Answering a woman's desperate call for help, young Navy widow Helen Devries opens her Whidbey Island home as a refuge to Choi Eunhee. As they bond over common losses and a delicate, potentially devastating secret, their friendship spans the remainder of their lives.
After losing her mother, Cassidy Quinn spent her childhood summers with her gran, Helen, at her farmhouse. Nourished by her grandmother's love and encouragement, Cassidy discovers a passion that she hopes will bloom into a career. But after Helen passes, Cassidy learns that her home and garden have fallen into serious disrepair. Worse, a looming tax debt threatens her inheritance. Facing the loss of her legacy and in need of allies and ideas, Cassidy reaches out to Nick, her former love, despite the complicated emotions brought by having him back in her life.
Cassidy inherits not only the family home but a task, spoken with her grandmother's final breaths: ask Grace Kim―Eunhee's granddaughter―to help sort through the contents of the locked hope chest in the attic. As she and Grace dig into the past, they unearth their grandmothers' long-held secret and more. Each startling revelation reshapes their understanding of their grandmothers and ultimately inspires the courage to take risks and make changes to own their lives.
Set in both modern-day and midcentury Whidbey Island, Washington, this dual-narrative story of four women―grandmothers and granddaughters―intertwines across generations to explore the secrets we keep, the love we pass down, and the heirlooms we inherit from a well-lived life.
What do you do when you’ve got a degree in French and absolutely no job prospects? You slide into your favorite French bakery, of course! When a lighthearted conversation with the manager of the local patisserie turns into a job offer, Lexi Stuart gladly accepts. She’s put in charge of a high-end catering bakery, but there’s a catch: she has to make this lavish bakery into a successful business in just a few, short months. In over her head and at a loss for creative marketing ideas, Lexi can’t compose the perfect recipe for success.
Lexi Stuart is risking it all. Saying au revoir to the security of home, her job, and could-be boyfriend, Lexi embarks on a culinary adventure in France to fulfill her life dream of becoming a pastry chef.
Having earned her chef’s hat, Lexi Stuart bids au revoir to her glamorous and deliciously satisfying pastry mentorship to find life unexpectedly complicated.
Miss Eleanor Sheffield is a talented evaluator of antiquities, trained to know the difference between a genuine artifact and a fraud. But with her father's passing and her uncle's decline into dementia, the family business is at risk. In the Victorian era, unmarried Eleanor cannot run Sheffield Brothers alone. The death of a longtime client, Baron Lydney, offers an unexpected complication when Eleanor is appointed the temporary trustee of the baron's legendary collection. She must choose whether to donate the priceless treasures to a museum or allow them to pass to the baron's only living son, Harry?the man who broke Eleanor's heart. Eleanor distrusts the baron's motives and her own ability to be unbiased regarding Harry's future. Harry claims to still love her and Eleanor yearns to believe him, but his mysterious comments and actions fuel her doubts. When she learns an Italian beauty accompanied him on his return to England, her lingering hope for a future with Harry dims. With the threat of debtor's prison closing in, Eleanor knows that donating the baron's collection would win her favor among potential clients, saving Sheffield Brothers. But the more time she spends with Harry, the more her faith in him grows. Might Harry be worthy of his inheritance, and her heart, after all? As pressures mount and time runs out, Eleanor must decide whom she can trust?who in her life is false or true, brass or gold?and what is meant to be treasured.
In this intriguing novel of romance, mystery, and clever disguise set in Victorian England, a young woman investigates the murder of her own father. After the mysterious death of her father, Miss Gillian Young takes a new job as the principal costume designer at the renowned Theatre Royal, Drury Lane. But while she remembers her father as a kind, well-respected man of the Police Force, clues she uncovers indicate he'd been living a double life: a haunting photograph of a young woman; train stubs for secret trips just before his death; and a receipt for a large sum of money. Are these items evidence of her father's guilty secrets? His longtime police partner thinks so. Then Gillian meets the dashing Viscount Thomas Lockwood. Their attraction is instant and inescapable. As their romantic involvement grows, Gillian begins to suspect even Lockwood's motives. Does Lord Lockwood truly love her? Or is his interest a front for the desire to own her newly inherited property? And what should she make of her friend's suggestion that Lockwood or men like him were involved in the murder of her father? Soon Gillian is convinced that her father has left evidence somewhere that can prove his innocence and reveal the guilty party. But someone wants to stop her from discovering it. The closer she comes to uncovering it, the more menacing her opposition grows. With her life on the line, Gillian takes on an ingenious disguise and takes on the role of a lifetime to reveal the true killer-before it's too late both for her and for those that she loves.
An unforgettable romance set in Victorian England, Bride of A Distant Isle is the engrossing story of Annabel Ashton, who fights to save her family home and her mother's honor while trying to figure out if the man she loves wants her-or just wants to use her to achieve his own ambitions. Miss Annabel Ashton is a teacher at the Rogers School for Young Ladies in Winchester when she takes a brief visit to her family home, Highcliffe Hall at Milford-on-Sea. She believes her stay will be short but soon learns that she will not be returning to the safety of the school. Instead, she remains at Highcliffe, at the mercy of her cousin, Edward Everedge. Annabel protests, but as the illegitimate daughter of a woman who died in an insane asylum, she has little say. Edward is running out of money and puts the house up for sale to avoid financial ruin. He insists that Annabel marry, promising her to a sinister, frightening man. But as the house gets packed for sale, it begins to reveal disquieting secrets. Jewelry, artifacts, and portraits mysteriously appear, suggesting that Annabel may be the true heir of Highcliffe. She has only a few months to prove her legitimacy, perhaps with assistance from the handsome but troubled Maltese Captain Dell'Acqua. But does he have Annabel's best interests at heart? And then, a final, most ominous barrier to both her inheritance and her existence appears: a situation neither she nor anyone else could have expected. Will Annabel regain her life and property-and trust her heart-before it's too late?
In the first of a brand-new series set in Victorian England, a young woman returns home from India after the death of her family to discover her identity and inheritance are challenged by the man who holds her future in his hands.
Rebecca Ravenshaw, daughter of missionaries, spent most of her life in India. Following the death of her family in the Indian Mutiny, Rebecca returns to claim her family estate in Hampshire, England. Upon her return, people are surprised to see her...and highly suspicious. Less than a year earlier, an imposter had arrived with an Indian servant and assumed not only Rebecca's name, but her home and incomes.
From the acclaimed author of To Die For comes a stirring novel told that sheds new light on Elizabeth I and her court. Like Philippa Gregory and Alison Weir, Sandra Byrd has attracted countless fans for evoking the complexity, grandeur, and brutality of the Tudor period. In her latest tour de force, she poses the question: What happens when serving a queen may cost you your marriage--or your life?
In 1565, seventeen-year-old Elin von Snakenborg leaves Sweden on a treacherous journey to England. Her fiance has fallen in love with her sister and her dowry money has been gambled away, but ahead of her lies an adventure that will take her to the dizzying heights of Tudor power. Transformed through marriage into Helena, the Marchioness of Northampton, she becomes the highest-ranking woman in Elizabeth's circle. But in a court that is surrounded by Catholic enemies who plot the queen's downfall, Helena is forced to choose between her unyielding monarch and the husband she's not sure she can trust--a choice that will provoke catastrophic consequences.
Vividly conjuring the years leading up to the beheading of Mary Queen of Scots, Roses Have Thorns is a brilliant exploration of treason, both to the realm and to the heart.
Christy Award finalist Sandra Byrd has drawn favorable comparisons to New York Times best-selling author Philippa Gregory for her Ladies in Waiting novels. The second installment in the series transports listeners to King Henry VIII's court for a tale of intrigue featuring Henry's last wife, Kateryn Parr.
With this brilliant foray into historical fiction, Christy Award finalist Sandra Byrd delivers a fresh look at Anne Boleyn through the eyes of her lifelong friend Meg Wyatt. As Anne finds favor with Henry VIII, Meg basks in the glow of Anne's glory. But when Anne falls out of favor, the childhood friends are plunged into a maelstrom of slander and intrigue that tests the limits of their loyalties and puts their lives-and the lives of their loved ones-in grave danger.
