting he cannot hear himself think. New in town, Markey hovers at the edge of the city’s revels, unable to hear the secrets that might give him his first Big Story. Finally one night he spots Joseph Elwell, a man about town known for courting wealthy married women, with a glorious girl in a dress of silver and dollar green.

The year 1940: Her mother just killed in a blackout accident, and her rector father and brother MIA in France, Wilhelmina Harkness finds herself homeless, penniless, and the recipient of an unwanted marriage proposal for “propriety’s sake”. Instead of being married off, she leaves small village life behind, reinvents herself as “Billie”, and accepts her aunt’s invitation to live with her in Kingston-Upon-Hull...a coastal industrial town about to be bombed relentlessly by the Germans.

New York, Autumn, 1907: Former private detective Molly Murphy Sullivan is happy with her place in the world. She and her policeman husband, Daniel, have built quite a life for themselves in Greenwich Village, in their modest-yet-beautiful home in Patchin Place, filled with family, friends, and laughter. Molly and Daniel have a good marriage, a true partnership where they value each other’s opinions in all things. So when he tells her they’re moving to a fancy home on Fifth Avenue—and that he’s running for the sheriff of New York—Molly is left reeling.

Summer 1857. Angus MacPhee returns from a fortnight’s work as a servant at a house a few miles away. He seems to have lost his mind. His family are forced to keep him shackled to his bed. When he appears to have come to his senses he is allowed to go at large, but his erratic behaviour gives rise to suggestions that he should be confined in an asylum. Neither the family nor the local community are able to meet the required costs.

Neither Beryl nor Edwina are the least bit interested in attending events at their alma mater, Miss Dupont’s Finishing School for Young Ladies. Their lives are very full indeed in the village of Walmsley Parva. However, when a letter arrives from Miss Dupont herself requesting their help in a professional capacity, they reluctantly pack their bags for London. Upon arrival, they learn from Miss Dupont that her business has seen a steep decline since the days before World War I and that now she is concerned a saboteur is attempting to damage the school’s reputation.

Victorian adventuress Veronica Speedwell is whisked off to a remote island off the tip of Cornwall when her natural historian colleague Stoker's brother calls in a favor. On the pretext of wanting a companion to accompany him to Lord Malcolm Romilly's house party, Tiberius persuades Veronica to pose as his fiancée. But upon arriving, it becomes clear that the party is not as innocent as it had seemed. Every invited guest has a connection to Romilly's wife, Rosamund, who disappeared on her wedding day three years ago, and a dramatic dinner proves she is very much on her husband's mind.

December 1941. America teeters on the brink of war, and in Honolulu, Hawaii, police detective Joe McGrady is assigned to investigate a homicide that will change his life forever. The trail of murder he uncovers will lead him across the Pacific, far from home and the woman he loves; and though the U.S. doesn't know it yet, a Japanese fleet is already steaming toward Pearl Harbor. Spanning the entirety of World War II, Five Decembers is a beautiful, masterful, powerful novel that will live in your memory forever.

Join spunky Amelia and her charming family for a thrilling new archaeological adventure in Edwardian Egypt. Even on the joyous occasion of the marriage of their Egyptian "son" David to their beloved niece Lia, trouble finds Amelia and hunky hubby Emerson. And this time it is personal.