In the eyes of London Society, Gillian Phelps is suitable enough. Though the ton whispers about her change of residence, any speculation remains just that: ballroom gossip. No one—not even the other Huntresses, the group of ladies she calls her dearest friends—knows that she is harboring a devastating family secret. Gillian has become adept at hiding the reality of her circumstances, but the close quarters of a house party will test her ability to conceal the crushing truth. And with so many people to deceive, the late arrival of another guest is a most unwelcome surprise.

Lady Sophronia Bremerton is a far cry from the typical debutante, but she’s the toast of London’s upper class for one simple reason: she’s a society columnist for the London Illustrated News, and the gentry loves seeing their exploits printed in the gossip pages. But Sophie has bigger plans - she aspires to be an investigative reporter. When a stuffy ballroom during yet another Season proves to be nothing more than the usual rumor mill, Sophie seeks respite in the library, alongside four other young women who, for their own reasons, are also looking for escape.

Julia Cummings has long been acquainted with loss - her mother, her brother, her sister, her friend, all gone too soon. But the loss that pushed her grief to the limit as a young girl was that of her best friend, Lucas Jonquil, who abandoned her without looking back. Now, eight years later, Lucas has returned to Lampton Park, and Julia has steeled herself - she will never forgive the man who broke her heart.

In a bid to escape the incessant attentions of a man she does not love, governess Lucy Hayes embarks on a journey to begin a new post. But when she’s stranded in a storm, her plans go shockingly awry. Desperate times call for desperate measures: against her better judgment, she agrees to a foolhardy scheme presented by a handsome stranger, known to her as only William. But when her mysterious benefactor falls ill, she finds herself unwittingly drawn into his family home in a case of mistaken identity: they believe she is William’s betrothed.

Lady Gemma Lively’s life as the darling of London’s fast set was carefree and fun, filled with exciting friends, daring fashions, and scandalous parties. But when the death of her father leaves her family with nothing but a dilapidated coaching inn at the end of the Earth, it’s up to Gemma to change their fate. She needs a rich husband immediately—but the only bachelor in sight is a devilishly distracting barkeep who doesn’t know the peerage from a pint glass.

Haunted by the death of her sister, Finola Shanahan has resolved that she's not worthy of a family of her own and commits to spending her days caring for immigrants in the slums. Unwilling to consider marriage, Finola has perfected the ability to sabotage the relationships her parents arrange for her. At wit's end, her father calls upon the local Irish matchmaker, who pairs her with successful wagonmaker Riley Rafferty.

Patience Whitford spent the last two seasons watching her elder sisters make grand matches. She is thoroughly apprehensive with the notion of being limited by marriage. But that seems like an inconsequential concern with no prospects on the horizon to follow in her sisters' footsteps. And to make matters worse, she is uncommonly jealous of all of the military officers she's befriended and their grand adventures. When Major Ashley Stuart is assigned to investigate some petty crimes near his brother's estate in Greenwich, it soon becomes apparent that there is something much larger going on.

Sowerby, England, 1802. Miss Genevieve Wilde—a magistrate’s daughter and independent heiress—is determined to meet life’s challenges all on her own, just as her late-father had taught her. So when her father’s pocket watch is stolen, she will do anything to get it back, especially when the local authorities prove incompetent. Upon reading an advertisement in the paper, she takes a chance and contacts a thief-taker to find the watch. It’s a choice Ginny regrets when former Bow Street officer Jack Travers arrives on her doorstep.

Clara has been missing from the London marriage mart for six years and is reluctant to return. That feeling only grows when she happens to meet Lord Eaton—a rather arrogant, proud earl who vexes her from the moment they first meet. Not wanting to allow herself to be put down by a pompous, self-righteous man, she agrees to the silly game he proposes. The first to make the better match by the end of the season... wins.

Louisa Cox is tired of fortune hunters pursuing her dowry. So when Lady Kellen offers to help her find an eligible suitor, Louisa accepts and makes a list of what she wants in a husband. The man selected is barrister Paul Sheldon. He has one thing in his favor: he is unaware of her fortune. What Louisa did not anticipate was his curious behavior—or being so attracted to him. When Paul catches wind of the matchmaking organization his mother and her friends are establishing, he pities the fellow who will be caught in their scheme—until he realizes he is to be their first victim.

Eliza Rose is the perfect lady—accomplished in pianoforte, riding, and multiple languages—until a scandal disrupts her privileged world. The fallen Rose family has struggled to regain their standing until a fortuitous connection helps Eliza re-secure her family’s place in Society, giving her everything she believed she wanted.

Desperate after her Season comes to a spectacularly disastrous end, the Honorable Miss Clara Vetry jumps into a carriage hired to take a housekeeper to Scotland. The laird of Castle CaerLaven has no interest in a wife, especially a love match—but when Caelan sees his new housekeeper, he changes his mind. Marriage to a delectable bookworm strikes him as a perfect arrangement. To his surprise, Clara refuses his proposal once…and again…yet again.

One moment, Isla Crawford is inside McQuivey’s Costume Shop trying on a Jacobean-style gown for the parliamentary Autumn Ball, and the next, she is standing in an unfamiliar garden, barefoot, coatless, and at the mercy of a fierce storm. Confused, she seeks refuge in a Tudor manor, where she discovers that she has inexplicably traveled back to 1605, mere weeks before the culmination of Guy Fawkes’s infamous Gunpowder Plot.

Theresia Dvorak has nothing left of her parents—nothing save her dowry, a priceless crystal vase stolen and sold by her own stepmother. Theresia will do anything to secure what is rightfully hers—even assume a false identity and steal her future back. When she gains entrance to a house party and has a memorable run-in with the handsome navel captain Rolland Reese, her mission is compromised.

Having grown up at Wedderburn Castle in the serene Scottish Lowlands, Orin Hume is thrust into the dazzling realm of London society and Court circles as Poet Laureate of Britain. But at the height of his fame a former tragedy and his ties to a lass he once loved lead him home to Berwickshire again. When his return is further marred by lost love letters and scheming kin who conspire to keep the pair apart, can Lady Maryn Lockhart, now Duchess of Fordyce, forgive him? Or will the shadows of the past and the complexities of the present rewrite their love story?

One moment, Isla Crawford is inside McQuivey’s Costume Shop trying on a Jacobean-style gown for the parliamentary Autumn Ball, and the next, she is standing in an unfamiliar garden, barefoot, coatless, and at the mercy of a fierce storm. Confused, she seeks refuge in a Tudor manor, where she discovers that she has inexplicably traveled back to 1605, mere weeks before the culmination of Guy Fawkes’s infamous Gunpowder Plot.

When Persephone Lancaster receives a marriage proposal from the ill-tempered Duke of Kielder, she refuses - and then reconsiders. The obscene sum of money he's offering Persephone would save her family from ruin. With her characteristic optimism, she travels to the far reaches of Northumberland to wed a greatly feared stranger. Lodged deep in a thick forest infested with wild dogs, the Duke's castle is as cold and forbidding as the Duke himself, a man with terrible scars on his body and his soul.

Julia Cummings has long been acquainted with loss - her mother, her brother, her sister, her friend, all gone too soon. But the loss that pushed her grief to the limit as a young girl was that of her best friend, Lucas Jonquil, who abandoned her without looking back. Now, eight years later, Lucas has returned to Lampton Park, and Julia has steeled herself - she will never forgive the man who broke her heart.

Lady Sophronia Bremerton is a far cry from the typical debutante, but she’s the toast of London’s upper class for one simple reason: she’s a society columnist for the London Illustrated News, and the gentry loves seeing their exploits printed in the gossip pages. But Sophie has bigger plans - she aspires to be an investigative reporter. When a stuffy ballroom during yet another Season proves to be nothing more than the usual rumor mill, Sophie seeks respite in the library, alongside four other young women who, for their own reasons, are also looking for escape.

Twenty-six-year-old Katie Macauley has placed all her hope in Hope Springs, a small town in the 1870 Wyoming Territory. But if she wants to return home to Ireland to make amends with her estranged family, she’ll need to convince the influential Joseph Archer to hold true to his word and keep her on his payroll as his housekeeper - despite her Irish roots. When Joseph agrees to keep Katie on ash is housekeeper, the feud erupts anew, and Katie becomes the reluctant figurehead for the Irish townsfolk.

Stunning Miranda Harford once had the world at her feet. She was young, carefree, and desperately in love. But when her new husband left for London without her, her world fell apart. Devastated by his abandonment, Miranda fled their home, taking residence at her husband's rarely visited countryside estate. For three years, she lived alone. But now, as the holidays draw near, an unexpected visitor arrives.

After five years of tracking and capturing spies on English soil, Philip Jonquil, Earl of Lampton, is in pursuit of his last quarry. But at a traveler’s inn, he encounters an unexpected and far more maddening foe: Sorrel Kendrick, a young lady who is strikingly pretty, shockingly outspoken, and entirely unimpressed with him. Indeed, Sorrel cannot believe the nerve of this gentleman, who rudely accuses her of theft and insults her feminine dignity. Doubly annoyed when they both end up at a party hosted by mutual friends, Philip and Sorrel privately declare war on one another.

Wyoming Territory, 1876. US Marshal John “Hawk” Hawking is one of the most respected lawmen in the West, so when a telegram arrives from the small town of Sand Creek warning him of a death threat against him, he immediately begins an investigation. Posing as a farmer, Hawk heads to Sand Creek, a town ruled by a violent and corrupt sheriff. Only one person is trying to stop him―Liesl, the sheriff’s own daughter. When Liesl meets the self-assured and attractive new farmer, John, she hopes he might help her in the fight for justice.

When Crispin, Lord Cavratt, thoroughly and scandalously kisses a serving woman in the garden of a country inn, he assumes the encounter will be of no consequence. But he couldn’t be more mistaken - the maid is not only a lady of birth, she’s the niece of a very large, exceptionally angry gentleman, who claims Crispin has compromised his niece beyond redemption. The dismayed young lord has no choice but to marry Miss Catherine Thorndale, who lacks both money and refinement and assumes all men are as vicious as her guardian uncle.

Determined to support her mother and sisters after her father's untimely death, Charlotte Mandeville covertly crafts satirical caricatures of high society. It not only puts money in her family’s bare pockets, but ensures the haut-ton cannot guard all the power and the secrets. Anthony Yorke has a guilty conscience and a brother to exonerate. When the key piece of evidence to clear his brother's name falls into the hands of a headstrong young woman, he is willing to do whatever is required to obtain it from her.

This collector’s anthology compiles all the penny dreadful short stories from Sarah M. Eden’s five-book Victorian romance series. Included in this edition are three new never-before-released stories. Each short story is written in the style of the Victorian fiction that became so popular during that time period. From ghost stories to adventures to mysteries, Sarah weaves these gothic tales among her romantic storylines, making it the perfect way to celebrate the Dread Penny Society series.

Grace Sinclair has been callously cast out of her home. And though taken in as an orphaned child by the vicar and his wife, her unsurpassed beauty makes it impossible for her to remain in the vicar’s household - with two daughters of their own about to enter Society, the vicar and his wife see Grace as nothing but competition. Thankfully, Grace’s estranged Aunt Bell has agreed to take her in to her home in London. But Grace soon learns her situation has just gotten much worse.

Paisley Bell knows the eccentric people of Savage Wells. From the absentminded shopkeeper who always thinks she's been robbed to the young man who has returned shell-shocked from the war, Paisley has compassion for them all. When the sheriff up and leaves town, Paisley steps up and assumes the responsibility, partly because she loves the work but also because she needs the income to take care of her sick father.

Brandon Hale, a seasoned CIA case officer, contemplates walking away from the covert world of espionage behind to embark on a quieter path in publishing. But his plan takes an abrupt turn when a critical source within the Labyrinth terrorist organization is assassinated, leaving behind a cryptic message about a New York publishing house. Rather than submitting his resignation, Brandon finds himself going undercover at Monroe Publishing to stop the next terrorist strike against the US.

In the sprawling gardens of their neighboring estates, childhood friends Miles and Elise spent countless pleasant days together in the spirited adventures of youth. They were inseparable - until Elise vanished without a trace. Miles searched, but Elise could not - or would not - be found. After years spent laboring on the family plantation in the West Indies, Miles Linwood is shocked by the unexpected news: He has inherited his distant cousin's estate and the title of Marquess of Grenton.