A Gathering Storm


Rachel Hore - 2011
    While sifting through his papers, she finds he'd been researching an uncle she never knew he'd had. Intrigued, she visits her father's childhood home, the once beautiful Carlyon Manor. She meets an old woman named Beatrice who has an extraordinary story to tell.

Mellington Hall


Meredith Resce - 2011
    In her parents’ absence, she struggles against a deadly fever and a vicious snow-storm, doing her best to save the life of a stranger.But when her self-righteous neighbours eventually come to see how she fared during the storm, they draw a very different conclusion, and before she knows it, her reputation is in tatters, and she has been cast out of the church and her home.Alone and destitute, Sarah is determined to seek work as a servant from the man whose life she has saved. But all is not well for the master of Mellington Hall. Someone wants Lord Alan Mellington dead, and he doesn’t know who or why. The only person he seems to be able to trust is the gamekeeper’s daughter, Sarah Montgomery, who has intervened to save his life not once but twice. This story blending mystery, scandal, murder and romance comes from one of Australia’s best-loved authors, Meredith Resce.

Dear Kate


Hannah Duggan - 2014
     At a time when thousands are fleeing tyranny to find a home in the New World, seventeen-year-old Kate Elyot witnesses a tragic accident that orphans a little girl named Emily. Suddenly the sole guardian of a child she's never met, Kate's only guide to the girl's surviving family is a signet ring and a letter sewn into Emily's dress addressed "To Kate." Unsure of whether she has walked into a fateful calling or a fatal coincidence, Kate is determine to get Emily home but is unprepared for the journey awaiting her. Captain Anthony Scot will not rest until his enemy Simon Cephas is punished for a crime long forgotten. The signet ring that Emily carries is the evidence Scot needs to convict his rival. He is willing to obtain the ring at any cost in order to destroy Cephas. Can Kate fight to free Emily from those who would use her to destroy her Puritan family? Will her courage sustain her as she is brought face to face with her worst fears, deepest regrets, and a God she cannot bring herself to trust?

A Dangerous Fortune


Ken Follett - 1993
    A young student drowns in a mysterious accident involving a small circle of boys. The drowning and its aftermath initiates a spiraling circle of treachery that will span three decades and entwine many loves... From the exclusive men's club and brothels that cater to every dark desire of London's upper classes to the dazzling ballrooms and mahogany-paneled suites of the manipulators of the world's wealth, Ken Follett conjures up a stunning array of contrasts. This breathtaking novel portrays a family splintered by lust, bound by a shared legacy... men and women swept toward a perilous climax where greed, fed by the shocking truth of a boy's death, must be stopped, or not just one man's dreams, but those of a nation, will die...

Nefertiti's Heart


A.W. Exley - 2013
    Permanently.1861. Cara has a simple mission in London - finalise her father's estate and sell off his damned collection of priceless artifacts. Her plan goes awry when a killer stalks the nobility, searching for an ancient Egyptian relic rumoured to hold the key to immortality.Nathaniel Trent, known as the villainous viscount, is relentless in his desire to lay his hands on both Cara and the priceless artifacts. His icy exterior and fiery touch stirs Cara's demons, or could he lay them to rest?Self-preservation fuels Cara's search for the gem known as Nefertiti's Heart. In a society where everyone wears a mask to hide their true intent, she needs to figure out who to trust, before she sacrifices her own heart and life.

The Love We Gave


Gretta Curran Browne
    "Part thriller, part love story … it’s hard to resist turning the pages."—BELFAST TELEGRAPH"Books are often described as 'page-turners' but this is very true of this one’ … Once started the reader will find it very hard to put down.’--- SOUTHSIDE NEWS."Succeeds in combining a fast-paced tale involving vast sums of money, immense power, women both wounded and wounding, and a variety of credible male characters from the traumatised Vietnam veteran Jimmy Overman to the seedy publisher, James Duncan … an excellent book.’ – IE BOOK REVIEWPARIS 1940 ― Sixteen year-old Jacqueline Castineau joins the French Resistance and proves herself more lethal than any Nazi.LONDON 1963 ― The music of Elvis, the Beatles, and Smokey Robinson hum through the city night and day; and the life of a shy young English waitress changes spectacularly when an off-duty American soldier comes into the bistro where she works.AMERICA1963 ― President Kennedy is in the White House and Martin Luther King is marching for Civil Rights.In this incredible and beautiful love story, jealousy and vengeance play a cruel part – set between two wars, the horror of the past come back to casts dark shadows over the present, and uneasiness about the fearful threats of the future.

Out on a Limb


Lynne Barrett-Lee - 2007
    Either slightly dramatic or seriously dramatic. That this is the latter means just the one thing. That my day is about to get worse...' And for single mum, Abbie, life is complex enough. So once her eldest son, Seb, has gone on his gap year, she's decided it's time to make changes. She's just left her old job and started a new one (to escape the gorgeous man-who-turned-out-to-be-married), and is planning some space for herself at long last. But fate seems to have something else in mind for Abbie, in the shape of her demanding and incorrigible mother, whose feckless fourth husband, Hugo, has just died. Temporarily in a wheelchair after a recent knee op, Diana - retired TV fitness icon and dancer - will need looking after, so will have to move in. Still, Abbie tells herself - gritting her teeth - it won't be for more than a few weeks... However, Abbie hasn't figured on the sudden arrival of Hugo's 20 years' estranged son.

Crow Hollow


Michael Wallace - 2015
    She’s convinced her daughter is alive but cannot track her into the wilderness alone. Help arrives in the form of James Bailey, an agent of the crown sent to Boston to investigate the murder of Prudence’s husband and to covertly cause a disturbance that would give the king just cause to install royal governors. After his partner is murdered, James needs help too. He strikes a deal with Prudence, and together they traverse the forbidding New England landscape looking for clues. What they confront in the wilderness—and what they discover about each other—could forever change their allegiances and alter their destinies.

The Perfume Garden


Kate Lord Brown - 2012
    Untouched since Franco's forces tore through Spain in 1936, the whitewashed walls have crumbled, the garden, laden with orange blossom, grown wild. Emma Temple is the first to unlock its doors in seventy years. Guided by a series of letters and a key bequeathed in her mother's will, she has left her job as London's leading perfumier to restore this dilapidated villa to its former glory. It is the perfect retreat: a wilderness redolent with strange and exotic scents, heavy with the colours and sounds of a foreign time. But for her grandmother, Freya, a British nurse who stayed here during Spain's devastating civil war, Emma's new home evokes terrible memories. As the house begins to give up its secrets, Emma is drawn deeper into Freya's story: one of crushed idealism, lost love, and families ripped apart by war. She soon realises it is one thing letting go of the past, but another when it won't let go of you.

A School for Unusual Girls


Kathleen Baldwin - 2015
    Napoleon is exiled on Elba. Europe is in shambles. Britain is at war on four fronts. And Stranje House, a School for Unusual Girls, has become one of Regency England’s dark little secrets. The daughters of the beau monde who don’t fit high society’s constrictive mold are banished to Stranje House to be reformed into marriageable young ladies. Or so their parents think. In truth, Headmistress Emma Stranje, the original unusual girl, has plans for the young ladies—plans that entangle them in the dangerous world of spies, diplomacy, and war.After accidentally setting her father’s stables on fire while performing a scientific experiment, Miss Georgiana Fitzwilliam is sent to Stranje House. But Georgie has no intention of being turned into a simpering, pudding-headed, marriageable miss. She plans to escape as soon as possible—until she meets Lord Sebastian Wyatt. Thrust together in a desperate mission to invent a new invisible ink for the English war effort, Georgie and Sebastian must find a way to work together without losing their heads—or their hearts…

Maggie's Journey


Lena Nelson Dooley - 2011
    Near her eighteenth birthday, Margaret Lenora Caine finds a chest hidden in the attic containing proof that she was adopted. The daughter of wealthy merchants in Seattle, she feels betrayed both by her real parents and by the ones who raised her. Maggie desires a place where she belongs. But her mother’s constant criticism and reminders that she doesn’t fit the mold of a young woman of their social standing have already created tension in their home. With the discovery of the family secret, all sense of her identity is lost.When Maggie asks to visit her grandmother in Arkansas, her father agrees on the condition that she take her Aunt Georgia as a chaperone and his young partner, Charles Stanton, as protection on the journey. Will she discover who she really is and, more importantly, what truly matters most in life?

A Wing and a Prayer


M.W. Arnold - 2020
    American Doris Winter, running from a personal tragedy, yearns for a new start. Naturally shy Mary Whitworth-Baines struggles to fit in. Together though, they are a force to be reckoned with as they face the mystery that confronts them.Against the backdrop of war, when ties of friendship are exceptionally strong, they strive to unravel the puzzle's complex threads, risking their lives as they seek justice for Betty's sister.

A Study in Silks


Emma Jane Holloway - 2013
    In a Victorian era ruled by a ruthless steam baron council, mechanical power is the real monarch, and sorcery the demon enemy of the empire. Evelina has secretly mastered a coveted weapon - magic that can run machines. Should she trust the handsome, clever rake who speeds her breath, or the dashing trick rider who would dare anything she would ask?

Shadows on the Nile


Kate Furnivall - 2012
    Jessie Kenton hears her young brother, Georgie, scream in the middle of the night and wakes up the next morning to find him gone. Her parents never speak of him again.1932. Twenty years later, Jessie is haunted by the same nightmare. Her other brother, Timothy, has inexplicably vanished from her parents’ home. Wracked by guilt because of her failure to ever find Georgie, and convinced that the two events must be related, she sets out on a quest to find Timothy. She plunges into a mysterious world of séances and mystics, nebulous clues and Egyptian artifacts.With the help of a dashing and impoverished aristocrat, Sir Montague Chamford, Jessie follows the trail into the alien, swirling sands of the Egyptian desert. Amid the ancient intrigue and blistering heat, a powerful romance sparks between Jessie and Monty. But they must first confront the demons of Jessie’s past—and reveal the dark secrets that threaten not only Timothy’s life but theirs as well.

The Whiskey Tide


M. Ruth Myers - 2013
    Desperate to provide for their newly widowed mother and little brother, they use the family’s pleasure schooner to smuggle whiskey from Canada.Kate, the bookworm, hatches the plan, sacrificing her last year at Wellesley to make every grueling and dangerous trip. Rosalie risks her engagement to a clergyman to help on the home front, and tends Kate’s gunshot wound from rum-pirates. Aggie, a dazzling flapper hungry for adventure, uses the undertaking to become involved with a man she doesn’t realize is a vicious killer.Kate’s courage in the face of storms, crooks on both sides of the law, and the treacherous tides of the Bay of Fundy change her view of the world. It also changes the lives of those around her. The Portuguese-Irish fisherman she hires to captain Pa’s Folly earns money enough to provide previously unimagined options for his poor but close-knit family, but bears the secret burden of falling in love with Kate. A wealthy old woman dying of loneliness in her clifftop mansion finds reasons to live. Even Kate’s cousin, shattered in body and spirit by his service in The Great War, is caught in the ripples.THE WHISKEY TIDE is a sweeping saga of family ties that bind and chafe and sometimes fray, and of new horizons glimpsed in the dark of the moon.