Showing results by narrator "Lucy Rayner" in All Categories

Etta's happy with her simple life in the mill, but when her aunt passes and leaves her a very peculiar cat, everything goes awry. Now, determined to find her place in the world, Etta's learning to hunt, having audiences with a king, and falling for a man who's keeping something from her. Beau's happy at sea until his father passes and leaves him with an odd last request. Now he's setting up shop in a small town, searching for ogres, and, inconveniently, falling for the miller's sister - who just happens to be taken with someone else. 

The moment Isabel de Rossi turns 18, she takes charge of Nimway Hall, which has stood empty for the past 10 years. Well-aware that all her female forebears found true love at Nimway, she can’t wait to discover her own destined match. Instead she’s faced with Adam Driscoll, the infuriatingly practical estate manager whose presence is a constant reminder that her own grandmother thinks she has no idea what she’s doing.

Jacqueline Tregarth, lady and guardian of Nimway Hall, is devoted to protecting her people, the Hall, the estate’s wood, and its farms. She yearns for a husband to help her meet the challenges, but all those seeking her hand are interested only in controlling her lands. With the estate’s stream running dry and summer looming, she sets men digging to reopen an old spring. Her workers discover a dirt-encrusted ornament buried at the spot; once removed, water flows and fills the old lake - and Jacqueline realizes the ornament is some kind of ancient orb.

No, no, no! It doesn't matter how many times the Duchess of Trent (The Harlow Hoyden) requests her help with a delicate matter regarding a patent for her sister's invention, Tuppence Templeton will not lend a hand. She has a habit, yes, of coming up with ingenious plans to solve other people's problems, and it is true that she's clever and daring enough to pull off the proposed scheme. But there's no way she's going to confront the arrogant and dismissive Earl of Gage again.

A Determined Highlander . . . Duncan MacConnoway, son of a powerful thane and used to getting his way in life, is desperate to wed the woman of his dreams. Her uncle, the wily Earl of Lochlann, demands that he fulfill three tasks that even Hercules would struggle to finish. Their love is all that lights his way through this dark labyrinth, that if only he can hang onto it long enough . . . The wise woman . . . Alina du Mas can see things that no one else believes, so she usually keeps her secrets to herself.

The new rich and compelling novel from the author of The Girl Who Came Home. Perfect for fans of Kate Morton and Rachel Hore. Dolly Lane is a dreamer; a downtrodden maid who longs to dance on the London stage, but the outbreak of war takes everything from her: Teddy, the man she loves – and...

Miss Charlotte Harrington knows what’s expected of her. Properly raised and newly reminded of her duties after the unexpected death of her far-more-perfect twin sister, Charlotte is resigned to wedding the son of a near neighboring land owner and live a sedate and proper, respectable life. But Charlotte’s high spirits will not be contained, and she yearns deeply for a life of adventure, excitement, and love.

A bloodied and bruised girl runs out of the woods and into the path of oncoming traffic. The police are shocked to discover that she's a missing schoolgirl they've been trying to find for the past three weeks. Traumatized by her ordeal, she's unable to tell them what happened to her. When the case involving the missing schoolgirl and the murdered woman is taken on by the newly-formed Murder Force, Detective Inspector Danica Summers is touched by the vulnerability of the victims and is determined to capture the monster who ruined their lives.

When Laurel West discovers her estranged sister Abby has checked herself into rehab and wants her to take care of her 14-year-old son, she doesn’t hesitate to step in. Abby was there for Laurel a long time ago, and she longs to be able to offer the same. However, as a single woman who still dreams of the fairy tale, Laurel isn’t prepared for teenaged Zac’s sullen moods or silent rage. When he’s expelled from school, she decides to take drastic measures and temporarily relocate them to her great aunt’s cottage on the windswept hills of the Orkney islands north of Scotland?

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING SERIES This gripping novel examines the life of one of Disney’s cruelest villains: the Evil Queen. Queen. She should be happy, but something about the mirror she was holding filled her with a horrid sense of dread that she could not account for… For anyone...

When an ominous warning spreads across the nation about a catastrophic solar storm, panic ignites. Within days, everything that depends on power will be gone. Lily has already lost once. Haunted by anxiety and tragedy, she’s barely holding her life together when the announcement hits. Her son, Alex, is miles away from home on a school trip—and as the countdown to impact begins, she faces an impossible journey through a country descending into chaos.

Blaine McNeil is the master-at-arms at Lochlann, set deep in the wild and mysterious Scottish Highlands, and he must defend his clan at all costs. When the woman he loves is taken captive by the evil McDonnell clan, he rides to rescue her. Chrissie Connolly, now a young woman, visits the home of her beloved cousins Amabel and Alina often, especially now that there are Amabel's bonny babes to visit. Chrissie is facing what seems to be her toughest decision - which suitor should she accept has her future husband? Heath Fraser, or the unsuitable but persistent Blaine MacNeil?

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLING SERIES This enchanting novel examines the tangled truths behind one of Disney’s most devious villains: Mother Gothel. Sometimes…she just let herself drift into other worlds—worlds she desperately wanted to inhabit. The world of magic. And this day was no...

Kids change your life, they said. Things will never be the same again, they said. Isn't it wonderful, they said. But no one knows what to say now. My husband wants to take the kids. My husband thinks the accident was my fault. My husband thinks I need help. But I think he wants rid of me.

Gil Truman has eyes only for the beautiful Tilly - until he is forced to marry plain, sickly Rose Davenport to reclaim the lands his father foolishly gambled away. After a disastrous wedding night tainted with his bitterness, he deposits Rose at his remote, Northumbrian estate, soothing his guilt with the thought that she need never lay eyes on him again. Five years after the mortifying wedding night that destroyed all her romantic fantasies, Rose is fed up with hearing second - and third - hand reports of Gil's philandering ways. She is no longer the shy, homely girl he left behind.

Earning the nickname Lady Agony was no minor achievement for Lady Agatha Bolingbroke. It required a great deal of effort to make herself so disagreeable, but she did it for a good cause: The fewer invitations she received, the more time she had to paint. Her mother, refusing to accept an unpopular daughter - or, worse, a talented one - insists on dragging her to every event of the season. To thwart her parents and to vent her frustration, Agatha creates a wicked alter ego: a caricaturist whose mocking illustrations take ruthless aim at the ridiculousness of the ton.

Orla has always been the sidekick, never the hero. Until, that is, she secures a funded place at an elite drama course and puts her own dreams first for once in her life. Suddenly, Orla is center-stage and loving it! But the drama crowd are experienced performers and their parents have shelled out a fortune for them to be on the course. Orla can't help but feel left out—she has to earn her pocket money and her responsibilities at home can't just be ignored.

England 1803: Lady Christina Beaumont, daughter to the Earl of Whickerton, is on a mission. A mission to protect her best friend from being forced into a marriage that would see her delicate heart broken and her sensibilities shocked. Deep in debt, Lord Hartmore agreed to marry his daughter to a scoundrel. A man who grew up far from London's high society.

The London summer of 1854 is drawing to a close when a deadly outbreak of cholera grips the city. Florence Nightingale is back on the scene marshaling her nurses to help treat countless suffering patients at Middlesex Hospital as the disease tears through the Soho slums. But beyond the dangers of the disease, something even more evil is seeping through the ailing streets of London. It begins with an attack on the carriage of Florence's friend, Elizabeth Herbert, wife of Secretary at War Sidney Herbert. Elizabeth survives, but her coachman does not.

Alexandra Hayden, the current guardian of Nimway Hall, is badly in need of funding to repair the crumbling estate. American Robert Curtis has just arrived to take possession of the estate next to Nimway and his newly inherited title Viscount Brynmore. Alexandra needs money, and Robert could use a well-connected wife. Marriage would benefit both of them. But each has been having romantic dreams about the other, and a marriage of convenience could turn out to be anything but. And even on an estate filled with magic, it’s not always easy to recognize love is the greatest magic of all.