But on V-J Day, her worst fear is realized. As celebrating crowds gather in Times Square, a soldier appears on her doorstep to claim Mary, the baby abandoned to Gwen one year earlier. Suddenly Gwen is on the verge of losing the child she has nurtured and loves dearly.With no legal claim to Mary, Gwen begins to teach Lieutenant John McKee how to care for his child, knowing that he will ultimately take Mary away. What starts as a contentious relationship, however, turns into something more, and Gwen must open her heart to learn that love means taking chances.While You Were Mine paints a vivid portrait of 1940s New York and tells an enchanting tale of the nature of love and trust.

    Joseph Hobson is a bullying man and Evie isn't the only one who lives in fear of her father's violent temper. Then one day a bedraggled woman enters the shop and dies on the premises. Evie is shocked to discover she was in fact her mother, whom she had been told was dead. Why had her father lied to her? What secret was he trying to keep? One thing's for sure, Evie can't take much more from him and when she catches the eye of local lad Ned Collins they plan to run away to begin a new life together. But even when she has escaped and has started a family with Ned, Evie has a long way to go before her happiness is secured...

    But what if they want only to be loved--without an enormous price tag attached? When one daughter pursues a desirable marriage, she secures for herself a comfortable and glamorous life. But among the duties of privilege, will she also find the happily-ever-after she seeks? Her sister rejects the trappings of wealth, choosing instead to build a new life on the still-untamed frontier. Will she find happiness in independence or discover that she's left her heart behind in New York's glittering society? Set in the opulent world of the Gilded Age, each woman discovers that being an heiress just might cost her everything--including the chance for true love.

    But their happy world is shattered when, in 1912, William takes a trip to America that ends in tragedy.

    It is 1914, the beginning of a blissful, golden summer - and the end of an era. Deyning Park is in its heyday, the large country house filled with the laughter and excitement of privileged youth preparing for a weekend party. When Clarissa meets Tom Cuthbert, home from university and staying with his mother, the housekeeper, she is dazzled. Tom is handsome and enigmatic; he is also an outsider. Ambitious, clever, his sights set on a career in law, Tom is an acute observer, and a man who knows what he wants. For now, that is Clarissa.As Tom and Clarissa's friendship deepens, the wider landscape of political life around them is changing, and another story unfolds: they are not the only people in love. Soon the world - and all that they know - is rocked by a war that changes their lives for ever.

    When Helen’s father dies, she moves in with Adela and her husband, the dashing Captain Richard Morton. Adela’s flirtatious behavior and imperious attitude set tongues wagging in the expatriate community, but when the spirit of rebellion spreads like wildfire amongst the sepoys of the East India Company, the time for gossip is over.   Fleeing the massacre at Cawnpore, Helen, Adela, and Captain Morton discover that the sins of yesterday are never forgotten, and that true love can blossom in even the most tragic of circumstances.   This ebook has been professionally proofread to ensure accuracy and readability on all devices.

    Mad Dog Stone was a drifter looking for a few days' work. He walked into her life, threatening Mariah's peace of mind and stirring emotions she tried to hide. Their love was born against all odds, difficult to count on, impossible to hold. Together they would learn the bittersweet truth--that love exists only if you believe. . . .

    When Celia Sands arrives at a remote Italian villa to star in the first performance of a deceased playwright's masterpiece, she is instantly drawn to the mysteries surrounding the play -- and to her compelling, compassionate employer.

    Sucksby, a "baby farmer," who raised her with unusual tenderness, as if Sue were her own. Mrs. Sucksby’s household, with its fussy babies calmed with doses of gin, also hosts a transient family of petty thieves—fingersmiths—for whom this house in the heart of a mean London slum is home.One day, the most beloved thief of all arrives—Gentleman, an elegant con man, who carries with him an enticing proposition for Sue: If she wins a position as the maid to Maud Lilly, a naïve gentlewoman, and aids Gentleman in her seduction, then they will all share in Maud’s vast inheritance. Once the inheritance is secured, Maud will be disposed of—passed off as mad, and made to live out the rest of her days in a lunatic asylum.With dreams of paying back the kindness of her adopted family, Sue agrees to the plan. Once in, however, Sue begins to pity her helpless mark and care for Maud Lilly in unexpected ways...But no one and nothing is as it seems in this Dickensian novel of thrills and reversals.

    Shunned from London society for being the daughter of England’s most notorious spy, Alyce Hythe desires only to clear her father’s name. For years, she has been hidden away from all prying eyes, given a new identity and told to forget who she was. But strange things have been happening causing old rumors to once more be whispered.Long has Lord Julian Casvelyn lived with guilt brought on when his brother was murdered by England’s most infamous traitor. But one eventful night has changed everything Lord Julian believed about his brother’s death. Never did he suspect the woman he has just saved from certain harm is the daughter of that man. Now Julian is caught in midst of a conspiracy and desire for that woman.Thrown together by fate, the two search for answers long denied them and along the way discover a love that can free them both.Previously published as Daughter of Deceit under Carrie James Haynes

    I was caught upon a chessboard, a helpless pawn in a game of life and death, and the green rook was hunting me. That tall rook of green-black yew who had it in his power to destroy the king and end the game..." When Eve North returns to Athmore after three years' separation from her husband Justin, she finds the great estate-and Justin himself-vastly changed. Eve too has changed. She knows now the mistakes she made in her marriage in the past, and she now dares to win back the love of her own husband. Like another Eve, she wanders into the gardens of Athmore, unsuspecting. Yet she has reason to fear. Justin's brother Marc had once before placed her in a compromising position in that place of secrets-the green velvet room. Justin had believed Marc and never forgiven her. Now Marc waits for her at Athmore. Then, too, she has been warned that Justin has made up his mind at last to divorce her in order to marry Alicia Daven-the cool, serene Alicia whose quiet assurance comes from generations at Grovesend, and who has always taunted the American Eve with her tempting of Justin. Old Daniel-just before he is sent to his death-tries to warn Eve. It is he who carved from the green-black yew a topiary garden, one of the marvels of Athmore. The dark trees are clipped into the shape of chessmen, at a game forever in play. The black rook stands poised in readiness, like a hunter ready for the kill, challenging the white king. Daniel cries to Eve, "It's the black rook's play!"--but he dies before Eve can learn his fateful meaning. Eve finds herself entrapped on a chessboard of evil, unsure of her next move, yet aware that the black rook will move again-this time to destroy her.

    With the help of their former, outspoken, Irish maid, Maura, and a new, equally Irish friend, Shannon, the wives become even closer than before.The couples' rocky path leads to more turmoil, however, when a business rival, Victor Drayton, creates one disaster after another. From petty tricks to outright violence, Victor's nefarious mind will stop at nothing to beat down Jonathan's last glimmer of hope.Despite everything, Jonathan and his friends are fixated on surviving.Emotional and financial destruction nip at their heels, until finally, with a lucky twist of fate, they escape city life and begin anew in their hometown of Rockport, Massachusetts.A story set in the past, 1929 is full of romance, drama, and humor. Vivid, expertly crafted characters make this novel more than memorable–1929 is unforgettable.

    And sometimes, mercy comes at the worst possible moment. At least, Lucy thinks so.After the death of her parents, sixteen-year-old Lucy Richter struggles to keep a promise to her father--to save what remains of her family. Lucy fails tragically but won't allow her dwindling family to disappear. She shanghais her twin siblings, Goody and Mercy, from a Wisconsin orphanage to a Colorado peach ranch and an aunt who is a less-than-welcoming stranger. Lucy is prepared to keep the peace with her aunt, but will her sister's gifts draw unwanted attention and crush Lucy's dream of family?And World War II rages on. Absent men strain the running of Honey Sweet Ranch and force alliances of the most intriguing and unlikely kind, including German POWs. Within these relationships, Lucy is given the chance to discover an unfamiliar and healing faith.With her defining style, Patti Hill tells a story of love and loss with one of America's darkest times as a backdrop. Hill's characters resonate, and her descriptions draw the reader into a drama that is perfectly paced and infused with a wondrous hope.

    The Stoddard girls—responsible Mayme, whip-smart tomboy Jeanine, and bookish Bea—know no life but an itinerant one, trailing their father from town to town as he searches for work on the pipelines and derricks; that is, when he's not spending his meager earnings at gambling joints, race tracks, and dance halls. And in every small town in which the windblown family settles, mother Elizabeth does her level best to make each sparse, temporary house they inhabit a home.But the fall of 1937 ushers in a year of devastating drought and dust storms, and the family's fortunes sink further than they ever anticipated when a questionable "accident" leaves Elizabeth and her girls alone to confront the cruelest hardships of these hardest of times. With no choice left to them, they return to the abandoned family farm.It is Jeanine, proud and stubborn, who single-mindedly devotes herself to rebuilding the farm and their lives. But hard work and good intentions won't make ends meet or pay the back taxes they owe on their land. In desperation, the Stoddard women place their last hopes for salvation in a wildcat oil well that eats up what little they have left . . . and on the back of late patriarch Jack's one true legacy, a dangerous racehorse named Smoky Joe. And Jeanine, the fatherless "daddy's girl," must decide if she will gamble it all . . . on love.

    Kate Schuyler is drawn into a complex mystery that connects three generations of women in her family to a single extraordinary room in a Gilded Age mansion.Who is the woman in Captain Ravenel's portrait miniature who looks so much like Kate? And why is she wearing the ruby pendant handed down to Kate by her mother? In their pursuit of answers, they find themselves drawn into the turbulent stories of Gilded Age Olive Van Alen, driven from riches to rags, who hired out as a servant in the very house her father designed, and Jazz Age Lucy Young, who came from Brooklyn to Manhattan in pursuit of the father she had never known. But are Kate and Cooper ready for the secrets that will be revealed in the Forgotten Room?The Forgotten Room, set in alternating time periods, is a sumptuous feast of a novel brought to vivid life by three brilliant storytellers.