Showing results by narrator "Sasha Higgins" in All Categories

All Lady Victoria Kirby wants is to dig in the dirt, take notations, and record history, thank you very much. Bumbling through ballrooms and getting disdained by the ton for her less than ideal looks, on the other hand, is the last thing she wants. But her reckless father has a different idea for her future when he puts up the ultimate ante - her hand in marriage - and loses. Over her dead body.

Miss Georgianna Eleanor Heyford may be naught but a gentleman's daughter, but even she's heard the rumors about the Earl of Stannis's exceptional charm and good looks. Surely she can cater his luxurious yacht party without getting swept away. But a terrible misunderstanding leaves Georgianna fired, furious, and with little recompense. Which is precisely when her opportunity for vengeance washes ashore.

When radio presenter Casey Fallon answers the call, she assumes it’s a prank. But then a woman’s body is discovered, and she finds herself up against a cruel and calculating killer who wants her to find his victims before they take their last breath. Fifteen years ago, Casey was a key witness in the trial of serial killer Steve Noakes, and her evidence helped put him behind bars for the murders of five women. Someone remembers what happened that summer - someone who is desperate for revenge, someone who won’t stop until Casey has been punished.

Focused on a career in medicine and not on romance, Willa Duvall is thrown slightly off course during the summer of 1865 when she discovers a never-opened love letter in a crack of her old writing desk. Compelled to find the passionate soul who penned it and the person who never received it, she takes a job as a nurse at the seaside Crestwicke Manor. Everyone at Crestwicke has feelings—mostly negative—about the man who wrote the letter, but he seems to have disappeared. With plenty of clues but few answers, Willa's search becomes even more complicated when she misplaces the letter.

Nat did something bad. Very bad. But she's not that person anymore. She has a new name and a new life, and no one, not even her husband Brett, knows what she did. She's desperate to keep it that way. When they escape the city to move to their dream home in the suburbs, it seems that life can't get any better. They quickly become friends with new neighbors Fen and Darius, and Nat begins to believe that she can finally put the past behind her. Until the letter arrives.

Edward Stanhope, the icy Duke of Thornfield, likes his life in a certain order. Give him a strong drink, a good book, and his dog for company, and he’s content. But when he goes to his library and finds a woman sitting in his chair, petting his dog, what starts as a request for her to leave turns quickly to a fiery battle of wits, leading to a steamy kiss that could ruin them both if they’re caught. So, of course, damn it all, that’s when Edward’s aunt walks in and, thereafter, announces Miss Georgiana Bly as the future Duchess of Thornfield.

Miss Alice Wright should be content. After all, her knowledge of herbal lore helps so many in her village. Yet she longs for more. For Alice dreams of becoming a famed parfumier in London, celebrated for her fine scents . . . even as her family's past warns her of the perils of ambition. But when Alice collides—quite literally—with a charismatic gentleman in a field of lavender, her perfume-filled dream is suddenly within reach.

Lady Jaqueline Peabody is extremely vexed. Her nemesis, the Duke of Stone, has just ruined her life by matching her sister with a perfect gentleman. Except the gentleman in question has little in the way of income. With the family fortune in tatters, it means Jacqueline is tasked with marrying well—and must bid adieu to her dreams of a lovely spinsterhood with her pianoforte.

Miss Lucy Bertram is content to spend her days writing scientific articles or curling up with a Gothic romance novel. Indeed, she'd rather stick a hatpin in her eye than attend a ball. But when her father, the eccentric botanist Sir Oswald, insists she accept the suit of a wealthy but stiffer-than-a-poker industrialist to save the family from penury, Lucy decides to act. She's certain her disowned brother, Monty, will take her side. But first she must find him in St. Giles's cutthroat rookeries.

Artemis Jones—respectable finishing-school teacher by day and Gothic-romance writer by night—has never lost sight of her real dream: to open her own academic ladies' college. When she’s unexpectedly called upon by a dear friend, a fellow Byronic Book Club member, to navigate her first London Season, she comes at once—who knows, perhaps she can court the interest of a wealthy patron for her school. It’ll all be fine as long as she can avoid her high-handed aunt's schemes to marry her off.

The day of 9 Thermidor (July 27, 1794) is universally acknowledged as a major turning-point in the history of the French Revolution. At midnight, Maximilien Robespierre was planning to destroy one of the most dangerous plots that the Revolution had faced. By midnight at the close of the day, his world had been turned upside down. He was an outlaw, on the run, and himself wanted for conspiracy against the Republic. He shot himself shortly afterwards. Half-dead, the guillotine finished him off. The Fall of Robespierre provides an hour-by-hour analysis of these twenty-four hours.

Ellie Simons stands to inherit her Uncle Merlin's huge English country house. But on three utterly bizarre conditions. One: she must lose sixty-three pounds (rude!). Two: she must marry the fake fiance she's been passing off as her true love all weekend. And three: she must catch whoever killed Uncle Merlin in the first place.

Having spent a childhood summer with Viscount Giles Weston, Angelica Wayne has never forgotten his kindness. But when he employs her as his daughter's governess, she finds him cold and formidable. A widower, Giles is engaged to the beautiful but indifferent Lady Barbara Darlington. Darkly cynical, he avoids emotional commitment and wishes to be married in name only. Despite Giles's attitude, Angelica comes to enjoy his company, and her feelings for him start to rekindle. When Barbara calls off the engagement, Giles asks Angelica to take her place as his bride.

Miss Venus Merriwell has been waiting for her prince to come since the tender age of fourteen. She wants a man who is selfless, academic like her, and free from all the wretched vices her gambler father enjoyed far too much before he left the Merriwell sisters practically destitute. Unfortunately, after a slew of romantic disappointments, there is still no sign of that prince at twenty-three and the only one true love of her life is the bursting-at-the-seams orphanage in Covent Garden that she works tirelessly for.

Roach would rather be listening to the latest episode of her favorite true crime podcast than assisting the boring and predictable customers at her local branch of the bookstore Spines, where she's worked her entire adult life. A serious true crime junkie, Roach looks down her nose at the pumpkin-spice-latte-drinking casual fans who only became interested in the genre once it got trendy. But when Laura, a pretty and charismatic children's bookseller, arrives to help rejuvenate the struggling bookstore branch, Roach recognizes in her an unexpected kindred spirit.

In the spring of 1853, Private Detective Laetitia Rodd receives a delicate request from a retired actor, whose days on the stage were ended by a theatre fire 10 years before. His great friend, and the man he rescued from the fire, Thomas Transome, has decided to leave his wife, who now needs assistance in securing a worthy settlement. Though Mrs. Rodd is reluctant to get involved with the scandalous world of the theatre, she cannot turn away the woman in need. She agrees to take the case.

Haunted by her past, Lady Caroline Martindale fled England for the solace of her godmother's palazzo in Venice. But if Caro was hoping to escape the charms of marriage-minded men, she's come to the wrong place. And she'll resort to extreme measures to spurn the advances of a dangerously determined Venetian marquis. Though most of his friends have married off, Gervais, Earl of Huntley, remains bent on eluding the parson's mousetrap. But his convictions begin to falter when he arrives in Venice and meets his match in the alluring Lady Caro.

In nineteenth century Norland, magic is forbidden, punishable by death. But it's coming for Clara. Clara was born to the nobility at a time when rank and power are often more valuable than the bonds of family. Her parents have plans for her, none that she wants, all involving her arranged marriage. From her birth, her entire life has been planned out-only what a future wife in society needs to know. Every step of her path is meant to end with her walking down an aisle and then popping out heirs.

When the two most feared magicians of the underworld band to hunt Clara, she needs to be able to count on her friends. But that's difficult to do when she's surrounded by masters of illusion, who can bend reality as easily as they bend truth. The immortal Count and the dark Merqueen don't play by anyone's rules but their own. And when they turn to forbidden magic, Clara must decide what she's willing to sacrifice to survive.

Dressmaker Miss Lily Martin knows too well the sordid dealings of London's corrupt underbelly. She should have known borrowing from one of the city's most reviled moneylenders was risky. Now the loan has come due—and there's nothing standing between Miss Lily and her darling sister's ruin. Until a dashing American with flashing, defiant eyes intervenes.