Evie's Ghost


Helen Peters - 2017
    She’s only gone and got married again and has flown off on honeymoon, sending Evie to stay with a godmother she’s never even met in an old, creaky house in the middle of nowhere. It is all monumentally unfair.But on the first night in her godmother’s spare room, Evie notices a strange message scratched into the windowpane, and everything she thought she knew gets turned upside down.After a ghastly night’s sleep Evie wakes up in 1814, dressed as a housemaid, and certain she’s gone back in time for a reason. A terrible injustice needs to be fixed. But there’s a housekeeper barking orders, a bad-tempered master to avoid, and the chamber pots won’t empty themselves. It’s going to take all Evie’s cunning to fix things in the past so that nothing will break apart in the future…Absorbing, brilliant storytelling from the author of The Secret Hen House Theatre, The Farm Beneath the Water and The Jasmine Green Series for younger readers.

The Infernal World of Branwell Brontë


Daphne du Maurier - 1960
    As a bold and gifted child, his promise seemed boundless to the three adoring sisters over whom his rule was complete. But as an adult, the precocious flame of genius distorted and burned low. With neither the strength nor the resources to counter rejection, unable to sell his paintings or publish his books, Branwell became a spectre in the Bronte story, in pathetic contrast with the astonishing achievements of Charlotte, Emily and Anne. This is the biography of the shadowy figure of the "unknown" Bronte.

The New Annotated Sherlock Holmes: The Complete Short Stories


Arthur Conan Doyle - 2004
    Klinger's brilliant new annotations of Sir Arthur Conan Doyle's classic Holmes short stories in 2004 created a Holmes sensation. Inside, readers will find all the short stories from The Return of Sherlock Holmes, His Last Bow and The Case-Book of Sherlock Holmes, with a cornucopia of insights: beginners will benefit from Klinger's insightful biographies of Holmes, Watson, and Conan Doyle; history lovers will revel in the wealth of Victorian literary and cultural details; Sherlockian fanatics will puzzle over tantalizing new theories; art lovers will thrill to the 450-plus illustrations, which make this the most lavishly illustrated edition of the Holmes tales ever produced. The New Annotated Sherlock Holmes illuminates the timeless genius of Arthur Conan Doyle for an entirely new generation of readers.

The Great Fire of London


Peter Ackroyd - 1982
    In his first novel, which is essentially a rewrite of LITTLE DORRIT, Ackroyd's story involves a modern filmmaker (with the very literary name of Spenser Spender) who is trying to make a film of Dickens's novel, set in a London prison. The project becomes the focus of the interests of a colorful--and very Dickensian--collection of characters. As in all Ackroyd's novels, his first effort makes the city of London into something like a major character in the tale.

Ghost Stories


M.R. James - 1931
    R. James wrote his ghost stories to entertain friends on Christmas Eve, and they went on to both transform and modernise a genre. James harnesses the power of suggestion to move from a recognisable world to one that is indefinably strange, and then unforgettably terrifying. Sheets, pictures, carvings, a dolls house, a lonely beach, a branch tapping on a window ordinary things take on more than a tinge of dread in the hands of the original master of suspense.

The House in the Clouds


Victoria Connelly - 2021
    The only trouble is that businessman, Edward Townsend, has exactly the same idea.With its position high on the Sussex Downs, Winfield is a stunning house, but it hasn’t been a home for a long time and there’s a lot of work to do to restore it to its former glory. It’s going to take a lot of time and money, so Edward and Abi decide to take a risk and share the house, each living in their own wing. But can these two strangers agree on a vision that suits them both? And will free-spirited Abi ever get the rather reserved Edward to reveal the secret he’s been hiding for so long?The House in the Clouds is the first novel in a brand new trilogy from the bestselling author of The Rose Girls and The Book Lovers series.

Lavengro


George Borrow - 1851
    According to the author lav-engro is a Romany word meaning "word master". The historian G.M. Trevelyan called this "a book that breathes the spirit of that period of strong and eccentric characters".Its protagonist, whose name is never mentioned, is born the son of an officer in a militia regiment and is brought up in various barrack towns in England, Scotland and Ireland. After serving an apprenticeship to a lawyer he moves to London and becomes a Grub Street hack, an occupation which gives him ample opportunities to observe London low-life. Finally he takes to the road as a tinker. At various points through the book he associates with Romany travellers, of whom he gives memorable and generally sympathetic pen-portraits. Lavengro was followed by a sequel, The Romany Rye. Neither of the two books is self-contained. Rather, Lavengro ends abruptly with chapter 100, and carries on directly in the The Romany Rye. Thus both need to be read together, in order.

Loss and Gain


John Henry Newman - 1848
    Loss and Gain, his first novel, tells the story of a young man's search for faith in early Victorian Oxford. This edition is the first one to appear ineighty years.

A Private Place


Amanda Craig - 1991
    With its progressive curriculum, complacent staff and beautiful grounds, it looks like Paradise. But the clever, the odd and the bookish are relentlessly persecuted as pupils make their own rules in a bubble of privilege and prejudice. When Alice, the Headmaster?s intellectual step-daughter, and the much-expelled American millionaire Winthrop T Sheen join forces against the school bully, Grub Viner, a gifted pianist and school ?joker?, has to choose between love and loyalty, and black comedy escalates to murder. Savagely funny, compelling and a cult classic, A Private Place has struck a chord with generations. `A viciously clever satire on progressive schools... Will cause distress in liberal circles? Independent `Bitingly funny and horribly accurate? Daily Telegraph `A genuinely gripping novel? Spectator `Craig writes with ruthless honesty and jet black wit? Cosmopolitan

Rye's Reprieve


Louella Nelson - 2016
    But saving people is second nature, whether its doctoring a man mauled by a mountain lion or battling a wolf to save a child.Veterinarian and horse rancher Missouri Harper, the sole support for her three sisters and ailing aunt, must fight her attraction to the handsome miner, whose bravery puts her in his debt. To keep the land she has claimed for her family, she must remain a spinster for three years.Struggling against bitter winter weather, lack of provisions, and wild predators, Missouri vows to deny her love to protect her sisters’ legacy.

Sunday Dinners


Jon Rance - 2015
    Staying that way is an entirely different story. From the bestselling author of This Thirtysomething Life, Happy Endings and This Family Life, comes a comedy drama about parenthood, marriage, love, life and roast dinners. Perfect for fans of Mike Gayle, Matt Dunn and David Nicholls. The Wilde family have always had a roast dinner on Sundays. Greg Wilde made sure of it. Him, his wife, Lizzy, and their three children around the table; for years it was the glue that held them together. But now with the children all grown up and moving out, and Greg and Lizzy’s marriage facing an uncertain future, their lives are becoming increasingly unstuck. Greg soon begins to realise that creating a happy family is one thing, but staying that way is an entirely different story. Told from each of the family's perspectives at their monthly Sunday roast dinners, this is a bittersweet comedy about parenthood, marriage, love, life and roast dinners.

Fabiola: Or, The Church of the Catacombs


Nicholas Wiseman - 1854
    Due to its age, it may contain imperfections such as marks, notations, marginalia and flawed pages. Because we believe this work is culturally important, we have made it available as part of our commitment for protecting, preserving, and promoting the world's literature in affordable, high quality, modern editions that are true to the original work.

Sleeping Partner


James Humphreys - 2000
    The innocent little girl dragging her toy spade through the rippled sand, now the woman who killed her lover . . .’ A gripping courtroom thriller, seen through the eyes of the accused. Clarissa Morland is twenty-seven, attractive, shy – and standing trial for the murder of her ex-lover John Grant. John was shot at dawn as he answered the door of his isolated farmhouse. But Clarissa has no memory of this. All she can remember is being cut free from the wreckage of her car that same morning, after what looks like a frantic getaway. As intimate details of her life and relationship are laid bare for the court, even Clarissa finds it hard to believe she is innocent. But murdering the man she loved in cold blood? She’s just not that evil – is she? Praise for Sleeping Partner: 'A splendid debut in crime fiction.' - Colin Dexter James Humphreys grew up in Cambridgeshire, in a village on the edge of the Fens with its own fair share of local passions and simmering feuds. He has travelled as a sales rep in Latin America and negotiated environment legislation in Brussels. Now he works at 10 Downing Street and lives in north London with his wife and baby daughter.

Angel Meadow: Victorian Britain's Most Savage Slum


Dean Kirby - 2016
    In the shadow of the world's first cotton mill, 30,000 souls trapped by poverty are fighting for survival as the British Empire is built upon their backs.Thieves and prostitutes keep company with rats in overcrowded lodging houses and deep cellars on the banks of a black river, the Irk. Gangs of 'scuttlers' stalk the streets in pointed, brass-tripped clogs. Those who evade their clutches are hunted down by cholera and tuberculosis. Lawless drinking dens and a cold slab in the dead house provide the only relief from this filthy and frightening world.Former Manchester Evening News journalist Dean Kirby takes readers on a hair-raising journey through the alleyways, gin palaces and underground vaults of the nineteenth century Manchester slum considered so diabolical it was re-christened 'hell upon earth' by Friedrich Engels in 1845. Enter Angel Meadow if you dare..