Historical Authors

Living in London's poorest slum, Mercy Wilkins has little hope of a better life. When she's offered an opportunity to join a bride ship sailing to British Columbia, she agrees. After witnessing so much painful heartache and loss in the slums, the bride ship is her only prospect to escape a bleak future, not only for herself but, she hopes, someday for her sister. Wealthy and titled Joseph Colville leaves home and takes to the sea - as ship's surgeon - in order to escape the pain of losing his family. When Mercy becomes his assistant, the two must fight against a forbidden love.

"The dead can't hurt you. Only the living can." Effie Jones, a former slave who escaped to the Union side as a child, knows the truth of her words. Taken in by an army surgeon and his wife during the War, she learned to read and write, to tolerate the sight of blood and broken bodies - and to forget what is too painful to bear. Now a young freedwoman, she has returned south to New Orleans and earns her living as an embalmer, her steady hand and skillful incisions compensating for her white employer's shortcomings.

In this Regency romance, Kleypas, the author of Seduce Me at Sunrise, tells the story of a scandalous beauty with no memory of who she is and the man determined to unravel the secrets of her past.

Young. Ravishing. Exquisitely marriageable. From the moment he spies Lady Morgan Bedwyn across the glittering ballroom, Gervase Ashford, Earl of Rosthorn, knows he has found the perfect instrument of his revenge. But wedlock is not on the mind of the continent's most notorious rake. Nor is it of interest to the fiercely independent Lady Morgan herself...until one night of shocking intimacy erupts in a scandal that could make Gervase's vengeance all the sweeter.

Mary Elizabeth Chapman boards the Speedwell in 1620 as a Separatist seeking a better life in the New World. William Lytton embarks on the Mayflower as a carpenter looking for opportunities to succeed - and he may have found one when a man from the Virginia Company offers William a hefty sum to keep a stealth eye on company interests in the new colony. The season is far too late for good sailing and storms rage, but reaching land is no better as food is scarce and the people are weak.

When Bea Sinclaire's scapegrace brother begs her help to rescue a maiden from a haunted castle, she seizes the chance for adventure. If only Lord Peter "Tip" Cheriot didn't insist on coming along. How can she maintain a clear head in the face of danger when Tip is so utterly, deliciously distracting? Then an alluring ghost makes Bea a shocking offer, and he won't take no for an answer.

A brutal attack on Emily Stanton's family has left her for dead...until she is found in the woods by a handsome stranger with a thick brogue who vows to protect her. There's only one problem: As a woman with a noble English background, she has no business keeping company with such a man. For Scotsman Iain MacEnroy, Emily's high-tone accent is a bitter reminder of the oppressive regime he left behind. The last thing he needs is to be burdened by the needs of a beautiful, blue-eyed Englishwoman.

From the hallowed halls of London's Almack's to the unkempt taverns of Drury Lane, from whispered words in glittering theaters to seductive kisses at Vauxhall Gardens - an earl must pursue his lady. Propriety be damned. Anything is allowed. But for success, the Earl of Kelmarsh may have to enact the Rules of the Rogue....

In 1972, when workers in Pottstown, Pennsylvania, were digging the foundations for a new development, the last thing they expected to find was a skeleton at the bottom of a well. Who the skeleton was and how it got there were two of the long-held secrets kept by the residents of Chicken Hill, the dilapidated neighborhood where immigrant Jews and African Americans lived side by side and shared ambitions and sorrows. Chicken Hill was where Moshe and Chona Ludlow lived when Moshe integrated his theater and where Chona ran the Heaven & Earth Grocery Store.

All of London is abuzz over the imminent arrival of Wulfric Bedwyn, the reclusive, cold-as-ice Duke of Bewcastle, at the most glittering social event of the season. Some whisper of a tragic love affair. Others say he is so aloof and passionless that not even the greatest beauty could capture his attention. But on this dazzling afternoon, one woman did catch the duke's eye - and she was the only female in the room who wasn't even trying.

Thrice wedded, but never bedded, Mathilde Martindale has long lived in the shadow of her indomitable mother, and meekly done as she was told. Until one day she decides to become mistress of her own destiny and leave the royal court to find her own path.

Lady Arabella Danvers is happy with her life just the way it is. She is free to be herself and take care of broken and abandoned animals. Her mother is desperate for her to marry, and has decided to take things into her own hands. There is just one little problem with her plan.

Wrongly accused of murdering his father, Drake Thornton MacDougall wanted nothing more than to strike back at his guilty, duplicitous half brother. So he made the fiend pay by abducting his bride-to-be. But as Drake carried his captive off to a windswept Scottish isle, he soon found that vengeance wasn't the only thing on his mind. Lady Averyl Campbell proved herself no biddable maiden but an alluring, strong-willed beauty who could tame his dark moods with her touch.

Millions of fans of Little House on the Prairie believe they know Laura Ingalls - the pioneer girl who survived blizzards and near-starvation on the Great Plains, and the woman who wrote the famous autobiographical books. But the true story of her life has never been fully told. Now, drawing on unpublished manuscripts, letters, diaries, and land and financial records, Caroline Fraser masterfully fills in the gaps in Wilder's biography.

Ireland, 1845. To Briana Walsh, no place on earth is more beautiful than Carrowteige, County Mayo. The small farms that surround the centuries-old Lear House are managed by her father, agent to the wealthy, reckless Sir Thomas Blakely. Tenant farmers sell the oats and rye they grow to pay rent to Sir Thomas, surviving on the potatoes that flourish in the remaining scraps of land. But when the potato crop falls prey to a devastating blight, families Briana has known all her life are left with no food, no resources, and no mercy from the English landowner.

The last time New Orleans attorney Jean-Luc Valmont saw Maribel Cordoba, a Spanish nobleman's daughter, she was an 11-year-old orphan perched in the riggings of his privateering vessel proving herself as the best lookout on his crew. Until the day his infamy caught up with them all, and innocent lives were lost. Unsure why he survived, but vowing to make something of the chance he was given, Jean-Luc has buried his past life so deep that no living person will ever find it - until a very much alive and very grown-up Maribel Cordoba arrives on his doorstep.

In When Christ and His Saints Slept, the first of a trilogy that will tell the story of Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine, master storyteller and historian Sharon Kay Penman illuminates one of the less known but fascinating periods of English history. It begins with the death of King Henry I, son of William the Conqueror and father of Maude, his only living legitimate offspring.

An absolutely amazing debut novel from Katharine Ashe, an exceptional new voice in historical romance, Swept Away by a Kiss is the first book in an exciting new series - the story of a society jade who thinks she's done it all until she meets the devil himself. Piracy, intrigue, rogue lords with a dangerous secret...can love unmask the masters of masquerade?

With his laughing eyes and wild, rakish good looks, Lord Rannulf Bedwyn is a hard man to resist. To Judith Law, a woman in need of rescue when her stagecoach overturns, Rannulf is simply her savior, a heroic stranger she will reward with one night of reckless passion before she must become a companion to her wealthy aunt. Imagine Judith's shock when the same stranger turns out to be among England's most eligible bachelors, and when he arrives at Harewood Grange to woo her cousin.

When Lady Serena Boyce's husband, the elderly duke of Warrington, could not give her an heir, he begged her to take a lover in order to conceive a child. She never dreamed it would mean falling in love. One look at the handsome stranger who rescued her from a thief and virginal Serena was overcome with desire. Dark and compelling, Lucien Clayborne, marquess of Daneridge, was everything her honor warned her against. Yet before the night was through, she had gifted him with her innocence. Then the duke was murdered, and Lucien discovered that Serena was pregnant.