Showing results by narrator "Virginia Ferguson" in All Categories

When dashing Lord Umber rescued Felicia from the coach accident, he automatically assumed she was merely a wench for fun and games. He knew nothing about her aristocratic heritage. Neither did she, for the blow on her head had quite driven all memory away. But even though Felicia did not remember her past, she was not going to allow herself to be seduced by a glamourous young stranger.

In the Metfield of the 1930s, you could do all of your shopping without leaving the village, have a choice of pubs and "spend happy evenings helping to dig potatoes and listening to the old boys". If this sounds too idyllic to be true, Evelyn Whiting's charming memoir of growing up in this Suffolk community is quick to remind us that making a living from the land was hard and tedious work in those days. There was no electricity and water came from the sky, or from the pond.

Beautiful, fair-haired Helene Ambel was the hit of the London season, the epitome of a refined young heiress. But she preferred books, horses, and intellectual pursuits to the dances, parties, and simpering, overdressed, foolish men she could not take seriously. Helene was hungry for adventure. She found it by helping her friends Juliet and Nicholas, who wanted to marry.

Mary Wilson MacPherson has always been adept at putting the past behind her: her father's death, her sister's disappearance, and her complicated relationships with childhood friends Tom and Will. But that changes when, traveling to North Africa on business for her husband, Mary meets a handsome and mysterious French-Tunisian businessman who holds a package her husband has purchased - a package which has drawn the interest not only of Britain's Secret Intelligence Service, but the Nazis as well.

When Stella McKenzie is summoned to meet her Great Aunt Bess, her grandmother's sister, on the occasion of that lady's 100th birthday, she keeps the appointment with a great deal of trepidation. All her life she has been told about this mysterious lady, to whom her grandmother has not spoken since the First World War. She has been told that she is mean and spiteful, that she wrecked the engagement of her sister to the man she loved out of spite and jealousy.

Mr. Alistair Price, heir to the elderly Viscount Melton, arrived in London with his eight younger siblings in tow. He is charged with keeping his family name above reproach until the season starts and his sister, Miss Adeline Price, is presented to society - though that proves far more difficult than Alistair ever expected when he discovers his rebellious sister climbing down the side of their townhouse and scurrying off to Whitechapel for an archery tournament.

The slender young highwayman who held up Lord Raven's coach was shocked to discover he had made a terrible mistake. He turned and fled, but not before Lord Raven had put a bullet in his shoulder. It was then Raven's turn to be shocked. For the wounded highwayman turned out to be a beautiful young woman, the kind of woman the rakish Raven had been seeking all his life - Lady Tara. It was some time before Lady Tara could tell Raven the truth about this frightening masquerade.

As a young actress in a long-running TV show, Mai Rose's career path seemed clear. But she wants more. Already she's dumped the show and landed a role in a serious play, with serious actors and a more-than-serious director. And now another opportunity has arisen – a major fantasy film with a role that seems tailor-made for her. The only problem being that she's in competition with four other scheming actresses to win the role. Can she win the part? Does she want to win the part?

No heavy breathing, no verbal threats and yet the mysterious, oppressive silence on the telephone line is equally as frightening to Tessa. She knows that somehow these calls are linked to her past...perhaps to her daughter, Suzanne, and the dark secret which surrounds her birth. At least in Russell Davidson Tessa has found a friend she can trust, but the unexpected reappearance of his brother Richard is very disquieting. And she badly needs Detective Inspector Philip Anthony's professional assistance.

The last thing the Duke of Greystone wants is a wife, until the Lady Jane Blackmore seeks out his quiet corner of Earl Braxton's ballroom. But there she stands, attempting to shut out the rest of the world by simply closing her eyes, but the duke understands better than most that life is never that simple.

Love Mother Love Daughter is a twisted and compelling tale of a mother and daughter who are both under the spell of a bewitching gypsy flamenco guitarist, Romero. He steals their unsuspecting hearts and uses them to satisfy his deepest desires - and the power he craves. These two powerful females come to worship, adore and hate, him for the evil eternal triangle he has forced upon their lives.

In 17th-century France, Imogen, a theater performer from a hardworking family, desires an escape from her impoverished existence. Befriending thieves in the Court of Miracles results in using her acting talent to swindle and con, and Imogen becomes a pawn entangled in a plot to dethrone King Louis XIV. She forms an attachment with another pawn, a mysterious man, integral to the plan’s success.

Marika is a social worker trying to heal her drug addict clients, but she can't seem to mend her damaged self. She avoids love because love sits too close to death. Her choices have left her carefully ordered life a lonely, disconnected one. Everything is about to change. Big-hearted, quirky, emotionally walled-off Marika embarks on a plan that ultimately forces her to confront the very thing she's spent her life avoiding: love.

The painting and the woman, both hiding in plain sight. And a killer who targets both. Sarah Downing, an art conservator hiding in witness protection, identifies a lost masterpiece by Caravaggio. History says it burned in WWII Berlin, but here it is, on her easel. Someone betrays Sarah - an agent, a friend? Soon she is fighting to save the painting and herself.

Fenella Conyers, a distant Raynham connection, unexpectedly appears at Beaumatin, the ancestral home of the Barons Raynham, with a request and a gift. After a life spent roaming the globe, she wants to settle down in the Cotswolds and asks if her noble cousin has an empty cottage where she could stay until she can find her own place. The gift is an extremely rare snowdrop—a yellow “spiky” that Fenella mysteriously acquired in her travels and which she has named Mystic Mayhem.

Christina Georgina Rossetti is the youngest of four siblings in a close-knit, creative Anglo-Italian family. A spirited child like her brother, Pre-Raphaelite artist Dante Gabriel Rossetti, in adolescence she struggles with being sickly and depressed. She emerges "a dove on a solitary branch," realizing her voice through writing, most exceptionally poetry.

In the snow-kissed splendor of Regency England, a jaded lord with a scandalous past and a heartbroken lady determined to avoid love find themselves irresistibly drawn together in a chance meeting. Lady Eleanor Winthrop has sworn off marriage after a broken engagement. Her fierce independence and sharp wit are her shields against a world that has let her down. Lord Alexander Harrington, Marquess Rockingham, is a dashing rake with a reputation as notorious as it is scandalous.

Love. Passion. Duty. The ties that bind, but can they set you free? In the opulent world of 19th-century England, where reputation and decorum are everything, Lady Cecilia Harrington's heart beats to a different rhythm. As the Duke of Harrington's daughter, her life is mapped out with lavish balls, couture gowns, and an impending engagement to Lord Ashworth, London's most eligible bachelor. However, beneath the glimmering chandeliers and behind the velvet curtains, a forbidden romance begins to kindle.

Henry Dawson, sorcerer and apothecary assistant, works to support his mother and younger siblings after his father’s investments and consequent death leave them penniless. Invited to woo a reclusive heiress with magical empathy, he reluctantly accepts, despite a preference for earning his own way. Emma Ainsworth fears smallpox scars and her hypersensitivity to others’ thoughts make her ineligible for marriage. Sheltered by her aunt and uncle, she has withdrawn from most social life and wears a veil whenever she must go out.

David Brooks, Earl of Foxcroft had led a charmed life. Right up until his father died and he was forced to take responsibility for his family and the estates. His father had run the coffers nearly empty and it had been up to him to restore their fortune. He could have married an heiress, but felt that was a cowardly way out. Instead he built their fortune in a more scandalous way: by doing a trade and working. Now that he feels secure enough with his family's status he has decided to take a wife.