The Death of the Heart is perhaps Elizabeth Bowen's best-known book. As she deftly and delicately exposes the cruelty that lurks behind the polished surfaces of conventional society, Bowen reveals herself as a masterful novelist who combines a sense of humor with a devastating gift for divining human motivations. In this piercing story of innocence betrayed set in the thirties, the orphaned Portia is stranded in the sophisticated and politely treacherous...

A devilish rake will do anything to learn the secret of a straitlaced schoolmarm in this Regency romance by the bestselling author of The Troublemaker.
Word has it that every awkward young lady sent to Mrs. Hester Poitevant’s Mayfair Academy inevitably becomes marriage material. With her students going on to have any eligible bachelor they wish, Hester is able to live comfortably and in the background. And no one knows

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"On a rainy Sunday afternoon in January the recently widowed Mrs. Palfrey moves to the Claremont Hotel in South Kensington. "If it's not nice, I needn't stay," she promises herself, as she settles into this haven for the genteel and the decayed. "Three elderly widows and one old man who seemed to dislike female company and seldom got any other kind" serve for her fellow residents, and there is the staff, too, and they are one and all lonely. What...

In Night and Day, Virginia Woolf delves into the lives of two women, Katharine Hilbery and Mary Datchet, as they navigate the complexities of love, ambition, and societal roles in early 20th-century England. The novel contrasts the inner lives of its characters with the external pressures of their environment, exploring the tension between personal desires and societal expectations. Katharine, a poet caught between her literary aspirations and the...

A fading English finishing school is about to get a twenty-first-century makeover thanks to business-savvy Betsy Phillimore. But Betsy may have bitten off more than she can chew for she must first win over the school's snobby headmistress and its handsome but risk-averse treasurer. Returning to London also means facing her own unfinished business, as she crosses paths with her sexy girlhood crush ... and blowing the dust off clues to a lifelong mystery:...

An elderly London resident befriends the little boy who moves in downstairs, but his parents' fighting brings her back to her harrowing escape from Nazi Germany at age twelve and grim post-war years in France with her mother. Ninety-one-year-old Gretel Fernsby has lived in the same well-to-do mansion block in London for decades. She lives a quiet, comfortable life, despite her deeply disturbing, dark past. She doesn't talk about her escape from Nazi...

"Adelaide Williams is a 20-something American, living in dreamy London. With wonderful friends and fierce ambitions, Adelaide has little interest in finding "The One" right now, but when she meets Rory Hughes on a dating app-a charming Englishman who's been placed there by fate, she swears-that all changes. All of a sudden, Adelaide finds herself completely in love. Does he respond to texts? Honor his commitments? Make advanced plans? Sometimes, rarely,...

You know how it is. Saturday afternoon. You wake up and you can't move. I blinked and the floaters on my eyeballs shifted to reveal Tyler in her ratty old kimono over in the doorway. 'Way I see it,' she said, glass in one hand, lit cigarette in the other, 'girls are tied to beds for two reasons: sex and exorcisms. So, which was it with you?' Laura and Tyler are best friends who live together, angrily philosophising and leading each other astray in...

"In this haunting debut novel, a young woman, recently returned to London after ten years away, finds herself slipping back into her childhood and ultimately must solve the mysteries of her dysfunctional family, grief and death, love, and her very ideas of self and place in the world"-- Provided by publisher.

Rose Macaulay was a fascinating and influential British writer, known for her wit and intellect. She wrote numerous novels, essays and biographies, and she was highly regarded for her versatility as a writer. Her works often explored themes of social change, women's rights and the complexities of human relationships. She had a unique ability to capture the essence of her characters and the world they inhabited, making her a much-admired figure in...