He thought he could set her on a better path. But they might both wander astray... Sir Gareth Ludlow never truly recovered from the death of his fiancee. Years later, a chance encounter with Amanda, a young and devastatingly pretty runaway, inspires him to try to do the right thing and to set her on a path towards a good life. But Sir Gareth has been neck-deep in a life of debauchery and hedonism ever since his fiancee's death, and Amanda's startlingly lively imagination proves to be more than he'd bargained for. As they both become increasingly entangled in Sir Gareth's scheme, it seems more and more difficult for either of them to lead the life they should... A witty and delightful historical novel, Sprig Muslin shows why Georgette Heyer has such a huge and devoted readership to this day.

1890-1926 include also Decisions of the Board of U.S. General Appraisers no. 1-9135.

Vols. for 1891-1897 include decisions of the United States Board of General Appraisers.

This ebook boxed set of historical romance bestsellers set in Regency England features novels by Jane Feather, Julia London, and Meredith Duran.

Annis Wychwood delights in her independence. Beautiful, rich and far too busy for love, she has turned down the advances of many a hopeful suitor. But when she becomes entangled in the affairs of a runaway heiress, she encounters the girl’s guardian, the notorious Oliver Carleton. While Oliver may be a reckless and uncivil rogue, Annis can’t help but be drawn towards his wild ways . . . ‘Rapturously romantic’ Katie Fforde ‘Georgette Heyer is second to none’ Sunday Times

Following his appearance in The Unspeakable Skipton, Matthew Pryar returns as the hero of Pamela Hansford Johnson’s novel, Night and Silence, Who is Here? On any count, Pryar is a memorable character, and his experiences as a Visiting Fellow of Cobb, a liberal arts college in New Hampshire, U.S.A., will delight all who appreciate satirical comedy and brilliantly entertaining writing. Pryar arrives at Cobb to assume his Visiting Fellowship in a mood of expectant complacency. He expects to spend a comfortable, fruitful year completing his long-deferred monograph on the work of the celebrated and awful poetess Dorothy Merlin and to be mildly lionized in the process. He reckons without the nightmare quality of the domestic arrangements, the profusion and variety of the eccentricities of his colleagues and the unheralded and unwanted descent of the poetess herself. The complexities of the situation are considerable and they are compounded by Pryar’s newly-born ambition to abandon belles-lettres in favour of college administration. Pamela Hansford Johnson, as one would expect, handles her narrative and her marvellous cast of characters with such dexterity and wit that this New Hampshire winter story has all the pace and gaiety of Carnival in high summer.

Historical fiction is a hugely popular genre of fiction providing fictional accounts or dramatizations of historical figures or events. This latest guide in the highly successful Bloomsbury Must-Reads series depicts 100 of the finest novels published in this sector, with a further 500 recommendations. A wide range of classic works and key authors are covered: Peter Ackroyd, Margaret Attwood, Sarah Waters, Victor Hugo and Robert Louis Stevenson to name a few. If you want to expand your reading in this area, or gain a deeper understanding of the genre - this is the best place to start! Inside you'll find: - An extended Introduction to historical fiction - 100 titles highlighted A-Z by novel with 500 Read-on recommendations - Read-on-a-theme categories - Award winners and book club recommendations

INESCAPABLE, UNDENIABLE AND IMPOSSIBLE TO RESIST! In a Mayfair ballroom, beautiful Emma Northcote stands in amazement. For gazing at her, with eyes she'd know anywhere, is Ned Stratham—a man whose roguish charm once held her captivated. But that was another life in another part of London. With their past mired in secrets and betrayal, and their true identities now at last revealed, Ned realizes they can never rekindle their affair. For only he knows that they share a deeper connection—one that could make Emma hate him if she ever discovered the truth…. "It's witty, wicked and wonderful!" —RT Book Reviews on Mistress to the Marquis

"When you have the Gift, your life is not your own." I was born to a family that harnessed the winds and could read futures in fire and water. Yet my mother kept her secrets. Then the werewolf came, sharing his madness. Now it's my turn to keep secrets.... Descended from powerful magic-users, but ignorant of her heritage, young Alfreda Sorensson learns magic and wisdom from her extended family in an alternate early 1800s Michigan Territory.

Originally published in 1984, Reading the Romance challenges popular (and often demeaning) myths about why romantic fiction, one of publishing's most lucrative categories, captivates millions of women readers. Among those who have disparaged romance reading are feminists, literary critics, and theorists of mass culture. They claim that romances enforce the woman reader's dependence on men and acceptance of the repressive ideology purveyed by popular culture. Radway questions such claims, arguing that critical attention "must shift from the text itself, taken in isolation, to the complex social event of reading." She examines that event, from the complicated business of publishing and distribution to the individual reader's engagement with the text. Radway's provocative approach combines reader-response criticism with anthropology and feminist psychology. Asking readers themselves to explore their reading motives, habits, and rewards, she conducted interviews in a midwestern town with forty-two romance readers whom she met through Dorothy Evans, a chain bookstore employee who has earned a reputation as an expert on romantic fiction. Evans defends her customers' choice of entertainment; reading romances, she tells Radway, is no more harmful than watching sports on television. "We read books so we won't cry" is the poignant explanation one woman offers for her reading habit. Indeed, Radway found that while the women she studied devote themselves to nurturing their families, these wives and mothers receive insufficient devotion or nurturance in return. In romances the women find not only escape from the demanding and often tiresome routines of their lives but also a hero who supplies the tenderness and admiring attention that they have learned not to expect. The heroines admired by Radway's group defy the expected stereotypes; they are strong, independent, and intelligent. That such characters often find themselves to be victims of male aggression and almost always resign themselves to accepting conventional roles in life has less to do, Radway argues, with the women readers' fantasies and choices than with their need to deal with a fear of masculine dominance. These romance readers resent not only the limited choices in their own lives but the patronizing atitude that men especially express toward their reading tastes. In fact, women read romances both to protest and to escape temporarily the narrowly defined role prescribed for them by a patriarchal culture. Paradoxically, the books that they read make conventional roles for women seem desirable. It is this complex relationship between culture, text, and woman reader that Radway urges feminists to address. Romance readers, she argues, should be encouraged to deliver their protests in the arena of actual social relations rather than to act them out in the solitude of the imagination. In a new introduction, Janice Radway places the book within the context of current scholarship and offers both an explanation and critique of the study's limitations.