Showing results by narrator "Wren" in All Categories

Returning from finishing school in France, Louisa Hatton was full of enthusiasm for the life ahead. She was convinced it would be exciting and romantic. But her parents had already planned a very suitable marriage for her to Lord Westbridge, their new neighbour. He was a cold, hard man and he wanted Louisa despite her protests. Her parents would not support her. Her father owed Lord Westbridge money.

Far North Queensland, 1993: at 74, former cane farmer Grace Maud is feeling her age, and her isolation, and thinks the best of life may be behind her. Elsewhere in town, high school teacher Patricia has given up on her dreams of travel and adventure and has moved back home to look after her ageing parents, while cafe owner Dorothy is struggling to accept that she may never have the baby she and her husband so desperately want. Each woman has an unspoken need: reconnection. And that's how they find themselves at Orange Blossom House, surrounded by perfumed rainforest.

Hugo, Earl of Ruven, is sailing home after ten years in India, where he served with his regiment. His grandfather, the old Earl, has died and Hugo has inherited the title and estate of Castle Ruven. He has also inherited his late brother's fiancee, Felice de Lisle. No one who sees the handsome man standing at the rail with his face turned toward the approaching coast suspects the truth. During one of the first battles of the Indian Mutiny, Hugo was severely injured. The new Earl of Ruven is returning home blind.

Major Michael Moore has been playing a very dangerous part in the Great Game in India where he foils a plot to kill the Viceroy who tells Michael he is now a marked man and that he must return to England immediately. To his astonishment on his way home he reads in a newspaper that following the death of his grandfather he has become the Duke of Grangemoore.

Sol is a gifted but also terrifying six year old; his mother believes he is destined for greatness. He has a birthmark, like his dad, his grandmother and great-grandmother. But when they all make an unexpected trip to Germany, terrible secrets emerge about their family's story during World War II. Perhaps birthmarks are not all that has been passed down through this family.

The beautiful Lady Elva Chartham had returned to her family home in the country from her Season as a debutante as she had become disenchanted by the endless balls and empty-headed young suitors. She much preferred to be with her horses. Her father was away fishing and her beloved Aunt Violet came to coax her into returning to London to finish her Season. Elva was persuaded by Aunt Violet and in her London house, she overheard a conversation between her aunt and her cousin, the Duke of Sparkbrook, that would dramatically change her life.

Vanda Sudbury and Robert, the Earl of Cunningham, had been friends from childhood. They knew all each other's faults and weaknesses and squabbled like brother and sister. So when her father tried to force a marriage between them, they were equally horrified. Fond though he was of Vanda, Robert was sure he could never love such a forceful, strong-minded female. She was equally dismissive of him as a husband.

The handsome Viscount Trent finally makes up his mind to accede to the pleadings of his family and get married. He is twenty-seven and for a long time they have been begging him to take a wife and produce an heir to his illustrious title, his famous stately home and his vast estate. On the whole he finds debutantes extremely boring and has enjoyed a number of affaires-de-coeur with older married women. However there is one girl, Marigold Marlow, he considers outstanding and she is the acknowledged great beauty of the Season.

Lady Novella Crownley has been teaching at a girl's school far from her ancestral home, Crownley Hall, and one day her mother asks her to return. She leaves at once only to find that so much has changed since her last visit home. Her beloved father, the Earl of Crownley, had died some years earlier, leaving her mother lonely and unable to cope on her own. Unknown to Novella her mother had remarried and the first time she met her new stepfather, Lord Buckton, she did like him at all.

Can you fall in love with someone before you meet them? Valona, the eighteen-year-old daughter of the deposed Prince of Piracus believes she can. Beautiful, spiritual and aching for adventure Valona is convinced that the perfect man exists because she has seen him in her dreams; all she has to do is find him. With no royal bride to offer the elderly King, it seems the only way to save Larissa from the threat of the encroaching Russian army is for Valona to take her place.

The Marquis and Marquise de Castillon, together with their young son Jean-Pierre, were forced to flee France for England when the French Revolution broke out in 1789. Jean-Pierre was educated at Eton and only returned to Paris when Napoleon came to power. It was not long before he joined Napoleon's Army, survived the Retreat from Moscow and was badly wounded at the Battle of Waterloo. Whilst in hospital, he became friends with Colonel Hubert Dawlish who was in the next bed.

Prince Serge of Tamrush, who himself had been sent a bride by Queen Victoria to save his Principality from invasion by the Russians, was now being asked by Prince Igor of Dubrik for the hand of his beautiful daughter Lavinia for the same reason. He decided not to tell Lavinia of Prince Igor’s request until after her birthday party. It was on that occasion she would meet Prince Igor for the first time and her father hoped that they would be attracted to each other.

Lady Lolita Vernon, daughter of the late Earl of Walcott and Vernon, has run away. Her stepfather, Ralph Piran, is forcing her to accept the attentions and perhaps an offer of marriage from his business partner, Murdock Tanner, who is very rich but old and repulsive. While she is trying to cover her tracks in London she bumps into a small boy, Simon, who is weeping because he has been beaten cruelly by his stepmother.

Michael, the handsome Earl of Monkford, returns from fighting in the Napoleonic War to find that his beloved home, Monk Hall, once a Monastery, has become thoroughly dilapidated from lack of money. tAnd his estate has been sadly neglected with broken down farms and barren fields. tHis mother, the aging Countess, and his cousin, the beautiful Linka, who he grew up with, have done their best to keep everything going with much difficulty.

The beautiful Martina Bradshaw has sadly lost both her beloved father and her loving mother. They live in the little Kent village of Preston Bailey where her father, a talented musician, had written his music, which had never been successful with the public. Now Martina has to find a way of making money to pay her household of Mrs.

Shenda, the beautiful daughter of Lord Linbury, finds herself all alone when he dies. She finds a letter he has written to his friend, the Duke of Wellington, asking him to look after and protect her. The Duke is in Paris having just won the Battle of Waterloo and Shenda travels nervously to Paris to meet him and he quickly realises that as she is young and innocent, he cannot have her to stay in his own house. He, therefore, takes Shenda to nurse one of his young Officers who has been badly wounded at Waterloo. Captain Ivan Worth, as he calls himself, is really the Marquis of Kenworth.

Emily was an aspiring literary writer, forced to make a living from editing annual reports, when she met Scott, a screenwriter in similar circumstances. With Scott’s punchy plot and Emily’s luminous prose, they crafted an international hit - and fell in love doing it. Three years later, Scott’s own novel has flopped, Emily’s struggling with her literary manuscript, and their relationship is falling apart. Can they overcome their creative differences to produce another masterpiece?

Young, happy and deeply in love, the future looks rosy for local beauty Lilliana Parker and her beau Robert, the dashing Earl of Sherborne. Their friends and family wait with baited breath for news of their inevitable engagement, certain that nothing can harm the charmed life of this golden couple. However, fate has other plans and the Earl is called to rejoin his Regiment in India on a mission that is both dangerous and vital to Queen and country.

In 1996, Hanna Heath, a rare-book expert, is offered the job of a lifetime: analysis and conservation of the famed Sarajevo Haggadah, which has been rescued during the Bosnian war. Priceless and beautiful, the book is one of the earliest Jewish volumes ever to be illuminated with images. When Hanna discovers a series of artifacts in its ancient binding, she begins to unlock the book's mysteries. The reader is ushered into an exquisitely detailed past, tracing the book's journey from its salvation back to its creation.

Sir John Gilmour has received a letter from his old friend Gavron Murillo, who lives in Paris to say that he only has a very short time to live and wants to see him urgently before he dies. Gavron, who was of Oriental appearance and a very rich man, had helped Sir John and his father with their finances when they had been almost on the point of bankruptcy and he had made them very wealthy. When Sir John arrives at Gavron’s bedside, the old man tells him that his dying wish is that he should marry his daughter, the beautiful Melita.