Orphans England

Maeve Merritt chafes at the rigid rules at her London boarding school for “Upright Young Ladies.” When punishment forces her to sort through the trash, she finds a sardine tin that houses a foul-tempered djinni with no intention of submitting to a schoolgirl as his master. Soon an orphan boy from the charitable home next door, a mysterious tall man in ginger whiskers, a disgruntled school worker, and a take-no-prisoners business tycoon are in hot pursuit of Maeve and her magical discovery.

1823 - The story begins in a small pauper's cottage in Dorset. Hannah disobeying her father, leaves home to become a kitchen maid at the grand mansion, Croxton Hall. Francis, the handsome heir to the estate, takes an interest in the pretty maid. Flattered by his attention, Hannah loses her head to love. Believing that Francis will defy conventions and make her his own one day. Francis's true interest are the beautiful identical twins, the wealthy well-born Cavendish sisters. Disgraced and broken hearted, Hannah seeks refuge at home but her father refuses to house her and she is homeless. ...

1984. Bessie is a confident sixteen-year-old girl with the world at her feet, dreaming of what life will bring and what she’ll bring to this life. Then everything comes crashing down. Her bright and trusting smile is lost, banished by shame - and a secret she’ll carry with her for the rest of her life. 2021. The last thirty-seven years have not been easy for Bess. At fifty-three she is visibly weary, and her marriage to Mario is in tatters. Watching her son in newlywed bliss - the hope, the trust, the joy - Bess knows it is time to face her own demons.

Hauntingly read by Justin Avoth. 'Robert Dinsdale mixes history and mythology with great panache . . . Richly textured and with an appropriately labyrinthine plot, this is a book that explores the monster inside man — and vice versa. Book of the Month' Sunday Times Man or monster? Hero or...

When her loving, free-spirited grandmother Primrose passes away, Victoria is bereft, yet resilient - she has survived tragedy before. But even her strength is tested when a mysterious woman attends Prim's funeral and claims to be the mother Victoria thought was dead. As the two women get to know each other and Victoria begins to learn more about her past, it becomes clear that her beloved grandmother had been keeping life-changing secrets from her. Desperate for answers, she still struggles to trust anyone to tell her the truth.

One wonderful day in the city of romance, then they say goodbye. What could possibly go wrong? American graduate student Zoe Gallagher is in Paris on Valentine's Day, determined to prove that romance is an illusion and love based on it doesn’t last. Though when she meets Gabe Ross, there to fulfil his mother’s dying wish by placing a lovelock on a bridge for her and his father, even she finds it hard to resist the most romantic city in the world on the most romantic day of the year. The impulsive challenge to try a psychological experiment isn't part of her research plan. Especially ...

Annabel Grey is primed for a proper life as a young lady in Victorian England. But when her mother suddenly disappears, she's put in the care of two eccentric aunts who thrust her into a decidedly unladylike life, full of potions and flying broomsticks and wizards who eat nothing but crackers. Magic, indeed! Who ever heard of such a thing?

In 1903, Rose Harsent, a maid of all work at Providence House, Peasenhall, Suffolk, was stabbed to death and her throat slit from ear to ear. A local pastor, suspected of being the father of her unborn child, was arrested and tried twice for the murder, acquitted both times by a hung jury. No other suspect was ever found, until the Spittlefields orphans and their friends took on the case.

Orphans of Empire tells the story of what happened to the thousands of children who were raised at the London Foundling Hospital, Coram's brainchild, which opened in 1741 and grew to become the most famous charity in Georgian England. It provides vivid insights into the lives and fortunes of London's poorest children, from the earliest days of the Foundling Hospital to the mid-Victorian era, when Charles Dickens was moved by his observations of the charity's work to campaign on behalf of orphans.

As a bogler's apprentice, 10-year-old Birdie has faced down plenty of monsters lurking in the chimneys, wells, and other dark places of Victorian London. She serves as bait, singing sweetly to lure the bogles out so her master, the well-seasoned Go-Devil Man Alfred Bunce, can kill them with his trusty spear. Enter the wealthy folklorist Miss Eames, who is determined to find more scientific ways of drawing out the monsters, and Birdie fears that her livelihood may be threatened by the well-meaning lady.

The Prodigal Returns… Rian Becket, believed killed at Waterloo, reluctantly returns to Becket Hall a year after the battle, maimed in body as well as spirit, and determined never to let life touch him, hurt him, again. But Not Alone… Beautiful, mysterious Lisette Beatty befriended Rian a month after he was injured, and has been his nurse, lover, and constant companion ever since, setting herself up as indispensable to the man, shielding him from his nightmares, helping him write his stories and poems. …In A World Of Strangers The reclusive Beckets do not easily accept strangers into ...

Beware the reluctant bridegroom... Spencer Becket was only eight when he arrived in Romney Marsh as part of the mysteriously displaced Becket family. The son of a seaman and a mother who’d died in childbirth, he grew up longing to be a soldier. His adoptive father reluctantly purchased him a commission, and Spence was off to fight in America, chockfull of passion and ideals. He returned home older, perhaps wiser, but also with one small patch of his memory inconveniently missing. Beware the compromised bride... Mariah Rutledge is the daughter of a British officer killed during a losing ...

Morgan Becket became one of Ainsley Becket’s family of orphans when her sailor father buttoned his pants and got up from the bed of her prostitute mother, who later sold her to Ainsley. The price, a single gold coin and a bottle of gin. To please Ainsley, the fairly volatile Morgan travels to London to acquire some Town Bronze and enjoy a Season. Setting the exotically beautiful, high-spirited Morgan Becket loose on the London marriage mart is a gamble that can end either in triumph or complete disaster, as Morgan believes she can never be better than the circumstances of her birth, and ...

When Love Comes First... Cassandra Becket has loved her adopted brother Courtland all of her life. He could tease her, he could exasperate her … but now she is a woman grown, and he can no longer pretend to ignore her. When Love Comes Last... Courtland Becket had set himself up as the protector of the other orphans when he was little more than a boy. As such, he is determined to withstand the growing attraction he feels for Ainsley’s only child by blood, believing it to be a betrayal of his adoptive father. But Cassandra isn’t making it easy for him. When Enemies Collide... Who is ...

Caroline Monday knows better than to trust the dark and dangerous Morgan Blakely, Marquis of Clayton and England's infamous spy. Plotting revenge against a powerful enemy, Morgan will stop at nothing to secure Caroline's help — even claiming that she's a long-lost heiress and not the penniless orphan she'd thought herself. Yet as she's drawn into a world of old grudges and long-buried secrets, where the past is unraveled and the future uncertain, Caroline yearns to believe Morgan's words ... and to give in to a desire that's stronger than her fear ...

The Beckets More than a decade ago, the Beckets, an insular family of accumulated orphans and their patriarch, Ainsley, established themselves in an enormous, nearly fortress-like mansion they constructed on the wild and beautiful coast of Romney Marsh. Nobody bothered them, and they invited no one into their orbit. A Man With A Mission The oldest orphan is Chance Becket, once a pickpocket and wharf rat on an island near Jamaica, now transported to the wilds of Romney Marsh. Determined to forget who he was in favor of the man he is determined to become, he departs Romney Marsh for the ...

Abandoned at birth, little Mercy Hanley shows a fierce determination few others can match. Her inner fire burns brightly, even in the harsh conditions of turn-of-the-century Birmingham. For behind Mercy's pale and haunting face, there is a mind of steel, as her harsh foster mother, Mrs Gaskin...

Read by the author, Eliza Morton. Full of nostalgia and set against a backdrop of the Festival of Britain and the aftermath of the Second World War, The Children Left Behind is a gritty, emotional, heartwarming and uplifting saga. 1940, Liverpool When Alice Lacey was seven, she and her two best...

His Bid For Adventure When Bonaparte escapes Elba, Rian Becket sees his chance to at last prove himself his own man and not simply a part of the reclusive Becket family. He seeks adventure, the thrill of battle, and yes, his own place in the world. Her Reckless Pursuit Fanny Becket has adored her adopted brother since the day they both lost their parents and became part of the Beckets of Romney Marsh. Where he goes, she goes, even if that means placing herself in the line of fire. The Reluctant Conspirator Valentine Clement, Earl of Brede, has seen his share of fighting and knows there is ...

Eleanor Becket is the glue that holds the wild, adventurous, at times reckless Beckets together, even if she believes herself to be the least interesting or exciting person in the world. Some may aspire to be a lady, and some, it seems, are simply born to it, whether they want to be or not. Who would expect fragile Eleanor, with her quiet ways and her unfortunate limp, to be anything more than she seems? But this adopted daughter has secrets gentleman turned smuggler Jack Eastwood believes connected to a long-ago crime. His discoveries ultimately lead them both to the very edge of desire ...