In the first of a brand-new series set in Victorian England, a young woman returns home from India after the death of her family to discover her identity and inheritance are challenged by the man who holds her future in his hands.

As the beloved stepdaughter of the Earl of Castleton, Lady Mariah Lyons cherishes her home at Plumford Manor, but her idyllic world will be threatened when the estate passes to Cyril Lightbourne, a childhood friend she hasn’t seen or heard from in years. Once, Mariah dreamed their friendship would kindle into something more, but that was before she heard Cyril was courting the cruelhearted Lady Pearl. Now Mariah is willing to welcome him as a friend and pray he will be the heir her stepfather needs, but she’ll keep her heart locked safely away from anyone with such poor taste.

Invited by a friend to trek west and help establish the newly formed town of Cheyenne, Edward Vogel is prepared to leave the haunting memories of his wife and son’s deaths behind him. The only problem is the corrupt new railroad town wants family men who can establish law and order, and desperation leads Edward to his friend Marybeth with a proposition of marriage.

Northumberland, 1809: A beautiful young heiress disappears from her locked bedchamber at Linn Hagh. The local constables are baffled and the townsfolk cry "witchcraft". The heiress' uncle summons help from Detective Lavender and his assistant, Constable Woods, who face one of their most challenging cases.

As 1754 is drawing to a close, tensions between the French and the British on Canada’s Acadian shore are reaching a fever pitch. Seamstress Sylvie Galant and her family—French-speaking Acadians wishing to remain neutral—are caught in the middle, their land positioned between two forts flying rival flags. Amid preparations for the celebration of Noël, the talk is of unrest, coming war, and William Blackburn, the British Army Ranger raising havoc across North America’s borderlands.

London, 1861. Samantha Kingston has lived under the control of her overbearing uncle since the death of her parents six years ago. Trapped by the conventions of her gender and social class, she is desperate to find a way out. But when her aunt and uncle are murdered, the freedom she sought seems even further out of reach. A suspect in the crime, she finds herself on the run, unsure whom to trust, lost in the underworld she had only ever read about in the pages of a Dickens novel.

Newly returned from finishing school, Lady Juliette Thorndike is ready to debut in London society. Due to her years away, she hasn't spent much time with her parents, and sees them only as the flighty, dilettante couple the other nobles love. But when they disappear, she discovers she never really knew them at all. They've been living double lives as government spies-and they're only the latest in a long history of espionage that is the family's legacy.

When their father's death leaves them impoverished, Sarah Summers and her genteel sisters fear they will be forced to sell the house and separate to earn livelihoods as governesses or companions. Determined to stay together, Sarah convinces them to open their seaside home to guests to make ends meet and provide for their ailing mother. Instead of the elderly invalids they expect to receive, however, they find themselves hosting eligible gentlemen. Sarah is soon torn between a growing attraction to a mysterious Scottish widower and duty to her family.

Katherine Schneider’s life as a dentist in 1913 New York is upended when a patient reveals details of a deadly plot while under the influence of laughing gas. As she is plunged into danger, she seeks help from the dashing Lieutenant Jonathan Birch, a police officer she has long admired from afar.

For Hudson, the newly titled Viscount Stildon, moving to England from India where he was born and raised was already an arduous enough endeavor. When he learns the fate of the racing empire he inherited along with his title depends upon him getting in the good graces of another stable owner, he's even more at a loss. The stable at the neighboring estate has been Miss Bianca Snowley's refuge for years, and when a strange man appears to be stealing the horses, she jumps to their protection without a second thought.