Civil War pits countrymen against one another and tears a nation asunder. Life and death are held in the balance where everyone is a slave to something. In a time when war brings the South to its knees, two women will forge a friendship in the fires of redemption and thrust Ironwood into a new future – where the battle for freedom has merely begun. Book Two: Heir of HopeA hidden diary. Dreams of the past. And a hope for a new future. Emily Burns grew up an orphan, so she never expected to inherit a southern plantation. When she discovers an old diary hidden in the attic, her life becomes strangely entwined with her Civil War ancestor and she soon begins to wonder how a woman long dead can keep showing up in her dreams.Book Three: Missing MercyThe venture ahead could leave their friendship behind.Made a safe-haven after the Civil War, Ironwood Plantation is a refuge of equality for former slaves. But twenty years and a new generation later, they have become an isolated community with little contact with the rest of the world.In a time where prejudices try to define them, Mercy Carpenter and Faith Harper must push the boundaries of their beliefs and trust in the God who holds the keys to freedom.

    When she comes of age, Eleanor is married to Frances Tait, a missionary, and she is delighted to have a husband who shares her passion for helping others. It is not long before Eleanor starts a family of her own. But when Mr Tait’s work takes their family far from home, her children face dangers that Eleanor could never have imagined. She will need to put her family first, before everything else, if she wants to protect them… A gripping saga from the Sunday Times bestselling author of The Coal Miner's Daughter

    Born into dismal poverty, young Nell Sweeney scratches by on her wits and little else until fortune blesses her with a position as nursery governess to the fabulously wealthy Hewitts. But she soon learns that ugly secrets lurk beneath the surface of their gold-plated world.The Hewitts’ eldest son, William, a former Union Army battle surgeon and the black sheep of the family, was reported to have died three years before in a notorious Confederate prison camp. But one snowy February afternoon, his parents learn that he is, in fact, still alive—and in jail for having murdered a man while intoxicated on opium. Infuriated by his son’s deception and convinced of his guilt, August Hewitt forbids his wife from coming to Will’s aid, so she begs Nell to help exonerate him. Nell finds that she must delve into the kind of dark and treacherous underworld she thought she’d left far behind if she is to unearth the truth before the hangman’s noose tightens around William Hewitt’s throat.

    It's a family tradition, but an honor he's not sure he quite deserves. So, when a gentleman's wager ends with one man dead in the vault under the club, Eric is only too ready to tackle the mystery head on.Eric’s quest to resolve the murder quickly becomes an investigation of a mysterious wartime disappearance. It draws him far from the marbled halls of the Brittania, to the shadowy remains of a dilapidated war hospital to the heroin dens of Limehouse. Eric faces a Matryoshka doll of murder, vice, and secrets pointing not only to the officers of his own club but the very investigator assigned by Scotland Yard.Threatened with expulsion and dogged by the racist shadows of the Great War, Eric presses on nonetheless. But can he snare the killer before his own membership becomes a thing of yesterday?

    A series of brutal murders has occurred, and, as Ackroyd leads us down London's dark streets, the sense of time and place becomes overwhelmingly immediate and real. We experience the sights and sounds of the English music halls, smell the smells of London slums, hear the hooves of horses on the cobblestone streets, and attend the trial of Elizabeth Cree, a woman accused of poisoning her husband but who may be the one person who knows the truth about the murders.

    But he is also a noted antiquities expert, which is why Beatrice Poole has demanded his reluctant assistance. The freethinking authoress of "horrid novels," Beatrice is searching for the Forbidden Rings of Aphrodite, a mythic treasure she suspects played a role in her uncle's death. Beatrice finds Leo every bit as fascinating as one of the heroes in her novels-and she's convinced he's the only one who can help her. But after only five minutes in her company, Leo is sure he's never met a woman more infuriating...and more likely to rescue him from boredom. Yet the alliance may well prove to be the biggest mistake of their lives. For a villain lurks in London, waiting for the pair to unearth the Forbidden Rings-knowing that when they do, that day will be their last....

    The prize has called to Vicky Bliss, drawing her and an arrogant male colleague into the forbidding citadel and its dark secrets. But the treasure hunt soon turns deadly. Here, where the blood of the long forgotten damned stains ancient stones, Vicky must face two equally perilous possibilities. Either a powerful supernatural evil inhabits this place. . .or someone frighteningly real is willing to kill for what Vicky is determined to find.

    It’s the living. One night, after a few drinks at an office party, Quirke shuffles down into the morgue where he works and finds his brother-in-law, Malachy, altering a file he has no business even reading. Odd enough in itself to find Malachy there, but the next morning, when the haze has lifted, it looks an awful lot like his brother-in-law, the esteemed doctor, was in fact tampering with a corpse—and concealing the cause of death. It turns out the body belonged to a young woman named Christine Falls. And as Quirke reluctantly presses on toward the true facts behind her death, he comes up against some insidious—and very well-guarded—secrets of Dublin’s high Catholic society, among them members of his own family. Set in Dublin and Boston in the 1950s, the first novel in the Quirke series brings all the vividness and psychological insight of Booker Prize winner John Banville’s fiction to a thrilling, atmospheric crime story. Quirke is a fascinating and subtly drawn hero, Christine Falls is a classic tale of suspense, and Benjamin Black’s debut marks him as a true master of the form.

    And then -- the madness seized me. When I look back over the months I spent at Sunnyside, I wonder that I survived at all. As it is, I show the wear and tear of my harrowing experiences. I have turned very gray -- Liddy reminded me of it, only yesterday, by saying that a little bluing in the rinse-water would make my hair silvery, instead of a yellowish white. I hate to be reminded of unpleasant things and I snapped her off. "No," I said sharply, "I'm not going to use bluing at my time of life, or starch, either."

    When young bookseller Nicholas Elyot discovers the body of student William Farringdon floating in the river Cherwell, it looks like a drowning. Soon, however, Nicholas finds evidence of murder. Who could have wanted to kill this promising student? As Nicholas and his scholar friend Jordain try to unravel what lies behind William’s death, they learn that he was innocently caught up in a criminal plot. When their investigations begin to involve town, university, and abbey, Nicholas takes a risky gamble – and puts his family in terrible danger.

    A plan that should have brought the lovers together and had them married within a month. It was a simple matter of masquerading as the duke’s gardener, compromising the lady, and then having the duke rush them off to Gretna Green.Alas, he underestimates the duke’s intelligence and the tangled situation on the estate—never had he imagined that compromising a lady could be so difficult.His endeavours lead to a comedy of errors, charades, and knotty love affairs. Yet he forges ahead in spite of pesky house guests, a flea bitten mattress, his lovesick best friend, and a blackmailer.Just when things seem to be going well, someone is murdered (very inconvenient), and he happens to be one of the suspects (extremely inconvenient).His simple plan for winning the wager suddenly becomes … a tad complicated.

    Seemingly betrayed by the only man she has ever loved, Verity Farrington took her own life on the very day he was set to marry another.It was a tragic event which was to blight the lives of all within the great Duchies of Calgarth and Horndean. It would turn two of the closest friends into the bitterest of all imaginable enemies and blight the lives of their families for three decades to come.Nearly thirty years later, the new Duke of Calgarth, Gabriel Farrington, seeks to lead his younger brothers into battle. The old Duke is dead and he has charged his oldest son with the heaviest of duties; the bitter feud between the two great households must persist at any cost. With his own mother so desperate to see the end of the pain and hatred, Gabriel Farrington remains steadfast.In the Duchy of Horndean, the Old Duke clings to life, presiding over the family he has raised in bitterness. With his scheming wife and daughter his most powerful assets, the Duke sees out the last of his days. But will his own guilt finally catch up with him? And will the truth finally be revealed, smashing the foundations of lies upon which the feud was built?In amongst the hate, anger, and retribution, will the younger generation of Farringtons and Cunninghams ever find the peace and love they all secretly crave?Five stories concerning two feuding families involved in a bitter feud for thirty-five years! The story is set in the wild, windswept north of England, with other action occurring in London.The Collection Includes the Following:The Duke and the Stolen BrideThe Lord She Could Not TrustThe Lord and the Attorney’s NieceThe Lord, The Lady, and a Time to ChooseThe Descendants and a Time of HopeRegency Fire is a complete series of 5 short-length novels of approximately 100,000 words in total. No cheating, no cliffhangers, and a guaranteed happily ever after.

    

    An earnest young academic, Daniel has come for a summer job cataloguing a private collector's library. But when Daniel's employer sends him to buy a stolen violin from a petty thief, a chain reaction of violence and deception ignites. Suddenly Daniel is drawn into a police investigation and a tempest swirling around a beautiful woman, a mysterious palazzo, and a lost musical masterpiece dating back centuries. With each step he takes, Daniel unwittingly retraces a journey that began in 1733, when another young man came to Venice. And when, in this realm of intrigue and beauty, two lovers came face-to-face with a killer and a mystery was born. Separated by centuries, two tales of passion, betrayal, and danger collide in David Hewson's dazzling novel. Sweeping us from the intrigue of Vivaldi's Venice to the gritty world of a modern cop, from the genius of a prodigy to the greed of a killer, Lucifer's Shadow builds to a shattering crescendo and one last, breathtaking surprise.From the Hardcover edition.

    Intelligence believes the Nazis are building new factories that could turn the tide of the war. When their plane is shot down, James and Bryan know they will be executed if captured. With an enemy patrol in pursuit, they manage to jump aboard a train reserved for senior SS soldiers wounded on the eastern front. In a moment of desperation, they throw two patients off the train and take their places, hoping they can escape later. But their act is too convincing and they end up in the Alphabet House, a mental hospital located far behind enemy lines, where German doctors subject their patients to daily rounds of shock treatments and experimental drugs. The pilots’ only hope of survival is to fake insanity until the war ends, but their friendship and courage are put to the ultimate test when James and Bryan realize they aren’t the only ones in the Alphabet House feigning madness. Millions of fans around the world—and in this country—know Adler-Olsen for his award-winning Department Q series. His first stand-alone, The Alphabet House, is the perfect introduction for those who have yet to discover his riveting work.