Book picks similar to
The Enchanted Isle by D.E. Stevenson


fiction
romance
historical-fiction
scotland

The Butterscotch Bride


Parker J. Cole - 2020
    A story of love and sacrifice in the years before the War that devastated the country.A young enslaved girl, singled out and favored by her mistress, arrives to a new plantation when tragedy strikes the household.An enslaved man, recaptured twice after escaping his bondage, bides his time until he can escape again.Their paths will collide as they meet and destiny will be changed as they fight for both freedom and love.**This is the prequel to the upcoming release of A Groom for Altar, Book 7 of The Blizzard Brides series**

The Ticket


Heather Grace Stewart - 2016
    In a gutsy last minute move, Pete goes on social media asking for women with his girlfriend's exact name to apply to join him on the trip. Twenty-one women apply, and the ensuing interview process is both awkward and hilarious. When he finally chooses a feisty, headstrong, recently-divorced lawyer, he has no idea what to expect from their world wide adventures - and neither does Allie James. She has pretty much sworn off men since her divorce. Will either of them get the vacation they were so desperately hoping for?

Abraham Lincoln


James M. McPherson - 2009
    It is the best concise introduction to Lincoln in print, a must-have volume for anyone interested in American history or in our greatest president.Best-selling author James M. McPherson follows the son of Thomas Lincoln and Nancy Hanks from his early years in Kentucky, Indiana, and Illinois, to his highly successful law career, his marriage to Mary Todd, and his one term in Congress. We witness his leadership of the Republican anti-slavery movement, his famous debates with Stephen A. Douglas (a long acquaintance and former rival for the hand of Mary Todd), and his emergence as a candidate for president in 1860. Following Lincoln's election to the presidency, McPherson describes his masterful role as Commander in Chief during the Civil War, the writing of the Emancipation Proclamation, and his assassination by John Wilkes Booth. The book also discusses his lasting legacy and why he remains a quintessential American hero two hundred years after his birth, while an annotated bibliography permits easy access to further scholarship.With his ideal short account of Lincoln, McPherson provides a compelling biography of a man of humble origins who preserved our nation during its greatest catastrophe and ended the scourge of slavery.

The Waverly Novels: The Betrothed


Walter Scott - 1825
    The action takes place in the Welsh Marches during the latter part of the reign of Henry II, after 1187. Eveline, the 16-year-old daughter of Sir Raymond Berenger, is rescued from a Welsh siege by the forces of Damian Lacy. She is betrothed to his uncle, Sir Hugo, who leaves on a crusade. Rebels led by Ranald Lacy attempt to kidnap her, and Damian fights them off, but a confused sequence of events convinces the King that she and her beloved are in league against him.

I Wish


Elizabeth Langston - 2014
    What she gets is a genie with rules. Lacey Linden has gotten good at hiding the truth of her life—a depressed mom, a crumbling house, and bills too big to pay. In school, she's a girl with a ready smile and good grades, but at night, Lacey spends her time dreaming up ways to save her family. On a get-cash-quick trip to the flea market, she stumbles over a music box that seemingly begs her to take it home. She does, only to find it is inhabited by a gorgeous "genie." He offers her a month of wishes, one per day, but there's a catch. Each wish must be humanly possible. Grant belongs to a league of supernatural beings, dedicated to serving humans in need. After two years of fulfilling conventional wishes, he's one assignment away from promotion to a new job with more challenging cases. His month with Lacey is exactly what he expects and nothing like he imagines. Lacey and Grant soon discover that the hardest task of all might be saying goodbye. "Langston wisely limits the power of wishes, so there can be no easy fixes to complex problems...putting the focus on the compelling and sympathetic characters." --School Library Journal

The Adventures of Sally


P.G. Wodehouse - 1922
    A trip to England only made things worse, but then a piece of speculation might just offer a happy ending.

Frenchman's Creek


Daphne du Maurier - 1941
    She finds the passion her spirit craves in the love of a daring French pirate who is being hunted by all of Cornwall.Together, they embark upon a quest rife with danger and glory, one which bestows upon Dona the ultimate choice: sacrifice her lover to certain death or risk her own life to save him.

Past Imperfect


Julian Fellowes - 2008
    He lives alone in a big house in Surrey, England, looked after by a chauffeur, butler, cook and housemaid. He has but one concern—his fortune in excess of 500 million pounds, and who should inherit it on his death. Past Imperfect is the story of a quest. Damian Baxter wishes to know if he has a living heir. By the time he married in his late thirties he was sterile (the result of adult mumps), but what about before that unfortunate illness? Had he sired a child? He sets himself (and others) to the task of finding his heir.

Lady Chatterley's Lover


D.H. Lawrence - 1928
    Lawrence's frank portrayal of an extramarital affair and the explicit sexual explorations of its central characters caused this controversial book, now considered a masterpiece, to be banned as pornography until 1960.

The Dust That Falls from Dreams


Louis de Bernières - 2015
    But their days of childhood innocence and adventure are destined to be followed by the apocalypse that will overwhelm their world as they come to adulthood.For Rosie, the path ahead is full of challenges: torn between her love for two young men, her sense of duty and her will to live her life to the full, she has to navigate her way through extraordinary times. Can she, and her sisters, build new lives out of the opportunities and devastations that follow the Great War?Louis de Bernières’ magnificent and moving novel follows the lives of an unforgettable cast of characters as the Edwardian age disintegrates into the Great War, and they strike out to seek what happiness can be salvaged from the ruins of the old world.

Mansfield Park


Jane Austen - 1814
    During her uncle's absence in Antigua, the Crawford's arrive in the neighbourhood bringing with them the glamour of London life and a reckless taste for flirtation. Mansfield Park is considered Jane Austen's first mature work and, with its quiet heroine and subtle examination of social position and moral integrity, one of her most profound.

Precious Bane


Mary Webb - 1924
    Set in Shropshire in the 1800s, it is alive with the many moods of Nature, benevolent and violent and the many moods -- equally benevolent and violent -- of the people making lives there. Prue Sarn is an unlikely heroine, born with a facial disfiguration which the Fates have dictated will deny her love. But Prue has strength far beyond her handicap, and this woman, suspected of witchcraft by her fellow townspeople, rises above them all through an all-encompassing sweetness of spirit. Precious Bane is also the story of Gideon, Prue's doomed brother, equally strong-willed, but with other motives. Determined to defeat the poverty of their farm, he devotes all his energies to making money. His only diversion from this ambition, he abandons her for the stronger drive of his money lust. And finally, it is the story of Kester Woodseaves, whose steady love for all created things leads him to resist people's cruelty toward nature and each other, and whose love for Prue Sarn enables him to discern her natural loveliness beneath her blighted appearance. Rebecca West, a contemporary of Mary Webb, called her, simply, "a genius," and G. K. Chesterton, another contemporary, asserted: "the light in the stories . . . is a light not shining on the things but through them." Critic Hilda Addison summed up Precious Bane: "The book opens with one of those simple sentences which haunt the mind until the curiosity has been satisfied . . . It strikes a note which never fails throughout; it opens with a beauty which is justified to the last sentence." When the book was first published in 1926 in America, the New York Times Book Review predicted: " on some bookshelves, we feel sure, Precious Bane will find almost a hallowed place."

Mariana


Monica Dickens - 1940
    For that is what it is: the story of a young English girl's growth towards maturity in the 1930s. We see Mary at school in Kensington and on holiday in Somerset; her attempt at drama school; her year in Paris learning dressmaking and getting engaged to the wrong man; her time as a secretary and companion; and her romance with Sam. We chose this book because we wanted to publish a novel like Dusty Answer, I Capture the Castle or The Pursuit of Love, about a girl encountering life and love, which is also funny, readable and perceptive; it is a 'hot-water bottle' novel, one to curl up with on the sofa on a wet Sunday afternoon. But it is more than this. As Harriet Lane remarks in her Preface: 'It is Mariana's artlessness, its enthusiasm, its attention to tiny, telling domestic detail that makes it so appealing to modern readers.' And John Sandoe Books in Sloane Square (an early champion of Persephone Books) commented: 'The contemporary detail is superb - Monica Dickens's descriptions of food and clothes are particularly good - and the characters are observed with vitality and humour. Mariana is written with such verve and exuberance that we would defy any but academics and professional cynics not to enjoy it.'

No Fond Return of Love


Barbara Pym - 1961
    The novel has a delicate tangle of schemes and unfulfilled dreams, hidden secrets and a castle or two. Told wonderfully in the deadpan honesty that has become a Pym hallmark, this book is a delight.

The Ivy Tree


Mary Stewart - 1961
    There had been a third, but Annabel Winslow had died four years ago - so when a young woman calling herself Annabel Winslow comes 'home' to Whitescar, Con Winslow and his half-sister Lisa must find out whether she really is who she says she is.