Victorian House

After 15 years away, Kate Hamilton never expected to end up back in her hometown of Asheboro, Maryland, full time. And she definitely didn't expect to be leading the charge of recreating the town as a Victorian village and tourist attraction. The Barton mansion, meant to be the centerpiece of the Victorian village, has proven to be a veritable goldmine of documents about the town's 19th-century history, and Kate is convinced the papers hide something of value. Then a dead body turns up in the town library - mere hours before the documents were meant to arrive there themselves.

A long string of tragic loves haunts Viscount Benedick Francis Alistair Rohan. Cool and cynical, he's weary of life's fickle games and wants a prim and proper wife he can ignore while indulging his sensual appetites. Lady Melisande Carstairs is nothing less than a tornado storming into Benedick's measured life. Possessed of boundless energy and the soul of a reformer, Melisande always conquers, whether it's saving the souls of soiled doves or seducing the man she's inconveniently fallen for.

Every fortune-hunting female in London is after the newly titled Earl of Drake, but he's intent on finding a wife whose heart is true. So, while drunkenly jesting with his friends in a pub one night, he has an idea - what if the ladies of the ton didn't know he was a wealthy earl? All he has to do is pose as a servant at his friend's summer country house party and make sure the guest list is full of beautiful, eligible debutantes. What could possibly go wrong?

Although they are separated by more than 150 years, Nell finds herself drawn to the Victorian novelist by their shared experiences of unrequited love - Gaskell for an American critic she met in Rome, Nell for a soulful American screenwriter living in Paris. As Nell's romance founders and her passion for academia fails to materialize, she finds herself wondering if the indomitable Mrs. Gaskell might rescue her pursuit of love, family, and a writing career.

Elijah Seton steps into the world in pursuit of a ghost ship and those who murdered his father. He thought he knew his enemy, and he would do anything to see them fall. But he was wrong. Elijah's world is turned upside down when he finds a rare woman that his heart demands should fly free. Beatrice Hamilton lives with wealth and ease in her gilded cage. Until a new mill worker rattles her bars and gives her a glimpse of the freedom beyond. As the two work together, centuries of hate and anger are revealed that keep them apart.

Two possible futures loom before Miss Anne Davenport. The first option: sharing an unhappy home with her father and soon-to-be stepmother. The second: a life of independence at the Spinster House, if only her friend, Cat, would vacate the premises and marry the Duke of Hart. A well-placed whisper about the pair's secret tryst might speed the course of true love.

Diana Merriwell and Giles Sinclair only tolerate one another for the sake of their nearest and dearest. Everyone believes that the two of them are meant to be together, but Diana and Giles know that their constant pithy barbs come from a shared disdain—not a hidden attraction. Diana loves the freedom of working at the newspaper too much to give it up for marriage, and Giles is happily married to his bachelor lifestyle. But they do have one thing in common—the secrets they can’t risk escaping.

This "rediscovered" Sherlock Holmes adventure recounts the unique collaboration of Holmes and Sigmund Freud in the solution of a mystery on which the lives of millions may depend.

It is 1859, and the son of an infamous fraudster enters the London home of a wealthy industrialist and his daughter. Before long, passions flare, three people have gone missing, and the work of a rising novelist has been abruptly stopped. A reputation is in ruins, and a fortune will be lost.

London, 1893: High up in a house on a dark, snowy night, a lone seamstress stands by a window. So begins the swirling, serpentine world of Paraic O'Donnell's Victorian-inspired mystery, the story of a city cloaked in shadow but burning with questions: Why does the seamstress choose to jump out of that window? Why is there a cryptic message sewn into her skin? And how is she connected to a rash of missing girls, all of whom seem to have disappeared under similar circumstances?

Long before Oliver Twist stumbled onto the scene, Jacob Fagin was scratching out a life for himself in the dark alleys of nineteenth-century London. Born in the Jewish enclave of Stepney shortly after his father was executed as a thief, Jacob's whole world is his open-minded mother, Leah. But Jacob’s prospects are forever altered when a light-fingered pickpocket takes Jacob under his wing and teaches him a trade that pays far better than the neighborhood boys could possibly dream.

From New York Times best-selling author Erik Larson comes his first venture into fiction, an otherworldly tale of intrigue and the impossible that marshals his trademark approach to nonfiction to create something new: a ghost story thoroughly grounded in history. Pioneering psychologist William James leads an expedition to a remote isle in search of answers after a family inexplicably vanishes. Was the cause rooted in the physical world...or were there forces more paranormal and sinister at work?

In Behind the Throne, historian Adrian Tinniswood uncovers the reality of five centuries of life at the English court, taking the listener on a remarkable journey from one Queen Elizabeth to another and exploring life as it was lived by clerks and courtiers and clowns and crowned heads: the power struggles and petty rivalries, the tension between duty and desire, the practicalities of cooking dinner for thousands and of ensuring the king always won when he played a game of tennis.

Emma Cadbury had been an innocent, a whore, a charity worker, and a surgeon. She chose a life without love until she saved a dying soldier in a charity ward. Brandon Rohan had lost himself to drugs and degradation, wanting to die, and only one person could save him. But she’d disappeared. Now they’ve come together again, but he doesn’t remember, and she doesn’t want to. But someone is trying to kill her, and Brandon is the one man who can save her.

Victorian England is a country of sharp divides between rich and poor, but James Lionel Falconer, who spends his days working at his father’s market stall, is determined to become a merchant prince. James quickly rises through the ranks, proving himself both hardworking and trustworthy and catching the eye of Henry Malvern, head of the most prestigious shipping company in London. But when threats against his reputation - and his life - begin to emerge, James will have to prove he truly is the master of his fate.

November 1816. Restless but naive Emeline Fitzpatrick is desperate to escape her stifling life in foggy Halifax. Her guardian is lining up repugnant suitors, but Emeline has her eyes set on a handsome lieutenant in the British navy. She just needs to persuade him to propose, or her one chance at happiness will be gone forever. But when Emeline’s hopes end in scandal, she finds herself with only one suitor left: the wealthy and enigmatic Captain Graves. Having already lost two wives to tragic circumstances, the unfortunate widower is seeking a new companion in his cloistered seaside manor.

Victorian scandals don't come much more intimate and revealing than a wife seeking an annulment from her famous husband because their marriage has not been consummated. When Effie Ruskin sought escape from her desperately unhappy life with art critic John Ruskin, she shattered the Victorian illusion of the perfect marriage.

Isabel Archer is a young American woman swept off to Europe in the late 19th century by an aunt who hopes to round out the impetuous but naïve girl's experience of the world. When Isabel comes into a large, unexpected inheritance, she is finagled into a marriage with the charming, penniless, and - as Isabel finds out too late - cruel and deceitful Gilbert Osmond, whose connection to a certain Madame Merle is suspiciously intimate.

The Oxford English Dictionary is one of mankind’s greatest achievements, and yet, curiously, its creators are almost never considered. Who were the people behind this unprecedented book? As Sarah Ogilvie reveals, they include three murderers, a collector of pornography, the daughter of Karl Marx, a president of Yale, a radical suffragette, a vicar who was later found dead in the cupboard of his chapel, an inventor of the first American subway, a female anti-slavery activist in Philadelphia . . . and thousands of others.

Born into a respected Irish-Anglo family in 1860, Charles loves his native land and its long-suffering but irrepressible people. As a healer, he travels the countryside dispensing traditional cures while soaking up stories and legends of bygone times - and witnessing the painful, often violent birth of land-reform measures destined to lead to Irish independence. At the age of 40, summoned to Paris to treat his dying countryman - the infamous Oscar Wilde - Charles experiences the fateful moment of his life.