by Marjorie Shoebridge (1980)
I am afraid you misunderstand me, Miss Cameron. I am not offering you the post of governess...but a position as my wife! It was hardly the romantic proposal of a young woman's fantasies. But Elizabeth Cameron could no longer afford the luxury of waiting for dreams to come true. Her father's death had left her destitute . . . forced to sell all her possessions to repay his debts. So Gregory Darrell's proposition was one she could not refuse. The marriage—in name only—would make her mistress of his splendid estate . . . and step-mother to his beloved son. But from the moment of her arrival at Ranleigh Court, Elizabeth questions her husband's motives—especially as he makes no secret of his association with another woman. And especially when she learns of his business partnership with her late father. And as the weeks pass and intrigue deepens at Ranleigh Court, Elizabeth grows fearful that she is being made a prisoner there. That she may pay for her impulsive marriage of convenience with her very life.... A rich novel of romance set in nineteenth-century England.
Nicola Cornick
Deborah Stratton is a respectable widow--or so the inhabitants of the Midwinter villages believe. But she hides a secret that means she'll never marry again....Lord Richard Kestrel is London's most notorious rake, a dangerous man to be around, a man who has already shockingly offered to make Deborah his mistress. Now Richard has come to realize it is Deborah's hand in marriage he wants--but not before they share one night of scandal....
Charles Dickens
Upon its publication in 1857, Little Dorrit immediately outsold any of Dickens's previous books. The story of William Dorrit, imprisoned for debt in Marshalsea Prison, and his daughter and helpmate, Amy, or Little Dorrit, the novel charts the progress of the Dorrit family from poverty to riches. In his Introduction, David Gates argues that "intensity of imagination is the gift from which Dickens's other great attributes derive: his eye and ear, his near-universal empathy, his ability to entertain both a sense of the ridiculous and a sense of ultimate significance.
Anne Mather
Holly thought she had a secure haven on the beautiful Caribbean island where she had chosen to make her home. But this Eden was invaded by a serpent – in the shape of Morgan Kane, the man sent to escort her back to England at her father’s behest. Morgan = the man who drew her like a magnet. Holly wanted to given in to the attraction which gripped her. But could she trust him?
Lisa Kleypas
She was unmarried, untouched, and almost thirty, she wasn't going to greet her next birthday without making love to a man. He appeared at her door, and she thought he was her gift. He tempted her in ways she never thought possible, but he stopped before fulfilling her dream ... Jack Devlin's determination to possess Amanda became greater when she discovered his true identity. But gently bred Amanda craved respectability more than she admitted, while Jack, the cast-off son of a nobleman and London's most notorious businessman, refused to live by society's rules. Yet when fate conspired for them to marry, their worlds collided with a passionate force neither had expected... but both soon craved.