Showing results by narrator "Mary Jane Wells" in All Categories

Beloved authors Julia Quinn, Elizabeth Boyle, Laura Lee Guhrke, and Stefanie Sloane deliver the stories of four friends from Madame Rochambeaux's Gentle School for Girls who find an old sixpence in their bedchamber and decide that it will be the lucky coin for each of their weddings…

Grand Duchess Olga Romanov comes of age amid a shifting tide for the great dynasties of Europe. But even as unrest simmers in the capital, Olga is content to live within the confines of the sheltered life her parents have built for her and her three sisters: hiding from the world on account of their mother’s ill health, their brother Alexei’s secret affliction, and rising controversy over Father Grigori Rasputin, the priest on whom the tsarina has come to rely.

Suddenly guardian to twins, Viscount Dominic Kelbourne is luckily betrothed to a suitable lady - until she elopes. With no time to woo, Dominic decides to marry his fiancée's unconventional sister. Torie isn't perfect, but their kisses are so passionate that society thinks he's actually chosen her. She doubts Dominic is capable of love, let alone respect, but as their heated debates turn into something more, Torie begins to imagine a life as a wife, not a nanny.

On the eve of her wedding to the heir of Saiturn Manor, the stunningly beautiful Gytha is shocked to learn that her betrothed, a man she barely knew, is dead. Now she must marry the new heir, Thayer Saiturn, a battle-hardened knight known as the Red Devil.... With a face scarred in battle and a heart broken in love, Thayer has no interest in marriage. But not even the Red Devil can break the promise his foster-father made years ago and soon finds himself married to a woman whose exquisite beauty and sweet innocence intrigue him.

The Duke of Ashbourn has a secret: he is the Berserker, the undefeated king of London’s brutal underground boxing ring. The nightly bareknuckle fights are his only release from the darkness that drives him…until he collides with the one woman he’s vowed not to touch.

When the Duke of Ashbury returns from war scarred, he realises he needs an heir - which means he needs a wife! When Emma Gladstone, a vicar's daughter turned seamstress visits wearing a wedding dress, he decides on the spot that she'll do. His terms are simple: They will be husband and wife by night only. No lights, no kissing. No questions about his battle scars. Last, and most importantly...Once she's pregnant with his heir, they need never share a bed again. But Emma is no pushover. She has secrets and some rules of her own....

Evie and Thomas experience a very different war. Frustrated by life as a privileged young lady, Evie longs to play a greater part in the conflict - but how? - and as Thomas struggles with the unimaginable realities of war, he also faces personal battles back home, where War Office regulations on press reporting cause trouble at his father's newspaper business. Through their letters Evie and Thomas share their greatest hopes and fears - and grow ever fonder from afar. Can love flourish amid the horror of the First World War, or will fate intervene?

A brave young gentlewoman dares to defy an infuriatingly arrogant earl. Brave and beautiful Miss Emily Wingrave knows that it will not be easy to help her older widowed sister deal with the trustee of her late husband’s estate. The trustee is none other than the willful, arrogant Earl of Meriden, and she is determined to stop him from meddling with her sister’s struggling family.

The year is 1731, and in a small village in Cheshire, England, the Reverend Browne has determined the future of his young daughter, Sarah. Her life will be dedicated to caring for him and his household affairs while he, acting as one of God’s chosen few, saves souls from the devil. Sarah dreams of a different future, one in which she will be happy and independent. As she grows older, she starts to see glimpses of a tantalizing world beyond her reach and longs one day to escape the drudgery of her life.

Wealthy and ruthless, Gabriel Duke clawed his way from the lowliest slums to the pinnacle of high society - and now he wants to get even. Loyal and passionate, Lady Penelope Campion never met a lost or wounded creature she wouldn’t take into her home and her heart. When her imposing - and attractive - new neighbour demands she clear out the rescued animals, Penny sets him a challenge. She will part with her precious charges, if he can find them loving homes.

Ruth’s childhood was a happy one, and her family—on her mother’s side—large and loving. But her father’s French origins have always remained a mystery. Now, with aged relatives beginning to die, Ruth decides to research her father’s family before it’s too late. When she discovers a series of long-lost cassettes, everything she thought she knew about them shatters. The tapes expose an unimaginable truth–an epic wartime story of hidden love and sacrifice, stretching back to occupied France.

Desperate after her Season comes to a spectacularly disastrous end, the Honourable 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.

When Royal Academy painting student Lucy Coover trips over a naked man passed out in an East End alley, she does the decent thing. She covers him up and fetches help. Trouble is, she can't banish his muscular form from her dreams as easily. Compelled to capture every detail, she creates a stunning portrait but is forced to sell it when the rent comes due. What could be worse than surrendering the very picture of your desire? Meeting the man himself.

American journalist Ethan Fletcher traversed the globe to claim his late uncle's Fleet Street print shop, only to find his unexpected inheritance shackled by ruinous debt. To save his business and finally direct his own course, he needs to raise capital, and quickly. Good fortune comes in the form of Belinda Sinclair, the eccentric daughter of a respected London judge—and she just so happens to be a beautiful failure of a novelist.

Lady Evangeline Raine prefers animals to people and has no interest in marriage—much to the dismay of her flirty younger sister, Viola. Because their father has one rule: Viola may be courted, only if Effie has a suitor as well. Saddled with debt, Gage Croft, Duke of Vale, is determined to rebuild his estates. When the owner of his vowels offers him a fortune to charm the impervious Lady Evangeline for the season so Lady Viola can be courted, the game is on, even if it means pretending to seduce an unconventional wallflower.

Raised among London's most notorious criminals, a twist of fate landed Adelaide Frampton in the bright ballrooms of Mayfair, where she masquerades as a quiet wallflower-so plain and unassuming that no one realizes she's the Matchbreaker...using her superior skills as a thief to help brides avoid the altar.

Lady Vesper Lyndhurst is beautiful, clever, and popular. Afforded every luxury as a duke’s daughter, she fills her days with friends, intrigues, and a self-professed knack for matchmaking. She may have sworn off love for herself, but she is rather excellent at arranging it. Faced with an insolvent estate, the Duke of Greydon has no choice but to return to England in a final attempt to revive his family’s fortunes. He’s been gone for years, happy to have escaped his mother and the petty circles of the ton. To his dismay, not much has changed, including the beautiful heiress next door.

Max Wolff is a committed soldier of the Reich. So when he is sent home wounded, only to discover that his mother is sheltering two young Jewish women in their home, he is outraged. His mother’s act of mercy is a gross betrayal of everything Max stands for. He has dedicated his life to Nazism, fighting to atone for the shame of his anti-Hitler father’s imprisonment. It’s his duty to turn the sisters over to the Gestapo. But he hesitates, and the longer Max fails to do his duty, the harder it becomes.

Lady Merritt Sterling, a strong-willed young widow who's running her late husband's shipping company, knows London society is dying to catch her in a scandal. So far, she's been too smart to provide them with one. But then she meets Keir MacRae, a rough-and-rugged Scottish whisky distiller, and all her sensible plans vanish like smoke. They couldn't be more different, but their attraction is powerful, raw and irresistible.

The time for Antonia’s court presentation has finally arrived, but how will she be received? Not only by the King, but by his Majesty’s new mistress Mme de Pompadour, and also the French nobility? This seems the least of the Duchess’s worries, until the Duke comes face to face with the Comtesse Duras-Valfons in the very public space of the Hall of Mirrors.