Carole Boyd

A weight-losing recipe sends a portly Victorian house maid literally sky-high. Mrs Next-Door, the queen of copycats, drives her patient neighbour mad with rage; the tragic tale of the ghost of Fairacre; the touch-and-go romance of Elsie Parker. In Over the Gate Miss Read the village schoolmistress, continues to attract odd incidents and excellent stories and to retell them with characteristic grace, astringency and compassion.

Fairy-tale romances end with a wedding, and the fairy tales don't get complicated. In this book, the celebrated writer Mr. Fox can't stop himself from killing off the heroines of his novels, and neither can his wife, Daphne. It's not until Mary, his muse, comes to life and transforms him from author into subject that his story begins to unfold differently.

Catherine de Medici's father-in-law, King Francis of France, was the perfect Renaissance knight, the movement's exemplar and its Gallic interpreter. An aesthete, diplomat par excellence, and contemporary of Machiavelli, Francis was the founder of modern France, whose sheer force of will and personality molded his kingdom into the first European superpower. Arguably the man who introduced the Renaissance to France, Francis was also the prototype Frenchman--a...

Following the fortunes of the much-loved characters from her bestseller 'The Journey', Josephine Cox's powerful novel spans continents, decades and generations of one family. Like a ghost from the past, she walked along the platform towards them... It has been over twenty years since Vicky Maitland set foot on English soil. Twenty years since she left Liverpool with her three children, bound for a new life in America, leaving her beloved husband...

Another page-turning story of tragedy and triumph from the No.1 bestselling author of The Loner and The Journey. In the sleepy Lancashire village of Salmesbury, childhood sweethearts Emily and John are secretly planning a life together when they are cruelly forced apart. Already abandoned by her father, and unhappy at home, Emily is heartbroken when John leaves the village. Her life takes a devastating turn for the worse when she gives birth to...

Don't miss the gripping new bestseller from the nation's favorite storyteller! Are some memories best forgotten? Maureen Bancroft has never learned the art of putting herself first. As a widow with a gentle temperament and humble ways, she's been easy to take advantage of. All that changes when an unexpected windfall comes her way. Determined to make up for lost time, she decides to take a holiday and, needing a companion, looks up her friend, Barbara...

"Cox's talent as a storyteller never lets you escape the spell."-Daily Mail (London) One of Great Britain's most adored writers, #1 international bestseller Josephine Cox returns to our shores with Born Bad-a poignant and unforgettable story of hard life, lost love, and enduring hope that readers of Rosamund Pilcher, Barbara Delinsky, and Amanda Stevens will eagerly take into their hearts. The author of The Beachcomber, Songbird, and Journey's End,...

She set men's hearts on fire and scandalized a country. An ambitious, stunning, and seductive young woman, Mary Anne finds the single most rewarding way to rise above her station: she will become the mistress to a royal duke. In doing so, she provokes a scandal that rocks Regency England. A vivid portrait of sex, ambition, and corruption, Mary Anne is set during the Napoleonic Wars and based on Daphne du Maurier's own great-great-grandmother.

Lucy Snowe is a stoic young Englishwoman. Beset by adverse circumstances, on a momentary whim she travels to Belgium to seek her livelihood as a teacher in a girls' boarding school. There, surrounded by giddy pupils, under the control of the cunning school matron, wooed by an eccentric professor, and visited by the ghost of a nun, Lucy begins her adventure in true gothic fashion.