Showing results by author "Georgette Heyer" in All Categories

Vernon Alverstoke sees no reason to put himself out for anyone. But when a distant connection asks for help, he is quickly plunged into one drama after another by the disorderly Merriville family. Surprisingly, he finds himself far from bored - especially when he encounters their strong-minded daughter, Frederica. However, she seems far more concerned with her family's welfare than his romantic advances.

Dispossessed of crown and kingdom, crushed and routed at the grim Battle of Worcester, the young Charles II is forced to flee for his life. Out of the heat of battle, the outlaw king and his tiny party must journey across Cromwell's England to a Channel port and a ship bound for France and safety. But the king, with his love of adventure, his irrepressible humour and his unmistakeable looks, is no easy man to hide.

Serena Carlow's former love now controls her future happiness. After her father's unexpected death, Serena's jilted ex-fiancé—the Marquis of Rotherham—is made the sole trustee of her wealth and marriage prospects. Eager for an escape, she moves to Bath and encounters her childhood sweetheart, the dashing Hector Kirkby—but will Rotherham approve the match? Before long, they are all entangled in a confusion of marriage and manners the likes of which Regency Bath has rarely seen.

This anthology of rare stories of crime and suspense brings together a selection of rare tales by masters of the Golden Age of Detective Fiction for the first time in book form, including a newly discovered Agatha Christie crime story that has not been seen since 1922. At a time when crime and thriller writing has once again overtaken the sales of general and literary fiction, Bodies from the Library unearths lost stories from the Golden Age, that period between the World Wars when detective fiction captured the public’s imagination.

When Sophy is sent to stay with her London relatives, she finds her cousins in quite the tangle. Cecilia is besotted with an attractive but feather-brained poet, Hubert has fallen foul of a money-lender and the ruthlessly handsome Charles is engaged to a pedantic bluestocking who seems to bring out the worst in him. Fortunately, Sophy has arrived just in time to sort them all out - but Charles is eager to rid his family of her meddlesome ways. Has the grand Sophy finally met her match?

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.

When Gervase Frant, Seventh Earl of St Erth, returns at last from Waterloo to his family seat at Stanyon, he enjoys a less than welcome homecoming. Only Theo, a cousin even quieter than himself, is there to greet him - and when he meets his stepmother and young half-brother he detects open disappointment that he survived the wars. But the dangers of the Lincolnshire countryside are quite different to those of the battlefield.

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.

A dashing Regency romance from the legendary Georgette Heyer, founder of the genre. Captain John Staple's exploits against Napoleon's armies in the Iberian Peninsula have earned him the nickname 'Crazy Jack' amongst his comrades in the Dragoon Guards - but once the Battle of Waterloo brings the curtain down once and for all on the Napoleonic Wars, the boisterous, adventure-loving captain finds life in peacetime intolerably dull.

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.

Abigail Wendover has no time for love. She is far too busy protecting her niece, who has fallen madly in love with a suspected fortune-hunter. But her efforts become vastly more complicated with the arrival of Miles Calverleigh, the black sheep of his family - a reckless bachelor with a scandalous past. Abby soon discovers that, despite successfully managing her niece's love life, she has far less control over her own unruly heart.

William the Bastard, base-born son of the Duke of Normandy, must fight the king of France to regain his Duchy. Spurned in love by the lovely Princess Matilda, the fighting duke dares to take a whip to her in her own father's palace, before making her his bride. Thwarted by the Saxon Earl Harold of a promise of the throne of England, William the Conqueror sails to Hastings to claim the king's crown and sceptre for his own.

Robin and Prudence Merriot have been dissemblers since they were children. And in this age of slippery politics, they need to be. So it is nothing for them to rescue a rich heiress from her abductor. But once committed to their masquerade, they must see it through.

Endowed with rank, wealth and elegance, Sylvester, Duke of Salford, posts into Wiltshire to discover if the Honorable Phoebe Marlow will meet his exacting requirements for a bride. If he does not expect to meet a tongue-tied stripling wanting both manners and conduct, then he is intrigued indeed when his visit causes Phoebe to flee her home. They meet again on the road to London, where her carriage has come to grief in the snow. Yet Phoebe, already caught in one imbroglio, now knows she soon could be well deep in another....

When the dashing Jack Carstares is unfairly accused of cheating at cards, he leaves the country in disgrace. Returning some years later disguised as a highwayman, his reappearance heralds a dramatic chain of events that includes a Duke, a damsel, a duel, and not one, but two kidnappings. Written when she was just 17, The Black Moth was Heyer’s first novel, but it bears many of the hallmarks of her later romances, being vivid, witty, and peppered with historical insight.

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.

The 60th birthday party of Silas Kane was marred by argument and dissension amongst his family. And then, the morning after the celebrations, Kane is found dead at the foot of a cliff. The theory that Silas accidentally lost his way in the fog is confirmed when the coroner returns a verdict of death by misadventure. But then Kane's nephew, and heir, is murdered, and threats are made on the next in line to the fortune, throwing a new and sinister light on Silas Kane's death.

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.

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.

Renowned gamester and the first to admit that he is entirely void of a romantic disposition, Max Ravenscar regards all eligible females with indifference and unconcern. But when he meets the woman his young cousin Adrian is bent on marrying - the beautiful Deborah Grantham, mistress of her aunt's gaming house - he finds that none of his experience in risk and gambling has prepared him for such a worthy opponent.