Lord Marcus Remington has decided it is time to find a wife. He didn't expect her to be in the wreckage of a carriage in the middle of a spring storm, but rescuing Miss Josephine Storm challenges his heart and very character of the man known as the "Virtuous Viscount". But when the injured young woman weighs heavy on the viscount's mind, convention goes out the window.

He married for money, she wed by force. On the brink of losing everything, the Duke of Summerton marries heiress Caroline Howlett, but at what cost? She wants neither his crumbling estate nor his title, and what is he, as a man, without them? Before he can resolve this dilemma, something more dangerous than doubt threatens their marriage. When Caroline said she'd rather be dead than married to the duke, she hadn't meant it literally.

At twenty-six, aspiring novelist Avis Copley intends to wear spinsterhood as a badge of honour. But when she discovers a volume of erotica that ignites a searing fire within her, Avis realizes just how much she doesn't know about the actual pleasures of the flesh. Determined to learn more, she devises a daring plan...Avis chooses Emory Billingsworth, a fellow novelist - not to mention a beautiful specimen of manhood - to instruct her in carnal pleasure.

Brenn Owen, the new but impoverished Earl of Merton, is looking for a bride: one rich enough to finance his estate. When he meets Tess Hamlin, he sees a woman who is not only wealthy, but a dazzling beauty as well. To his surprise, Tess quickly accepts his proposal. But behind her eagerness lurks a secret she will do anything to hide from him. As the Earl and his bride begin their life together, their path is a passionate one, but far from smooth: haste must give way to patience and understanding.

Prudence Fairchild went from riches to rags. The world she knew was swept from under her with the death of her parents. Destined to a life of servitude, she realizes the struggles of being poor comes with the risk of being taken advantage of. She uses everything in her to ward off the advances of her employer. His threats to have her on his return from a business trip drives Prudence into action. She must get away and protect her virtue at any cost. It's all she has left. As a last resort, she answers an advertisement to be a mail order bride.

Nathaniel, the new Baron Felston, awakes from a fever to discover he's a prisoner on his own estate. At first, certain he's gone insane, Nathaniel learns potent opiates are the cause of his strange vision. But, barricaded in a small room, he can't outwit his mysterious jailer.

Andrew Merrick was whisked from his home in England, 1848, to another time - the very day a mob had attacked his family. Wondering why he remains in this strange place, all he wants is to find the treasure his father had hidden, hoping this might take Andrew back home. But he's running out of time. When he meets a lovely woman in this new century, he feels she is the one who will help him. Halle Chapman has come to England to find her missing father. What she finds instead is a nice man who claims he's from the past.

Lady Grace Warren will do anything to protect her sisters, even betroth herself to a man so depraved that all of London fears him. Faced with a lifetime of misery, Grace has only one chance for escape: to relinquish her virtue before her wedding. Such abandon will destroy her reputation - and ensure her freedom. But when she disguises herself as courtesan to lure a handsome nobleman, she cannot anticipate the tender surprise destiny has in store….

To most eyes Leah Carrollton might appear the dutiful debutante, but it takes Devon Marshall less than a minute to feel the enormous pull of a kindred, rebellious soul. At their first meeting, Devon and Leah are about to acknowledge the connection between them when her brother steps in and clarifies their identities. As members of the rival Carrollton and Marshall families, the two can never mix.

After losing his wife in childbirth, Colin Barrett, Duke of Northrop, does not trust healers. So when he discovers Selina White cleansing his home, he is livid. As duke, Colin is accustomed to his charges taking orders from him. But the fiery Selina has the audacity to defy him when he asks her to leave his lands. More infuriating, he cannot stop thinking about the seductive sway of her hips when she walks.

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!

When stable hand Nolan Price learns from his dying mother that he is actually the son of the Earl of Stainsby, his plans for a future with kitchen maid Hannah Burnham are shattered. Once he is officially acknowledged as the earl's heir, Nolan will be forbidden to marry beneath his station.

Miss Amelia Stalwood may live in London at her absent guardian's townhouse, but she's never actually met any nobility; instead of aristocrats, her closest friends are servants. Quite by happenstance, she's introduced to the Hawthorne family and their close family friend, Anthony, the reformed Marquis of Raebourne. They welcome her into their world, but just as she's beginning to gain some confidence and even suspect that she may have caught Anthony's eye, she's blindsided by an unexpected twist in her situation accompanied by nasty rumors.

Marlowe is a pickpocket, a housebreaker - and a better actress than any professional on the stage. She runs with the Covent Garden Cubs, a gang of thieves living in the slums of London's Seven Dials. It's a fierce life, and Marlowe has a hard outer shell. But when she's alone, she allows herself to think of a time before - a dimly remembered life when she was called Elizabeth.

This boxed set contains the first three books in C. J. Archer's popular Ministry of Curiosities series. Titles in the set include The Last Necromancer, Her Majesty's Necromancer, and Beyond the Grave. Description of The Last Necromancer: For five years, Charlotte (Charlie) Holloway has lived as a boy in the slums. But when one theft too many gets her arrested, her only means of escape lies with a dead man.