Historical Romance Families

How much would you gamble for love? Rufus Lovell has been thrust unexpectedly into riches and gained a new set of friends who delight in wagers and bets, with nothing too small or too big to gamble on - even marriage.

Clara held on to the precious button, glimmering like a jewel in the dark alleyways of London's notorious Seven Dials. She needed to save her family...but who was going to save her? There was a time when the Carter sisters' father was their hero. Now he's a drunk who's gambled away everything they had and put them all in peril. It's on Clara's shoulders to save the four sisters from destitution. Clutching her precious button box, the only thing of value they have left, Clara dreams of starting a shop that could put a roof over their heads and keep them safe....

Having been deceived by her father and her fiance, Jenefer Trevanion values honesty above all things. After losing her father and her home in a devastating fire, Jenefer supports herself by book-keeping for various businesses in the Cornish village of Porthinnis and acting as agent for the Guernsey merchants who supply local smugglers. But her independence appalls the village’s well-to-do families.

Gosport, 1941. Fourteen-year-old Vera has led a sheltered life with her overbearing mother. But her world is turned upside down with the arrival of the Lovell family. Vera quickly befriends the daughter, Angela, who opens Vera's eyes to what she has been missing. But Vera invites the unwanted attention of Angela's father, with devastating consequences. Outraged at the news that her teenage daughter is pregnant, Vera's mother sends her to a home for wayward girls.

Cornwall: 1793. Rose Pengelly's father has been ruined, plunging Rose and her mother into poverty and debt. There appears to be only one way out of their terrible circumstances; for Rose to marry Mr Tregellas, a powerful timber merchant. He has made his terms clear; either she marries him or faces homelessness and destitution. Desperate, Rose sets out to find evidence of Mr Tregellas's wrongdoing. In her search, she encounters a mysterious young sailor called Jim, who refuses to disclose his identity....

From the author of Comeback Love, a sweeping, panoramic tale of 20th-century America, chronicling the decades-long love affair between a Jewish immigrant and the granddaughter of a slave. Julian Rose is only 15 when he leaves his family and Germany for a new life in 1920s America. Lonely at first, he eventually finds his way - first by joining up with Longy Zwillman and becoming one of the preeminent bootleggers on the East Coast, and later by amassing a fortune in real estate.

Can she follow her dreams when she has lost everything? Young Bridie O'Hara is torn away from her native Ireland by her father - a freedom fighter turned traitor - when he has to flee the wrath of the republicans. Violated by those who should protect her and betrayed by her dashing gypsy lover, Seamus Finney, she struggles to find her way in Victorian England.

Temple Gordon is beautiful and proud, a Southern belle raised on her father's luxurious plantation. She is also a Cherokee. "The Blade" Stuart, an impulsive nearby landowner, is Cherokee as well. He and Temple share a passion for each other and a concern for their people. But while Temple wishes to protect the Cherokee way of life, The Blade seeks to save his people from death.

Northanger Abbey certainly contains some elements of 18th century Gothic “potboilers” but with a satiric slant. It has the overbearing father who was “not in the least addicted to locking up his daughters”, although her mother does not die giving birth to her, and the “heroine”, Catherine Morland, prefers playing cricket with her brothers to any girlish pastimes like watering rose bushes or feeding canaries. The book is a hilarious parody and certainly the most lighthearted of Austen's novels.

Set during and after the First World War, A Very Long Engagement is the tale of a young woman's search for her fiancé who she believes might still be alive despite having officially been reported as "killed in the line of duty." Unable to walk since childhood, fearless Mathilde Donnay is undeterred in her quest as she scours the country for information about five wounded French soldiers who were brutally abandoned by their own troops. A Very Long Engagement is a mystery, a love story, and an extraordinary portrait of life in France before and after the War.

A spurned son plots his revenge. Julian Fellowes's Belgravia is a story in 11 episodes published week-by-week in the tradition of Charles Dickens. Belgravia is the story of a secret. A secret that unravels behind the porticoed doors of London's grandest postcode. The story behind the secret will be revealed in weekly bite-sized installments complete with twists and turns and cliff-hanger endings. Set in the 1840s when the upper echelons of society began to rub shoulders with the emerging industrial nouveau riche, Belgravia is peopled by a rich cast of characters.

The final episode - but will justice prevail? Julian Fellowes's Belgravia is a story in 11 episodes published week-by-week in the tradition of Charles Dickens. Belgravia is the story of a secret. A secret that unravels behind the porticoed doors of London's grandest postcode. The story behind the secret will be revealed in weekly bite-sized installments complete with twists and turns and cliff-hanger endings. The story begins on the eve of the Battle of Waterloo in 1815. At the Duchess of Richmond's now legendary ball, one family's life will change forever...

Eva Gatsby has often wondered about her grandfather Lawrence's past, and exactly what happened to him in Burma during the Second World War. But it is only when Eva's job as an antiques dealer suddenly requires a trip to Mandalay that Lawrence finally breaks his silence and asks her to return a mysterious artefact of his own - a chinthe - to its rightful owner. As Eva arrives in Burma her mission soon proves dangerously complicated, and the treasure she is guarding becomes the centre of a scandal that will have far-reaching consequences.

Maggie Tulliver, whose father owns a mill perched on the banks of the River Floss, is intelligent and imaginative beyond the understanding of her community, her relatives, and particularly her brother Tom. Despite their opposite temperaments, Maggie and Tom are united by a strong bond. But this bond suffers when Tom's sense of family honor leads him to forbid her to associate with the one friend who appreciates her intelligence and imagination.

When 17-year-old Mary O'Connor collapses one Sunday in church she is taken to live with Dr Roberts and his wife in a beautiful Yorkshire village for her health. Though initially employed as a maid, Mary soon becomes the daughter the couple were never able to have. With Britain at war, unable to remain idle, Mary finds employment in the local steel works but when her fiancé Tom Downing is killed in action Mary is convinced it is retribution for their night of sin during Tom's Christmas leave.

An invitation to afternoon tea results in some startling revelations. Julian Fellowes's Belgravia is a story in 11 episodes published week by week in the tradition of Charles Dickens. Belgravia is the story of a secret. A secret that unravels behind the porticoed doors of London's grandest postcode. The story behind the secret will be revealed in weekly bite-sized installments complete with twists and turns and cliff-hanger endings.

One thing unites the wealthy Farthing family and hardworking Dilly Carey - Olivia, the daughter Dilly gave to the Farthings years before. Dilly is still living with the consequences when unmarried Olivia arrives on her doorstep, with a baby girl in tow, begging for help. Olivia has a secret she only feels safe telling Dilly. Sworn to secrecy, Dilly agrees to help. She will find a way for Olivia to keep her daughter without revealing the true circumstances of her birth.

Twenty-seven-year-old Kara Larson is bogged down in the stress of planning her elaborate wedding to a professional golfer. Still, to fulfill the requirements of the Palmetto Pointe Junior Society, she makes time in her busy schedule to visit an elderly woman at a nursing home facility. Soon she finds herself mesmerized by the singsong Irish lilt of 96-year-old Maeve Mahoney as Maeve recounts the rambling story of her first love back in Ireland.

As an illegitimate child, Frederica Bracewell was treated like a servant by her uncle. But when she encounters the new gamekeeper, shy Frederica starts to feel like a true lady....

After a debauched existence, Lord Robert Mountford revels in the simplicity of a gamekeeper's lifestyle. Until temptation strikes! Frederica is a far cry from the ladies of the ton, but she may just be his undoing...and unmasking!

Alice, an upper-class Londoner, is recruited into the Special Operations Executive and sent to Paris, where she meets Gertrude, an ex-prostitute working for the Resistance Movement. Together they discover that they have a connection to the same man, Ralph D'Olivier, and vow to unravel the mystery of his death. After narrowly escaping capture by the Germans, Alice is lifted out of France and taken to a hospital for wounded officers,where she meets Lil, a working-class Northern girl working as a nurse.