A terrible sacrifice. A second chance... 1952. In the fragile atmosphere of post-war Paris, Sophie Bernot is training as a heart surgeon. A young woman in a man's world, Sophie is determined to bury her past and forge her medical career, whatever the costs.Across the channel, Sebastian Ogilvie is burning with ambition for his first architectural project. As his schemes lead him to France, and to a chance encounter with Sophie, his future seems full of promise.But when Sophie and Sebastian find themselves entangled in a brief, passionate affair, they each face a choice that will change their lives irrevocably, and a secret that will take years to be uncovered... Sweeping from Paris to London, to the snow-capped peaks of the Alps, this is an unforgettable story of passion, heartache and forgiveness. Perfect for fans of Santa Montefiore and Lucinda Riley

    Only one person knows the truth: Adrienne Beauvier, granddaughter of the Comte de Challembelles and cousin to the man who built the castle.Clairvoyant from the time she could talk, Adrienne’s visions show her the secrets of those around her. When her visions begin to reveal dark mysteries of her own aristocratic French family, Adrienne is confronted by her formidable Aunt Marie, who is determined to keep the young woman silent at any cost. Marie wrenches Adrienne from her home in France and takes her to America, to Miramont Castle, where she keeps the girl isolated and imprisoned. Surrounded by eerie premonitions, Adrienne is locked in a life-or-death struggle to learn the truth and escape her torment.Reminiscent of Daphne du Maurier’s Rebecca, this hauntingly atmospheric tale is inspired by historical research into the real-life Miramont Castle in Manitou Springs, Colorado.

    Too young to die, too tough to care Morgan heads west chasing rumors of the Pikes Peak gold rush and grows up much too early along the way.

    Frontiersman and adopted Shawnee, Jeremiah Ring, promises to guide Clare through the wilderness and help her recover Jacob. Once they reach the Shawnees and discover Jeremiah's own Shawnee sister, Rain Crow, has taken custody of Jacob--renaming him Many Sparrows--keeping his promise becomes far more complicated, the consequences more wrenching, than Jeremiah could have foreseen.

    but who was this woman who became one of the most famous sculptresses of all time? In these pages, her tumultuous and amazing story comes to life as only Michelle Moran can tell it. The year is 1788, and a revolution is about to begin.Smart and ambitious, Marie Tussaud has learned the secrets of wax sculpting by working alongside her uncle in their celebrated wax museum, the Salon de Cire. From her popular model of the American ambassador, Thomas Jefferson, to her tableau of the royal family at dinner, Marie's museum provides Parisians with the very latest news on fashion, gossip, and even politics. Her customers hail from every walk of life, yet her greatest dream is to attract the attention of Marie Antoinette and Louis XVI; their stamp of approval on her work could catapult her and her museum to the fame and riches she desires. After months of anticipation, Marie learns that the royal family is willing to come and see their likenesses. When they finally arrive, the king's sister is so impressed that she requests Marie's presence at Versailles as a royal tutor in wax sculpting. It is a request Marie knows she cannot refuse - even if it means time away from her beloved Salon and her increasingly dear friend, Henri Charles. As Marie gets to know her pupil, Princesse Élisabeth, she also becomes acquainted with the king and queen, who introduce her to the glamorous life at court. From lavish parties with more delicacies than she's ever seen to rooms filled with candles lit only once before being discarded, Marie steps into a world entirely different from her home on the Boulevard du Temple, where people are selling their teeth in order to put food on the table. Meanwhile, many resent the vast separation between rich and poor. In salons and cafés across Paris, people like Camille Desmoulins, Jean-Paul Marat, and Maximilien Robespierre are lashing out against the monarchy. Soon, there's whispered talk of revolution... Will Marie be able to hold on to both the love of her life and her friendship with the royal family as France approaches civil war? And more important, will she be able to fulfill the demands of powerful revolutionaries who ask that she make the death masks of beheaded aristocrats, some of whom she knows? Spanning five years, from the budding revolution to the Reign of Terror, Madame Tussaud brings us into the world of an incredible heroine whose talent for wax modeling saved her life and preserved the faces of a vanished kingdom

    For those who want the best, Flemish lace is the only choice, an exquisite perfection of thread and air. For those who want something they don’t have, Flemish lace can buy almost anything–or anyone.For Lisette, lace begins her downfall, and the only way to atone for her sins is to outwit the noble who now demands the impossible. To fail means certain destruction. But for Katharina, lace is her salvation. It is who she is; it is what she does. If she cannot make this stunning tempest of threads, a dreaded fate awaits.The most lucrative contraband in Europe, with its intricate patterns and ephemeral hope, threatens to cost them everything. Lace may be the deliverance for which they all pray... or it may bring the ruin and imprisonment they all fear.

    She hears escape.Once in France, April quickly learns the apartment is not merely some rich hoarder's repository. Beneath the cobwebs and stale perfumed air is a goldmine, and not because of the actual gold (or painted ostrich eggs or mounted rhinoceros horns or bronze bathtub). First, there's a portrait by one of the masters of the Belle Epoque, Giovanni Boldini. And then there are letters and journals written by the very woman in the painting, Marthe de Florian. These documents reveal that she was more than a renowned courtesan with enviable decolletage. Suddenly April's quest is no longer about the bureaux plats and Louis-style armchairs that will fetch millions at auction. It's about discovering the story behind this charismatic woman.It's about discovering two women, actually.With the help of a salty (and annoyingly sexy) Parisian solicitor and the courtesan's private diaries, April tries to uncover the many secrets buried in the apartment. As she digs into Marthe's life, April can't help but take a deeper look into her own. Having left behind in the States a cheating husband, a family crisis about to erupt, and a career she's been using as the crutch to simply get by, she feels compelled to sort out her own life too. When the things she left bubbling back home begin to boil over, and Parisian delicacies beyond flaky pâtisseries tempt her better judgment, April knows that both she and Marthe deserve happy finales.Whether accompanied by croissants or champagne, this delectable debut novel depicts the Paris of the Belle Epoque and the present day with vibrant and stunning allure. Based on historical events, Michelle Gable's A Paris Apartment will entertain and inspire, as readers embrace the struggles and successes of two very unforgettable women.

    The name strikes terror in the Parisian underworld of 1818. As founder and chief of a newly created plainclothes police force, Vidocq has used his mastery of disguise and surveillance to capture some of France’s most notorious and elusive criminals. Now he is hot on the trail of a tantalizing mystery—the fate of the young dauphin Louis-Charles, son of Marie-Antoinette and King Louis XVI. Hector Carpentier, a medical student, lives with his widowed mother in her once-genteel home, now a boardinghouse, in Paris’s Latin Quarter, helping the family make ends meet in the politically perilous days of the restoration. Three blocks away, a man has been murdered, and Hector’s name has been found on a scrap of paper in the dead man’s pocket: a case for the unparalleled deductive skills of Eugène François Vidocq, the most feared man in the Paris police. At first suspicious of Hector’s role in the murder, Vidocq gradually draws him into an exhilarating—and dangerous—search that leads them to the true story of what happened to the son of the murdered royal family. Officially, the Dauphin died a brutal death in Paris’s dreaded Temple—a menacing black tower from which there could have been no escape—but speculation has long persisted that the ten-year-old heir may have been smuggled out of his prison cell. When Hector and Vidocq stumble across a man with no memory of who he is, they begin to wonder if he is the Dauphin himself, come back from the dead. Their suspicions deepen with the discovery of a diary that reveals Hector’s own shocking link to the boy in the tower—and leaves him bound and determined to see justice done, no matter the cost. In The Black Tower, Bayard deftly interweaves political intrigue, epic treachery, cover-ups, and conspiracies into a gripping portrait of family redemption—and brings to life an indelible portrait of the mighty and profane Eugène François Vidocq, history’s first great detective.

    The life we know and another one, that lies waiting for us. Alice is a “nose”—a creator of perfumes. She is passionate about her work and her only distraction from her job is her motley group of friends, who convene for late night soirees in her apartment—much to the annoyance of her cantankerous neighbor Mr. Daldry. On Christmas Eve 1950, something happens that will change Alice's life forever: during an outing to Brighton with her friends, a fortune teller makes a mysterious prediction about Alice's future. Alice has never believed in soothsayers but she cannot stop thinking about the old woman's words. “The most important man in your life was walking behind you a few moments ago. To find him, you will have to undertake a long journey and meet six people who will lead you to him. You have two lives in you, Alice. The life you know and another one, which is waiting for you…” From then on her nights are plagued with nightmares that are as real as they are incomprehensible. Alice's neighbor, Mr. Daldry, notices the unrest that the fortune teller provokes in Alice. For reasons he will not reveal, Daldry encourages Alice to take the predictions seriously and convinces her to set off to find the six people who will shape her fate. To make sure that Alice does not change her mind, the eccentric bachelor even agrees to accompany her on the journey… The Strange Journey of Mr. Daldry takes us into the heart of Europe in the 1950s, into lives that are haunted by the demons of a recent past. It's a story of friendship and things left unsaid, personified above all by Mr. Daldry, an unforgettable character who is as passionate as he is restrained, as serious as he is funny, as reliable as he is surprising.“One of Marc Levy’s best novels to date.” - Le Figaro“Another success for Marc Levy.” - L'ExpressOne of France’s bestselling authors, Marc Levy’s novels have been translated into 45 languages and over 28 million copies of his books have been sold worldwide.

    Shortly before Dee dies, she tells her son, Thomas, that she thinks her death is a punishment. Thomas, whose own emotional life is complicated, tries to piece together his parents' lives in order to make sense of his mother's words.

    I read it in one sitting and lost a night’s sleep over it. The novel is that good." -Walter F. Murphy, author of The Vicar of Christ From retired Marine Don McQuinn comes Targets. A Vietnam War novel unlike any other, this story will take you inside the counter-intelligence efforts in Saigon and give you a rare glimpse at the iconic conflict. Landing in Saigon in 1969, Marine Major Charles Taylor is faced with a city ravaged by decades of war. Its streets and alleyways teem with refugees, soldiers, and corruption. Soon after arrival, Taylor is recruited into a secretive counter-intelligence operation. His covert pursuit of a Viet Cong collaborator thrusts him deep into the dangerous underbelly of Saigon. He must quickly learn more about the tangled web of the Vietnam War than he ever thought possible. His survival depends on it. Can Taylor find his target and leave a mark on this impossible war without sacrificing his honor - or his life? Available in print and ebook for the first time since its original publication, Targets has been heralded as one of the best novels of the Vietnam War. The story will give you an intimate look at the lives and struggles of those involved, American and Vietnamese alike. Read Targets Today

    Now, amateur codebreaker Sara Thomas has been hired by a once-famous historian to crack the journal's cipher.But when she arrives in Paris, Sara finds herself besieged by complications from all sides: the journal's reclusive owner, her charming Parisian neighbor, and Mary, whose journal doesn't hold the secrets Sara expects. As Mary's tale grows more and more dire, Sara, too, must carefully choose which turning to take... to find the road that will lead her safely home.

    Since escaping his family’s notoriety in Australia Will Kidd has spent a decade sailing the seas, never looking back. Content to live the life of a wanderer, everything changes in a single moment when he comes face to face with a ghost from his past on a cloudy beach in Liverpool.The daughter of an abusive zealot, every step of Hannah Dawson's life has been laid out for her... until she meets Will by chance and is set on a new path. Their love is forbidden and forces on all sides divide them, but their bond is undeniable. Now, they will have to fight against all the odds to escape the chains of their histories and find their way back to one another. A compelling tale of family secrets and love against the odds, perfect for fans of Fiona Valpy and Gill Paul. Praise for Storms Gather Between Us 'Another great book by Clare Flynn’ Reader Review‘A really gripping and moving pre WWII story’ Reader Review‘I would recommend this book without hesitation’ Reader Review‘Very descriptive, immersive and well written. This book is guaranteed to make you turn each and every page.’ Reader Review‘I was totally gripped from the first page’ Reader Review

    If finding her mother Nellie in hospital after a savage beating from her husband wasn’t enough, Emily’s plight deepens when she yields to the advances of Tommy, a young soldier, and becomes pregnant with his child.Not for nothing is Victoria station nicknamed the ‘palace of tears’. As trainloads of men leave for the Western Front, and Emily says goodbye to Tommy, she is left contemplating the life of a single mother. Yet amidst the devastation, happiness still lies within her grasp… A classic saga of World War One, Palace of Tears is a perfect read for fans of Carol Rivers, Sally Warboyes, and Annie Murray.

    She soon escapes her fate for the loving arms of a wealthy young man, but misadventure and fate conspire to keep her from domestic bliss. Instead, Fanny discovers that sex need not be just for love; that it can be had for pleasure. She then sets out to explore those pleasures in as wide a variety as she can. With old men and young, and women as well; in positions of power, and situations where she has none; either watching or participating, Fanny's journey through the realms of sexual pleasure is a literary tour-de-force.