But young Mary Yellan chose instead to honor her mother's dying request that she join her frightened Aunt Patience and huge, hulking Uncle Joss Merlyn at Jamaica Inn.From her first glimpse on that raw November eve, she could sense the inn's dark power. But never did Mary dream that she would become hopelessly ensnared in the vile, villainous schemes being hatched within its crumbling walls—or that a handsome, mysterious stranger would so incite her passions... tempting her to love a man whom she dares not trust.

    But fate imprisons her after she encounters Sheik Abu, the strikingly handsome though arrogant adventurer, whom she had known in England as Philip Caxton.Once Christina had rejected Philip's fervent offer of marriage. But now she is to be his slave -- desperate for the freedoms denied her...yet weakened by her heart's blazing desire to willingly explore her virile captor's most sensuous cravings.

    Laurel expects the pain might lessen but does not foresee the beguiling man she meets or that they’ll go to Paris, where the city’s magic will take over and alter everything Laurel believes about love.Thirty years later, Laurel’s daughter Annie is newly engaged and an old question resurfaces: who is Annie’s father and what happened to him? Laurel has always been vague about the details and Annie’s told herself it doesn’t matter. But with her impending marriage, Annie has to know everything. Why won’t Laurel tell her the truth?The key to unlocking Laurel’s secrets starts with a mysterious book about an infamous woman known as the Duchess of Marlborough. Annie’s quest to understand the Duchess, and therefore her own history, takes her from a charming hamlet in the English countryside, to a decaying estate kept behind barbed wire, and ultimately to Paris where answers will be found at last.

    Tate Beaumont has a passion for treasure-hunting. Over the years, she and her father have uncovered many fabulous riches, but one treasure has always eluded them: Angelique’s Curse—a jeweled amulet heavy with history, dark with legend, and tainted with blood. In order to find this precious artifact, the Beaumonts reluctantly form a partnership with salvagers Buck and Matthew Lassiter. As the Beaumonts and Lassiters pool their resources to locate Angelique’s Curse, the Caribbean waters darken with shadowy deceptions and hidden threats. Their partnership is placed in jeopardy when Matthew refuses to share information—including the truth behind his father’s mysterious death. For now, Tate and Matthew continue their uneasy alliance—until danger and desire begin to rise to the surface…

    This incredible portrait of Erik--the Phantom--recreates his entire life, from his survival as a child in a carnival freak show to his creative genius behind the Paris Opera House--and its labyrinthine world below--to his discovery of love.

    Since the death of her mother and brother, Ella Winterton's life has been consumed by keeping her drunkard father out of trouble and the roof of their crumbling cottage over their heads. But even isolated deep in the Norfolk broads, Ella has never been afraid of the marshes surrounding her home, despite their being riddled with treacherous bogs and local smugglers. Until one night a man masquerading as a Lantern Man—a frightening figure of local legend—waylays her in the marshes near her home, and her world suddenly begins to spiral out of control.Ella can tell her friends and the local villagers are all hiding something terrible, something they refuse to share, and she can’t help but wonder if it has to do with the Lantern Man and his secret activities in the shadows of the seemingly quiet broads. But when Ella’s father is caught with smuggled brandy by the authorities and levied a crippling fine, she is forced to turn to the stranger for help, despite her distrust and his alarming ability to kiss her senseless.Now she must unravel a twisted trail of deception and secrets, and uncover once and for all whether the Lantern Man is friend or foe. Or else risk being dragged down into the marshes, like the victims from the myth, and buried in a watery grave.

    

    Evert Haan, grown wealthy on black-market trading, sent to Holland for Annabet. When she arrived racked by rheumatic fever, he ordered her killed. But Annabet lived to recover her health and beauty and to find a dangerous love with an Englishman.

    As an expert in her field, she must trace the history of each painting and discover who has concealed them for so long.Thrown in amongst the glamorous Vermeil family as they move between Paris and Antibes, Flora begins to discover that things aren't all that they seem, while back at home her own family is recoiling from a seismic shock. The terse and brooding Xavier Vermeil seems intent on forcing Flora out of his family's affairs - but just what is he hiding?

    Testing chemicals in his lab, he drinks a mixture he hopes will isolate - and eliminate - human evil. Instead it unleashes the dark forces within him, transforming him into the hideous and murderous Mr. Hyde.The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde dramatically brings to life a science-fiction case study of the nature of good and evil and the duality that can exist within one person. Resonant with psychological perception and ethical insight, the work has literary roots in Dostoevsky's "The Double" and Crime and Punishment. Today Stevenson's novella is recognized as an incisive study of Victorian morality and sexual repression, as well as a great thriller.This collection also includes some of the author's grimmest short fiction: "Lodging for the Night," "The Suicide Club," "Thrawn Janet," "The Body Snatcher," and "Markheim."

    As they unlock the past, the women remember the things that tie them together.

    Eight hundred years earlier, on the eve of a brutal crusade that will rip apart southern France, a young woman named Alais is given a ring and a mysterious book for safekeeping by her father. The book, he says, contains the secret of the true Grail, and the ring, inscribed with a labyrinth, will identify a guardian of the Grail. Now, as crusading armies gather outside the city walls of Carcassonne, it will take a tremendous sacrifice to keep the secret of the labyrinth safe.

    Fanny knew then that Adam felt as she did about the strange events at Darkwater. Even before the sudden death of the old Chinese amah, she had sensed a chill of menace in the atmosphere. Now there was real peril in the mists and fogs that beshrouded the ancient English estate. There was danger...especially for Fanny -- ravishing, lovely young Fanny -- who was too curious and headstrong for her own good...

    Almost immediately he sets about beguiling the three women and five teenage girls stranded in this outpost of Southern gentility, eliciting their love and fear, pity and infatuation, and pitting them against one another in a bid for his freedom. But as the women are revealed for what they really are, a sense of ominous foreboding closes in on the soldier, and the question becomes: Just who is the beguiled?

    ripe plot twists... a fine supporting cast" – Ocala Star-Banner.Now, with more than fourteen million books in print and seven New York Times bestsellers, Judith McNaught brings us her latest, most enthralling novel... Remember When When multinational tycoon Cole Harrison approached her on a moonlit balcony at the White Orchid Charity Ball, Diana Foster had no idea how extraordinary the night ahead would be. The most lavish social event of the Houston season had brought out American aristocracy, Texas-style, in glittering array. So, after losing her fiancé to a blond Italian heiress and reading about it in a sleazy gossip paper, the lovely Diana felt obliged to make an appearance — if only to save face and to bolster her company's image.Foster's Beautiful Living magazine was her family's success story, and Diana knew that, single, childless, and suddenly "unengaged", she was not living up to its lucrative image of upscale domestic tranquility.A woman of gentle grace and kindness, Diana deeply valued her privacy and her dignity, both of which were at risk that night among certain rumor-driven socialites. And now the pride of Dallas billionaires, Cole Harrison, was closing in on her with two crystal flutes and a bottle of champagne...The tall, lithe former stableboy couldn't negotiate his way out of a contract with his crusty uncle, Cal — he had to bring home a wife, and soon, or see Cal's share of the business Cole had created go to an undeserving relative. A man as coolly analytical as he was arrestingly attractive, Cole decided that his bride-to-be should be rich in her own right, meltingly beautiful, and a woman of impeccable character... Diana Foster!It was the perfect to their respective dilemmas, and, after a lot of champagne for Diana and some skilled persuasion from Cole, their lips met in a long, slow, bargain-sealing kiss. Neither one dared imagine that a match made in logic's heaven might be headed straight for an unexpected, once-in-a-lifetime love...