Historical Romance Thriller

Cavalry captain Gabriel Lacey returns to Regency London from the Napoleonic wars, burned out, fighting melancholia, his career ended. His interest is piqued when he learns of a missing girl, possibly kidnapped by a prominent member of Parliament. Lacey's search for the girl leads to the discovery of murder, corruption, and dealings with a leader of the underworld.

London, September 1666. The Great Fire rages through the city, consuming everything in its path. Even the impregnable cathedral of St. Paul's is engulfed in flames and reduced to ruins. Among the crowds watching its destruction is James Marwood, son of a disgraced printer and reluctant government informer. In the aftermath of the fire, a semi-mummified body is discovered in the ashes of St. Paul's, in a tomb that should have been empty. The man's body has been mutilated, and his thumbs have been tied behind his back.

Having long abandoned any hope of making a match, 26-year-old Beatrice Hyde Clare finds herself a little overwhelmed by her engagement to the Duke of Kesgrave. Cloying society matrons clamor for her attention while her aunt reels off an endless list of servants she will have to oversee. Even the most intrepid female would quake at the prospect of managing eight footmen! Fortunately, Bea knows the perfect distraction - an intriguing mystery - and pays a call on the Countess of Abercrombie, who had promised her that very thing only the evening before.

In 1969, Jake Cazalet saved the life of a Frenchwoman in Vietnam, and a brief, passionate affair ensued. Years later in Paris, he was introduced to another beautiful young woman - his daughter. For many reasons, their relationship remained a secret.

Summer 1764. Alec and Selina anxiously await the birth of their first child at their estate in Kent. It should be a time of family celebration, but the death of a young poacher has Alec investigating murder. And when renovations to his sprawling manor unearth a secret burial chamber, a shocking family secret comes to light. Everything Alec thought he knew about his birth is again called into question, and with it the special bond with his irascible uncle Plantagenet.

While attending the Chicago World's Fair in 1893, Winnifred Wylde believes she witnessed a woman being kidnapped. She tries to convince her father, an inspector with the Chicago police, to look into reports of mysterious disappearances around the White City. Inspector Wylde tries to dismiss her claims as exaggeration of an overactive imagination, but he eventually concedes to letting her go undercover as secretary to the man in question - if she takes her pistol for protection and Jude Thorpe, a policeman, for bodyguard.

Since the death of his first wife, Godric St. John has devoted his nights to protecting the innocent of London disguised as the notorious Ghost of St. Giles. When Lord Griffin Reading discovers Godric's secret double life he presents him with an offer he can't refuse, and Godric finds himself married to a young - and pregnant - stranger. Two years ago Lady Margaret "Megs" Reading lost both her lover and her unborn child - but not before being forced into a marriage of convenience with Godric St. John....

Guilt and desire battle within Hughe, Lord Oxley’s, soul. When the enigmatic leader of the Assassin’s Guild learns that the widow of one of his targets is at the mercy of a cruel man, he does the only thing left in his power to do. He marries her. Then the worst thing happens. He falls in love with her. With more than one person trying to kill him and a family to rescue, Hughe needs the help of all his Assassins Guild friends to stay alive and keep his wife from learning the truth. Because he knows, and dreads, what will happen when she discovers what he did.

Private Jake Elliott was apprehensive as he walked to the commander’s office. He couldn’t think of a single transgression that would have attracted the major’s attention. When he left the command building 10 minutes later, he was still numbed by the short visit. Tomorrow, he would no longer be a cavalryman, but would be returning to the family ranch outside of Fort Benton in Montana Territory. But it was the reason he was being discharged before his enlistment expired that had been the biggest shock.

Gareth Fitzallen is celebrated for four things: his handsome face, his notable charm, his aristocratic connections, and an ability to give the kind of pleasure that has women begging for more. Normally he bestows his talents on experienced, worldly women. But when he heads to Langdon's End to restore a property he inherited - and to investigate a massive art theft - he lays plans to seduce a most unlikely lady.

Captain Gabriel Lacey travels with Lady Breckenridge to his boyhood home in northern Norfolk only to discover mysterious happenings in and around the Lacey estate. A young woman, cousin of an old friend, has gone missing, strange objects appear in Lacey's ruined house, and the dark windmills on the marshes keep pulling Lacey to them.

The Sherbrooke family saga continues with James and Jason Sherbrooke, identical male twins who look exactly like their beautiful Aunt Melissande, and not at all like their father, the earl, which riles him no end.

She's braved battlefields. She's stolen dispatches from under the noses of heads of state. She's played the worldly courtesan, the naive virgin, the refined British lady, even a Gypsy boy. But Annique Villiers, the elusive spy known as the Fox Cub, has finally met the one man she can't outwit... British spymaster Robert Grey must enter France and bring back the brilliant, beautiful - and dangerous - Fox Cub. His duty is to capture her and her secrets for England.

Miraculously spared from death, Malcolm Sinclair erases the notorious man he once was. Reinventing himself as Thomas Glendower, he strives to make amends for his past, yet he never imagines penance might come via a secretive lady he discovers living in his secluded manor. Rose has a plausible explanation for why she and her children are residing in Thomas's house, but she quickly realizes he's far too intelligent to fool. Revealing the truth is impossibly dangerous, yet day by day he wins her trust, and then her heart.

Scotland, 1831. After a tumultuous courtship complicated by three deadly inquiries, Lady Kiera Darby is thrilled to have found both an investigative partner and a fiancé in Sebastian Gage. But with her well-meaning - and very pregnant - sister planning on making their wedding the event of the season, Kiera could use a respite from the impending madness. Commissioned to paint the portrait of Lady Drummond, Kiera is saddened when she recognizes the pain in the baroness' eyes.

Argyll, Scotland. July 1832. After a trying few months in Edinburgh, Kiera and her husband and investigative partner, Sebastian Gage, are eager to escape to the Highlands with their three-month-old child. Kiera is overjoyed for her cousin Rye and her friend Charlotte, who are being wed in a private ceremony at the estate of Rye's great-uncle, the Marquess of Barbreck, in what seems to be the perfect wedding party. But when Kiera is invited to peruse Barbreck's extensive art collection, she is disturbed to discover that one of his most priceless paintings seems to be a forgery.

The Pink Carnation, history's most elusive spy and England's only hope for preventing a Napoleonic invasion, returns in Lauren Willig's dazzling, imaginative new historical romance. The Masque of the Black Tulip opens with the murder of a courier from the London War Office, his confidential dispatch for the Pink Carnation stolen.

In the year 1311, in the highest tower of Cloud of Sparrows Castle, a beautiful woman watches as enemies gather below. As she calmly awaits her fate, she begins to write the secret history of the Okumichi clan...of the gift of prophecy they share and the extraordinary destiny that awaits them.

Lauren Willig continues the exciting series with her fourth novel, The Seduction of the Crimson Rose, featuring Lord Vaughn, the delightfully devilish spy from The Masque of the Black Tulip, and Mary Alsworthy, the raven-haired beauty whose sister accidentally stole her suitor in The Deception of the Emerald Ring.

For several years, time and circumstance have managed to separate Hallie Knight and her old friend Susan Trench. But when Susan disappears from her grandfather's seaside home on historic Topsail Island, it is Hallie whom Nicholas Trench calls for help. Wealthy, ill, and irascible, he refuses to believe that his beloved granddaughter and the heir to his fortune has been lost to him.