Too great a lady

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Joanna Martin

"Wives and Daughters is a portrait of the world of women inside the country houses that symbolised the power and taste of eighteenth-century Britain. If men dominated public life, their wives were responsible for the household, bringing up children, entertaining, employing servants, nursing and dispensing charity. They also kept closely in touch by letter with family news, comments on books, remedies and gardening tips, as well as the latest gossip. The women of the powerful Fox Strangways family, headed by the Whig Earls of Ilchester, have left an exceptional record of their lives in the great Wessex houses, including Redlynch, Melbury, Bowood and Lacock, into which the girls of the family married over several generations." "Wives and Daughters traces the lives of individual women. Courtship, marriage and childbirth, education, houses and gardens, reading, hobbies, travel and health were only some of the women's many interests and preoccupations."--Jacket.

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Brenda Hiatt

Lady Pearl Moreston would first sacrifice her virtue and live life as a chambermaid before she'd acquiesce to her stepmother's demands and wed overbred Lord Bellowsworth! In fact, posing as a maid is precisely what Pearl does to escape her fate -- a deception that could prove disastrous for the impetuous bluestocking. Luckily, Luke St. Clair comes to her rescue. Now here is a man worth losing one's innocence to: strong, dashing, daring, worldly...and nary a drop of noble blood in him!Luke is intrigued by this minx who seems unusually knowing for her tender years...and whose intoxicating beauty makes him light-headed in her presence. But Luke is not the adventurer the winsome Pearl believes him to be. And though her soft, succulent lips are begging to be kissed, Luke is honor-bound to never reveal to her his true identity. Yet how long can passion's flames be restrained before two delightful deceivers are forced to drop their masks and surrender to the sweet, sensual fire?

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Elizabeth Goudge

Christ Church, Oxford is the location of this tale of the Leigh family, set in the days of Queen Elizabeth I. Faithful Crocker, an impoverished young Londoner, heads for Oxford. He's bright, cheeky and good-looking, has a tremendous love of learning and hopes to be an Oxford scholar. When he is taken in by Canon Leigh and his eccentric family, Faithful obtained a home. As Faithful begins to fulfil his academic dream, the Leigh family navigate the tricky waters of first love, uncover shocking secrets and experience devastating loss. The poor young scholar finds the gold at the end of the rainbow... a faithful gatekeeper prevents a lovers' misunderstanding... a young man, with grief and remorse in his heart, finds a child at the inn and brings hint to his rightful home... and a lovely young Queen visits her adoring subjects. A charming tale of hope and love, set amid the dreaming spires of Elizabethan Oxford. Radiant with life and lighted by love's enchantment. The towers of Oxford shine through the mist, blessing an ancient city, as the magic of Midsummer Eve brings two lovers under its moonlit spell. In this coming-of-age tale, the excitement, squalor and beauty of the English Renaissance unfolds through the lives of two girls growing up, Oxford students approaching the threshold of distinguished careers, and their elders navigating the complicated waters of sixteenth-century England.

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Rosie Goodwin

Life is tough on the cobbled courtyards of Bermuda Village, Warwickshire, in the 1840s: boys are destined for the pit and girls for the mill. Despite this, clever, feisty Maryann is happy there - until her mother dies. Her family collapses, leaving Maryann coping with everything, exhausted and lonely. Especially as Toby, the boy she is set on marrying, insists they wait. When things are at their bleakest, Maryann is offered a lifeline: a position as nanny to the daughter of the mill owner, Wesley Marshall. Though the house is filled with secrets and heartache, there is kindness, too, and to Maryann's surprise she grows close to Marshall. But their relationship has not gone unnoticed and it threatens to unleash a world of problems on them all...