Showing titles in Victorian

In a quiet house in the countryside outside London, the finishing touches are being made to welcome a group of young women. The house and its location are top secret, its residents unknown to one another, but the girls have one thing in common: they are fallen. Offering refuge for prostitutes, petty thieves and the destitute, Urania Cottage is a second chance at life - but how badly do they want it?

Winner of the 2014 Richard & Judy Search for a Bestseller competition. Abandoned on a bank of snow as a baby, Amy is taken in at nearby Hatville Court. But the masters and servants of the grand estate prove cold and unwelcoming. Amy's only friend and ally is the sparkling young heiress Aurelia Vennaway. So when Aurelia tragically dies young, Amy is devastated. But Aurelia leaves Amy one last gift. A bundle of letters with a coded key. A treasure hunt that only Amy can follow. A life-changing discovery awaits ... if only she can unlock the secret.

Hull, 1856. James Ripley and his wife Moira have always looked out for the poor of Hull. When, during one stormy night, there is a flood in a nearby cellar—a popular shelter for the homeless—James rushes to help. Among those rescued is a dark-haired little girl who speaks a language no one can understand. Some say that she came to the cellar with her mother, but no one knows where the mother is now. Concerned for the child's safety, James is unsure of what to do.

When crusading lawyer Vikram Pandey sets out in search of a missing youth, his investigations take him to Holywell Street, London's most notorious address. He expects to find a disgraceful array of sordid bookshops. He doesn't expect one of them to be run by the long-lost friend whose disappearance and presumed death he's been mourning for 13 years. Gil Lawless became a Holywell Street bookseller for his own reasons, and he's damned if he's going to apologize or listen to moralizing from anyone.

Penguin presents the audiobook edition of Love Is Blind by William Boyd. Love Is Blind is William Boyd's sweeping, heart-stopping new novel. Set at the end of the 19th century, it follows the fortunes of Brodie Moncur, a young Scottish musician, about to embark on the story of his life. When Brodie is offered a job in Paris, he seizes the chance to flee Edinburgh and his tyrannical clergyman father, and begin a wildly different new chapter in his life. In Paris, a fateful encounter with a famous pianist irrevocably changes his future - and sparks an obsessive love affair with a beautiful Russian soprano, Lika Blum.

Lord Simon Devere returns from the Burmese War haunted by the vivid memory of his slain cousin and powerless to know reality from dreams. Unable to sleep lest he awaken in the cell of his nightmares, he sits in the dark, incapable of believing he is truly home - and safe - in England. Jenny Blackwood is determined not to let her mother and sisters succumb to an unkind fate. With a head for numbers, she becomes the skilled bookkeeper "Mr. Cavendish". One unexpected client is the nobleman cruelly named by gossips as Lord Despair.

When Elizabeth Bennet first knew Mr. Darcy, she despised him and was sure he felt the same. Angered by his pride and reserve, influenced by the lies of the charming Mr. Wickham, she never troubled herself to believe he was anything other than the worst of men - until, one day, he unexpectedly proposed. Mr. Darcy's passionate avowal of love causes Elizabeth to reevaluate everything she thought she knew about him.

At Treetops Foundling Home in Victorian Nuneaton, one special little girl brings sunshine and joy wherever she goes. A favourite of her foster mother, Kitty grows into a beguiling young woman but soon attracts the attention of more than one suitor with questionable intentions. She quickly discovers that her beauty is no protection against the peril she finds herself in, as this innocent young girl makes her way in the music halls and theatres of the big city....

Seventeen-year-old Meg Oversby often dreams of a more exciting life than the dull existence she faces at her family’s farm deep in the Yorkshire Dales. Growing up, she’s always sensed her father’s disappointment at not having a son to help with the farm work. So when Meg dances all night at the local market hall with Sam Alderson, a lead miner from Swaledale, a new light enters her life. Sam and his brother Jack show Meg a side to life she didn’t know existed. But when her parents find out, she’s forbidden from ever seeing them again....

After years of unbridled debauchery, Tristan Sinclair, Viscount St. Ashton has hit proverbial rock bottom. Seeking to escape his melancholy, he takes refuge at one of Victorian society's most notorious house parties. As the Christmas season approaches, he prepares to settle in for a month of heavy drinking, until an unexpected encounter changes his plans and threatens his heart.

Lizzie Miller worries for her family – money is short in their little house, but her beautiful daughter Ruby vows to give them all a better life. Working as a maid for Mr Banks, Ruby befriends his shy and gentle daughter, Cicely. The two girls hatch a mischievous plan to introduce Ruby to society at a party for the ‘gentry’ of Blackburn, where Ruby meets Luke Arnold, the dissolute heir to his father’s fortunes.

1885. Ruby Carter works hard in her parents' bakery. Whilst life isn't easy, she's happy enough - her gentle mother protects young Ruby from her cruel father and loves her unconditionally. So, when her mother falls ill, Ruby is heartbroken, and when from her deathbed her mother reveals that Ruby was adopted, the young girl is distraught. Stricken by grief and alone with the violent man she called her father, Ruby feels she has no choice but to flee.

As snow falls outside Abbotsford vicarage on Christmas Eve, Rose Northwood finds a child lying destitute in the manger of the town's nativity display. Reminded of her younger brother, who died at Christmastime, she is determined to nurse the young boy back to health. But the child has lost his memory and can't recall where he came from…

Jasper Detchard is a disgraced British officer, now selling his blade to the highest bidder. Currently that's Michael Elphberg, half-brother to the King of Ruritania. Michael wants the throne for himself, and Jasper is one of the scoundrels he hires to help him take it. But when Michael makes his move, things don't go entirely to plan - and the penalty for treason is death. Rupert of Hentzau is Michael's newest addition to his sinister band of henchmen. Charming, lethal, and intolerably handsome, Rupert is out for his own ends - which seem to include getting Jasper into bed.

The acclaimed New York Times bestselling author brings listeners the first in a very sexy, emotionally rich series in which sisters from a rather scandalous aristocratic family-the purveyors of the most fashionable shop in Regency London-discover passion and love as sumptuous as the exquisite gowns they create. Stephanie Laurens fans will adore this sensuous love story, as ambitious dressmaker Marcelline attempts to win the patronage of a future duchess . . . and ends up inadvertently enchanting the Duke!

Devlin Markham, the notorious "Devil Duke" of Huntington, needs a woman. And not just any woman. If he can't woo one of the most eccentric bluestockings of the Ton within the month, he can kiss his hard-earned fortune good-bye. But he's always thought love a wasted emotion and marriage an inconvenience at best. And oddly enough, Lady Sophie Wolcott seems unmoved by his charm. When Sophie learns her beloved orphanage is in imminent danger, she will do anything to save it. Even marry a ruthless rake who takes what he wants in business and pleasure.

Will Hart, the duke of Ashmore, is everything his father was not: scrupulously honest, forbidding, and apparently joyless. As a duke, he’s a catch, but as a grumpy stick-in-the mud, no lady knows quite how to catch his eye. When his sisters concoct a plan for him to visit a run-down family property in Cornwall, he reluctantly agrees, hoping it will be a chance for him to rediscover the carefree man he once was.

Lethally charming Simon Blair, Marquess of Lisburne, has reluctantly returned to London for one reason only: a family obligation. Still, he might make time for the seduction of a certain redheaded dressmaker-but Leonie Noirot hasn't time for him. She's obsessed with transforming his cousin, the dowdy Lady Gladys, into a swan. Leonie's skills can coax curves-and profits-from thin air, but his criminally handsome lordship is too busy trying to seduce her to appreciate her genius. He badly needs to learn a lesson, and the wager she provokes ought to teach him, once and for all.

When Victoria fell in love with the Earl of Pembroke, she never imagined he'd heartlessly wed, bed, and abandon her in the countryside. After he suddenly returns, determined to prove to her he's a changed man, she's not about to forgive him, trust him, or succumb to his scorching kisses. Will has devoted his life to enraging his loathsome father by creating one scandal after the next. Duty forces him back to the wife he resents, but he isn't prepared for the raw desire she makes him feel. Seducing her will hardly be a tedious task. Guarding his heart, however, is another matter.

Known as a brazen philanderer, Hayden Milton, Earl of Westfield, is almost done in by a vengeful mistress who aims a gun at a rather essential part of his anatomy - but ends up wounding his thigh instead. Recuperating in his London townhouse, Hayden is confronted by his new medical attendant. Sophia Camden intrigues him, for behind her starched uniform is an enticing beauty better suited for bedding than dispensing salves and changing bandages.