During a summer party at the family farm in the English countryside, sixteen-year-old Laurel Nicolson has escaped to her childhood tree house and is happily dreaming of the future. She spies a stranger coming up the long road to the farm and watches as her mother speaks to him. Before the afternoon is over, Laurel will witness a shocking crime. A crime that challenges everything she knows about her family and especially her mother, Dorothy—her vivacious,...

A novel whose principal characters are the servants in Jane Austen's Pride and prejudice. Sarah, the orphaned housemaid, spends her days scrubbing the laundry, polishing the floors, and emptying the chamber pots for the Bennet household. But there is just as much romance, heartbreak, and intrigue downstairs at Longbourn as there is upstairs. When a mysterious new footman arrives, the orderly realm of the servants' hall threatens to be completely,...

1932. After losing both her beloved brother and her fiancé in the Great War, Violet Speedwell appears doomed to a life of spinsterhood. Unwilling to spend her life caring for her grieving, embittered mother, Violet moves to the town of Winchester, home to one of England's grandest cathedrals. There, she is drawn into a society of broderers--women who embroider kneelers for the cathedral. Violet finds support and community in the group, fulfillment...

Relates what becomes of Ermengarde and the other girls left behind at Miss Minchin's School after Sara Crewe leaves to live with her guardian, the Indian gentleman.

Shy Ermengarde, spoiled Lottie, and awful Lavinia are all left behind at the Select Seminary for Young Ladies, and without Sara, school is even more dreary than before. The new maid, Alice from Epping, is a bright girl from the country whose practicality and confidence are a refreshing change from stodgy Miss Minchin. Lottie learns to notice things and has adventures, Lavinia dreams of earning a place at Oxford, and Ermengarde realizes that friendship...

London, 1938. The effervescent "It girl" of London society since her father was named the ambassador, Kathleen "Kick" Kennedy moves in rarified circles, rubbing satin-covered elbows with some of the 20th century's most powerful figures. Eager to escape the watchful eye of her strict mother, Rose, the antics of her older brothers, Jack and Joe, and the erratic behavior of her sister Rosemary, Kick is ready to strike out on her own and is soon swept...

Tells the story of the difficult loves of insular Englishman Charles Ryder and his peculiarly intense relationship with the wealthy but dysfunctional family that inhabited Brideshead. While at Oxford, Charles Ryder meets boyish, flamboyant Sebastian Flyte, who introduces Charles to a charmed and glamorous way of life that continues until Sebastian's health deteriorates.