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Queenbreaker: Perseverance
Catherine McCarran - 2016
No one in her family expects Mary to go far; she's the middle daughter, sharp-tongued, not the favorite, not pretty. But when her cousin, the new Queen of England, Anne Boleyn invites a Shelton daughter to serve her at court, Mary proves to her parents she's their best choice when she boldly spies on them. Mary needs her penchant for breaking the rules if she's to survive at court.Surrounded by girls desperate for the same prize: a grand marriage—Mary quickly outshines them all when she discovers her talent for flirtation and catches the eye of the reckless yet beguiling Lord John de Vere. Thrilled by his attentions, she falls headlong into a passionate game of Pass-the-Time that promises Mary the love she craves and the advancement her family desires. But Mary's dazzling success brings her dangerous enemies who scheme to ruin her life at court. Mary must win Queen Anne’s favor to escape their plots and win her future with Lord John. When Mary forgets that love at court is always a game, she finds herself used in a vicious revenge designed to destroy the most powerful noble in England. With her greatest enemy ready to reveal her worst secret, Mary has just one chance to save her herself from total ruin. It means lying to her family, deceiving Lord John, and defying the Queen. It’s the game Mary was born to play...if she dares.
Valley Girls
Sarah Nicole Lemon - 2018
But Rilla can’t help but be seduced by experiences she couldn’t have imagined back home. She sets her sights on climbing El Capitan, one of the most challenging routes in Yosemite, and her summer becomes one harrowing and ecstatic experience after another: first climb, first fall two thousand feet in the air, first love. But becoming the person Rilla feels she was meant to be jeopardizes the reasons why she came to Yosemite—a bright new future and a second chance at sisterhood. When her family and her future are at odds, what will Rilla choose?
Winter's Bite
Hannah Parry - 2012
But home is eight thousand miles away in northern India, and Isabella is imprisoned in the bitter winter of nineteenth century London. Sent to England after her father goes missing in a violent battle, Isabella runs away from a life of drudgery and hardship. Rescued from death by a gang of street urchins, Isabella finds the shelter and love she so desperately craves. As an accomplished trickster, she starts to save for her passage home with the money she makes from swindling the rich.After a moment of heroism which surprises even herself, Isabella wakes in Kensington Palace. This is an opportunity too good to miss. If she can steal one of the glowing, priceless paintings, she and her gang will have enough to keep out searing cold and gnawing hunger for the rest of their lives.If Isabella plays her cards right.What she hasn’t reckoned with is her growing fondness for the Princess Alixandrina Victoria Hanover, a kind and lonely girl her own age, and heir to the British throne. Despite the richness of her surroundings, Alix’s life is harsh and without love.When someone tries to poison Isabella, Isabella realises it is Alix’s life which is under threat. At first Isabella suspects Prince Ernest, a hardened general, and next in line to the throne. Or is it John Conroy, a powerful schemer, in love with Alix’s beautiful spendthrift mother, and desperate to get his hands on Alix’s inheritance? Either way, Isabella’s feelings of responsibility for Alix and her loyalty to the gang who saved her life, are tearing her apart.Instead of taking advantage of Alix, will Isabella puts her own needs aside and cast herself into mortal danger to save her friend? Only the harsh lessons of Isabella’s past can help her decide if she should leave Alix to her fate - a fate tied up with Isabella’s own.A fate which will have consequences far beyond those she could ever have imagined.
The Wild Girl
Kate Forsyth - 2013
It is a time of war, tyranny and terror. Napoleon Bonaparte wants to conquer all of Europe, and Hessen-Cassel is one of the first kingdoms to fall. Forced to live under oppressive French rule, the Grimm brothers decide to save old tales that had once been told by the firesides of houses grand and small all over the land.Dortchen knows many beautiful old stories, such as Hansel and Gretel, The Frog King and Six Swans. As she tells them to Wilhelm, their love blossoms. Yet the Grimm family is desperately poor, and Dortchen's father has other plans for his daughter. Marriage is an impossible dream.Dortchen can only hope that happy endings are not just the stuff of fairy tales.
The Promise
Freda Lightfoot - 2011
Georgia Briscoe, a young woman from a good family, is unwillingly betrothed to businessman Drew Kemp when she falls for handsome British sailor Ellis Cowper. Drew had the charm to dazzle everyone around him, but when the couple are married, it soon transpires that Drew's charm is only skin-deep, and that he is in fact a greedy gambling addict with a penchant for other women, including Georgia's maid Maura and jealous sister Prudence. When Georgia and Maura become pregnant, both women decide to escape to be with the men they love, providing Prudence with an opportunity to seize Drew -- and much more besides. London, 1948. When Chrissie Kemp travels to the Lake District to visit her grandmother Georgia, she is not prepared for the shocking revelation that is about to throw her family into turmoil. As a last act of vengeance on her death bed, Prudence claims that Chrissie's mother Vanessa and her late father Aaran are brother and sister. As the truth unfurls, the passion, emotion and astounding love that occurred in San Francisco forty years ago is revealed, and three generations of the family are tested to their limits.