Seven long years ago, Jack Carstares, the Earl of Wyncham, sacrificed his honour for his brother and has been in exile ever since. Returning to England, Jack pretends to be a gentleman named Sir Anthony Ferndale but makes his living in a most ungentlemanly fashion, as a highwayman and a gambler.

When the most eligible Earl of Rule offers for the hand of the beauty of the Winwood family, he has no notion of the distress he causes his intended. For Miss Lizzie Winwood is promised to the excellent, but impoverished, Mr Edward Heron. Disaster can only be averted by the delightful impetuosity of her youngest sister, Horatia, who conceives her own, distinctly original plans . . .

The legend of the Headless Horseman and a proposed marriage de convenance both have their impact on the mystery of a golden talisman ring and Lord Lavenham's young heir, Ludovic. Neither Sir Tristram Shield nor Eustacie, his young French cousin, shares the slightest inclination to marry one another, yet it is Lord Lavenham's dying wish. For there is no one else to provide for the old man's granddaughter while Ludovic remains a fugitive from justice.

Hoping to win the hand of lovely Cleone Charteris, Philip Jettan discovers that wealth and country manners are not enough. Cleone has been exposed to the gallantries of London society and finds Philip too blunt and boorish. His sophisticated father agrees and the frustrated young man departs for Paris and an education.

Charity Steane has nothing in the world but hope. Escaping a miserable life under her tyrannical aunt, she decides to take her chances with her estranged grandfather in London. Now it's just a matter of finding him.... And as a 'charity girl' with no dowry and no options, hope can only get her so far. But with the help of the dashing and kind-hearted Desford and his dearest friend Hetta, it seems like Charity's fortunes might be about to change. That is, until the surprise appearance of a long-lost relative throws things into chaos.

Annis Wychwood delights in her independence. Beautiful, rich and far too busy for love, she has turned down the advances of many a hopeful suitor. But when she becomes entangled in the affairs of a runaway heiress, she encounters the girl's guardian, the notorious Oliver Carleton. While Oliver may be a reckless and uncivil rogue, Annis can't help but be drawn towards his wild ways.

Stepping into the wrong carriage at a Sussex village, Elinor Rochdale is swept up in a thrilling and dangerous adventure. Overnight the would-be governess becomes mistress of a ruined estate and partner in a secret conspiracy to save a family's name. By midnight, she is a bride, by dawn, a widow.

The Honourable Christopher Fancot, on leave from the diplomatic service in the summer of 1817, is startled to find his entrancing but incorrigibly extravagant mother on the brink of financial and social ruin - and more than alarmed to find that his twin, Evelyn, has disappeared without trace. Christopher - Kit - is forced into an outrageous masquerade by the tangled affairs of his wayward family: his rigid uncle, Lord Brumby; the surprisingly wily Sir Bonamy Ripple; the formidable old Lady Stavely and Evelyn's betrothed, Cressy.

Leonie Bonnard is being drawn into a 12-year-old feud. Justin Alastair, the duke of Avon, is a reprehensible rake with an axe to grind. Decades ago the Comte de Saint-Vire did something unforgivable, and ever since Justin has been lying in wait to settle the score. When Justin meets Leon, a street urchin with a striking resemblance to his nemesis, he aims to use him as a pawn in his plans for revenge on the Comte. Except Leon is in fact Leonie, a beautiful young ingénue who may just steal Justin's heart.

Adam Deveril, the new Viscount Lynton and a hero at Salamanca, returns from the Peninsula War to find his family on the brink of ruin and the broad acres of his ancestral home mortgaged to the hilt. It is Lord Oversley, father of Adam's first love, who tactfully introduces him to Mr Jonathan Chaleigh, a city man of apparently unlimited wealth with no social ambitions for himself, but with his eyes firmly fixed on a suitable match for his one and only daughter.

Georgette Heyer remains an enduring international best seller, read and loved by four generations of readers and extolled by today's best-selling authors. Despite her enormous popularity, she never gave an interview or appeared in public. Georgette Heyer wrote her first novel, The Black Moth, when she was 17 in order to amuse her convalescent brother. It was published in 1921 to instant success, and 90 years later it has never been out of print.

Lord Elliott Mayfield sees the new generation of his family moving in the same direction of bad matches and scandalous relationships as the last. In hopes to change their course, he establishes a "marriage campaign" to motivate them to improve themselves through making respectable matches. Peter, Elliott's eldest nephew, thinks the entire idea is ridiculous. A widower with two young daughters, he simply needs a governess, not a wife. Julia Hollingsworth has the credentials and the experience, but is too young and pretty for such a job. So why can't he stop thinking about her?

In the country visiting his twin brother, Viscount Rawleigh longs for a little diversion, and beautiful young widow Catherine Winters seems like easy prey. But Rex's target is a lady of virtue, and when she roundly rejects his improper proposal to become his mistress, Rex finds himself faced with a delectable challenge.

Devon Ravenel, London's most wickedly charming rake, has just inherited an earldom. But his powerful new rank in society comes with unwanted responsibilities...and more than a few surprises. His estate is saddled with debt, and the late earl's three innocent sisters are still occupying the house - along with Kathleen, Lady Trenear, a beautiful young widow whose sharp wit and determination are a match for Devon's own.

The Honorable Mr. Jeremy Malcolm is searching for a wife, but not just any wife. As the target of matchmaking mothers and desperate debutantes, he's determined to avoid the fortune hunters and find a near-perfect woman, one who will meet the qualifications on his well-crafted list. But after years of searching, he's beginning to despair of ever finding this paragon. Until Selina Dalton arrives in town. Selina, a vicar's daughter of limited means and a stranger to high society, is thrilled when her friend, Julia Thistlewaite, invites her to London.

The excesses of the young Marquis of Vidal are even wilder than his father's before him. Not for nothing is the reckless duellist and gamester called "the Devil's Cub". But when he is forced to leave the country, Mary Challoner discovers his fiendish plan to abduct her sister. Any only by daring to impersonate her can Mary save her sibling from certain ruin.

When the most eligible Earl of Rule offers for the hand of the beauty of the Winwood family, he has no notion of the distress he causes his intended. For Miss Lizzie Winwood is promised to the excellent, but impoverished, Mr Edward Heron. Disaster can only be averted by the delightful impetuosity of her youngest sister, Horatia, who conceives her own, distinctly original plans . . .

Patrick Danvers, the Viscount Westover, was known by another name among the people of society: Devil Danvers. No young lady dared to be seen in public with this man whose startling good looks were overshadowed by his scandalous escapades. Caroline Ashley was a very respectable young lady, but with no one to protect her and no money to call her own. How could she resist Devil Danvers' offer to be the wife he needed to win a wager and claim a fortune that hung on his producing an heir?

In Isabella Bradford’s enthralling new trilogy, three noble brothers - London’s most scandalous rakes - are about to do the unthinkable: settle down. Harry Fitzroy, Earl of Hargreave, is the first to meet his match and lose his heart...to a lady who’s not all what he expected. As the eldest son of the Duke of Breconridge, Harry Fitzroy is duty-bound to marry - and marry well. Giving up his rakish ways for the pleasures of a bride’s bed becomes a delightful prospect when Harry chooses beautiful Lady Julia Barclay, the catch of the season.

Fitzwilliam Darcy is desperate. Finally confronted with a woman who ignites all his hopes, he agonizes over the cruel trick of fate which placed her in a situation beneath his notice. The morning after the Netherfield ball, he resolves to put as much distance between himself and her as possible.

Pride and patriotism lend fervor to greed and cruelty, and Fitzwilliam Darcy is caught at the centre of a decades-old international feud. Taken far from England, presumed dead by his family, and lost to all he holds dear, only one name remains as his beacon in the darkness: Elizabeth. Georgiana Darcy is now the heartbroken heiress to Pemberley, and Colonel Fitzwilliam her bewildered guardian. Vulnerable and unprepared, Georgiana desperately longs for a friend, while Fitzwilliam seeks to protect her from his own family.

Though Darcy struggles privately with his desire for Elizabeth Bennet, he must still fulfill his roles as landlord, master, brother, and friend. In Book Two, the "silent time" of Austen's novel, Fitzwilliam Darcy and his personal world emerge as he deals with his servants, including a valet with aspirations of sartorial triumph.

Bianca Tate is horrified when her sister Cathy is obliged to accept an offer of marriage from Maximilian St. James, notorious rake. Defiantly, she helps Cathy elope with her true love and takes her sister’s place at the altar. Perched on the lowest branch of his family tree, Max has relied on charm and cunning to survive. But an unexpected stroke of luck gives him an outside chance at a dukedom - and which Tate sister he weds hardly seems to matter. Married or not, Bianca is determined to protect her family’s prosperous ceramics business, even when Max shows an affinity for it.

Nathan Grey, the Earl of Lindsey, is infamously known as the Libertine of Lindsey for his scandalous ways with women. But when he hears gossip that his estranged wife, Evelyn, is about to be named in The Book of Scandal, he has no choice but to remove her from London to protect her and himself from charges of treason — even if it calls for abduction!

Reckless desire sends Charlotte Daicheston into the garden with a dashing masked stranger. He's powerful and unforgettable, a devastatingly handsome footman who lures her - not against her will - into a grand indiscretion at a masquerade ball. Then he vanishes. Several years later, after Charlotte has made her dazzling debut in London society, they meet again. But the rogue is no footman. He's rich, titled, and he doesn't remember Charlotte. Worse, he's the subject of some scandalous gossip.

When Arkady Petrovich comes home from college, his father finds his eager, naive son changed almost beyond recognition, for the impressionable Arkady has fallen under the powerful influence of the friend he has brought with him. A self-proclaimed nihilist, the ardent young Bazarov shocks Arkady's father by criticising the landowning way of life and by his outspoken determination to sweep away the traditional values of contemporary Russian society.

All Grace Gauthier ever wanted was the security of a good marriage, family, and home. Instead, despised by her aristocratic father's family because of her mother's foreign birth, she's taken a safe position as a governess. Now, unprotected and alone in London, accused of the shocking murder of her employer, she has no one to turn to except the mysterious - and possibly dangerous - Lord Ruthveyn.

When Rena's father dies she is alone in the world, forced out of the vicarage that has been her home, with nowhere to go and no money. She seeks help at the large wooden cross standing in the nearby grounds of "The Grange". And there in the earth she finds three golden coins, which she hands over to the new young Earl of Lansdale. They form a friendship, the sweetest one of her life. But her new happiness is threatened by Mr. Wyngate, a wealthy man determined to force the Earl to marry his daughter.

Giana Van Cleve, the heroine, has fallen in love with a vicious fortune hunter. Her mother, the renowned shipowner and builder Aurora Van Cleve, is desperate to save her daughter. She agrees to support Giana’s wedding if Giana agrees first to spend an unusual three months in Rome with her Uncle Daniele. But Giana’s uncle takes this bargain far beyond what Aurora ever imagined. Thus, Giana first sees Alex Saxton not in a society drawing room, but in a brothel.

Tongues were set wagging when Elizabeth Markham's glamorous young parents were killed, sinking their only child to the unspeakable class of poor relation. Forced to live with her cruel, miserly uncle Julius, Elizabeth is forbidden to partake in the season's festivities. Marriage is her only escape, and she enacts a daring plan to trick her way into the Duke of Dunster's exclusive house party, to snare one of the eligible dandies sure to dance attendance on her.

Hoping to win the hand of lovely Cleone Charteris, Philip Jettan discovers that wealth and country manners are not enough. Cleone has been exposed to the gallantries of London society and finds Philip too blunt and boorish. His sophisticated father agrees and the frustrated young man departs for Paris and an education.

The story takes place in the 18th century, where fashion was very much a la mode, with silks, stains, and powdered wigs. Philip Jettan, a handsome and sturdy youth, is rejected by the lady of his dreams, Cleone Charteris, because he is not foppish enough. Encouraged by his uncle, Philip decides to go to Paris in order to learn the ways of a stylish gentleman. On his return, however, Philip wonders whether Cleone prefers him as he is - or as he was. Cleone in her turn, wonders whether Philip has really changed or whether he is putting on a front.

Horry Winwood doesn't play by the rules. So when her family are near ruin and her sister is about to enter a loveless marriage to a wealthy man to settle the family debts, young and headstrong Horry proposes to marry him instead. As her new husband's attentions fall elsewhere, Horry feels increasingly unhappy. Then she meets the attractive and dangerous Lord Lethbridge, and her days suddenly become more exciting. But there is bad blood between Horry's husband and Lord Lethbridge, and as complications and deceptions mount, the social tangle grows ever trickier to unpick.

The Priory may look ramshackle in appearance, but Peter, Margaret and Celia are totally charmed by their newly inherited country house. But there's more to The Priory than meets the eye. Left empty for years, hardly a single person has set foot inside, and down in the village, the locals whisper of a ghostly figure that roams the halls. When a murder is committed, the new owners start to fear the rumours are true - but is their new home really haunted, or is someone trying to scare them away?

The legend of the Headless Horseman and a proposed marriage de convenance both have their impact on the mystery of a golden talisman ring and Lord Lavenham's young heir, Ludovic. Neither Sir Tristram Shield nor Eustacie, his young French cousin, shares the slightest inclination to marry one another, yet it is Lord Lavenham's dying wish. For there is no one else to provide for the old man's granddaughter while Ludovic remains a fugitive from justice.