Historical Letters

At odds with love, Matthew Northcott has firmly decided that he will never marry, much to the dismay of his relatives . . . and nearly every young lady he meets. Rather than seek a marriage for himself, he attempts to find matches for others, grateful to see that love is not entirely cruel—just cruel to him. When a letter arrives from Matthew's friend Jack, asking an immense favor from him, Matthew undertakes a new challenge: Find a husband for Jack's spinster sister, Miss Cassandra Warwick, before the end of the season.

1940. Cora Mayhew came to Paris to search for her birth mother and stayed to work for the resistance movement. When Cora's train is struck by Nazi bombs, the only thoughts on her mind as she staggers from the wreckage are to escape to return to her family, and to post the heart-wrenching letter clutched in her hand. Then a German soldier finds and saves Cora. Max Heller is nothing like she would have expected: kind, good-humoured and selfless. Cora can't help falling in love with him as he helps to plot her escape.

1951. Esther Durrant, a young mother, is committed to an isolated mental asylum by her husband. Run by a pioneering psychiatrist, the hospital is at first Esther's prison but soon surprisingly becomes her refuge. 2018. Free-spirited marine scientist Rachel Parker embarks on a research posting in the Isles of Scilly, off the Cornish coast. When a violent storm forces her to take shelter on a far-flung island, she discovers a collection of hidden love letters.

The time is the early 1800s, and the British Navy stands as the only bulwark against the militant fanaticism of Napoleonic France. Captain Jack Aubrey, R.N., a brilliant and experienced officer, has been struck off the list of post-captains for a crime he did not commit...

A short, angst-free novella that occurs in the months after Hunsford. Darcy, realizing his mistakes, confesses his misdeeds to Bingley earlier, even before Elizabeth has the chance to visit Pemberley. As a result, Bingley returns to Hertfordshire in June, while Darcy retreats to Pemberley to reflect on his actions.

Flesh and Blood paints a stark portrait of a southern family torn apart during the Civil War and reunited by the bonds of blood and sacrifice as Jack and his sister Abigail in an salacious tale of forbidden love, loyalty and survival struggle to save their farm and keep a buried treasure out of the hands of the crumbling Confederacy.

Late on a frozen February evening, a young woman is running through the streets of London. Having fled from her abusive boyfriend and with nowhere to go, Jess stumbles onto a forgotten lane where a small, clearly unlived in old house offers her best chance of shelter for the night. The next morning, a mysterious letter arrives and when she can't help but open it, she finds herself drawn inexorably into the story of two lovers from another time.

When Louisa Deasey receives a message from a Frenchwoman called Coralie, who has found a cache of letters in an attic, written about Louisa’s father, neither woman can imagine the events it will set in motion. The letters, dated 1949, detail a passionate affair between Louisa’s father, Denison, and Coralie’s grandmother, Michelle, in post-war London. They spark Louisa to find out more about her father, who died when she was six.

Long, lonely years have passed for the crumbling Château Clement, nestled well beyond the rolling lavender fields and popular tourist attractions of Provence. Once a bustling and dignified ancestral estate, now all that remains is the château's gruff, elderly owner and the softly whispered secrets of generations buried and forgotten. But time has a way of exposing history's dark stains, and when American photographer Cady Drake finds herself drawn to the château and its antique carousel, she longs to explore the relic's shadowy origins.

Orphaned and alone in antebellum New Orleans, Fiona Riley promises a dying friend she will raise the woman's child as her own. But without a job and a roof over their heads, Fiona fears for their lives. When a letter arrives announcing that relatives in a bayou town are searching for their long-lost cousin, Fiona finds the answer to her prayers, even if it means deceiving others to survive. Emile Dugas knew she was lying the moment he set eyes on Fiona Riley, an Irish immigrant trying to pose as his distant Cajun cousin. But how could he resist?

Lady Ludmilla Windmere is mortified. The spinster extraordinaire has fallen in love with her best friend, and that cannot be. The problem? She hasn't met him. Not once. For they have only ever corresponded by letter. When she sets out to uncover his identity, her world shatters. For Addy turns out to be none other but London's worst rake. Adrian St. Addington is perturbed. The rakehell extraordinaire is developing a marked tendre for a spinster, and that cannot be. The problem? She might be mistaking him for someone he is not. Or, what is worse, know precisely who he is.

When faced with an unwanted marriage, Alice Rosemeyer accepts an invitation to the estate of Larkhall. Determined to earn her future security without a husband, she begins operating as the anonymous Ace of Hearts, writing letters and offering advice on behalf of the men eager to secure a match at the close of the London season. If she can manage to keep her identity secret, her reputation intact, and avoid the arrogant house guest, Mr. Thomas Herring, she might just call herself successful.

In the summer of 1905, Katherine Arthur's mother arrives on her doorstep, dying, forcing her to relive a past she wanted to forget. When Katherine was young, the Arthur family had been affluent city dwellers until shame sent them running for the prairie, into the unknown. Taking her family, including young Katherine, to live off the land was the last thing Jeanie Arthur had wanted, but she would do her best to make a go of it. For Jeanie's husband, Frank, it had been a world of opportunity. Dreaming, lazy Frank.

Thirty-five Letters is a compilation of found letters written by a mother to her absent son. Spanning from 1972 to the spring of 1980, these letters offer insight into the world of a wife and mother who is trying desperately to keep her life on track and family intact.

Who exactly is Danziger? He's a writer of letters for illiterate immigrants on Manhattan's Lower East Side - "a steadfast practitioner of concealing and forgetting" for his clients, and perhaps for himself: He hints at a much worldlier past. What and whoever he really is or has been, he has a seemingly boundless knowledge of the city and its denizens. And he knows much more than the mere identity of the floating corpse.

The Scarlet Letter, Nathaniel Hawthorne’s, magnum opus, tells the story of Hester Prynne, who gives birth two years after separation from her husband and is condemned to wear the scarlet letter A on her breast as punishment for her adultery. She resists all attempts of the 17th century Boston clergy to make her reveal the name of her child’s father while she struggles to create a new life of repentance and dignity.

Portofino, Italy, 1943. A young woman steps off a boat in a scenic coastal village. Although she knows how to disappear in a crowd, Elodie is too terrified to slip by the German officers while carrying her poorly forged identity papers. She is frozen until a man she's never met before claims to know her. In desperate need of shelter, Elodie follows him back to his home on the cliffs of Portofino.

A seven-volume collection containing some of the most fascinating journals and letters to have been written in the last two hundred and fifty years, all performed in a dramatised setting.

Becky Nelson fled her childhood home and risked irreparable damage to her relationship with her only sister for an independent life in Kansas. The bookish bachelorette had no sooner settled in the Sunflower State when her path crossed with Henry, a ruggedly handsome farmer. The draft selects the seemingly untouchable Henry, and the couple rushes to make their union permanent before the war carries him to far-off lands. As the days turn to months, their letters give Becky and Henry the strength to go on as he serves his country, and she shares their home with an unlikely guest.

When shy and bookish Gavin Hartford is sent to London, he is prepared to be very bored and very lonely. But after he accidentally forms an acquaintance with dashing man-about-town Charles Kentworthy, his life is turned completely upside down. As Gavin opens up to Mr. Kentworthy - discussing poetry and magic, confessing his fears about marriage, and expanding his social circle to shocking proportions - he finds himself far outside his comfort zone. Will he have the courage to face his own growing feelings for his new friend?