Dorset, 1917. If it's not enough that a girl from a good background is forced to work as a maid, Livia Carr is then violated by the master of the house and becomes pregnant. Her only course is to marry the son of the house, Richard Sangster, a World War One hero who has returned home an invalid. He is not expected to live, and he offers Livia and the child legitimacy, as well as his name and estate. Livia grows to love Richard, but even though it's...

"Paul Rainey, the hapless antihero at the center of this "compulsively readable" (Independent on Sunday) story works, miserably, in ad sales. He sells space in magazines that hardly exist, and through a fog of booze and drugs dimly perceives that he is dissatisfied with his life--professionally, sexually, recreationally, the whole nine yards. If only there were something he could do about it--and "something" seems to fall into his lap when a meeting...

London, 1858. Noteworthy for its broiling summer months and the related stench of the sewage-filled Thames River, the year is otherwise little remembered. Ashton reveals that thanks to significant, if unrecognized, turning points the months from May to August turned out to be a summer of consequence. She mines Victorian letters and gossip, diaries, court records, newspapers, and other contemporary sources to uncover historically crucial moments in...

One May evening in London, Adam Kindred, a young climatologist in town for a job interview, is feeling good about the future as he sits down for a meal at a little Italian bistro. He strikes up a conversation with a solitary diner at the next table, who leaves soon afterward. With horrifying speed, this chance encounter leads to a series of malign accidents, through which Adam loses everything -- home, family, friends, job, reputation, passport, credit...

"It's long been accepted that the 1950s and 1960s were a period of steady decline for the British stately country home. In Noble Ambitions, celebrated historian Adrian Tinniswood shows that the postwar history of family seats and great houses is much more nuanced. Tinniswood proves that the country house is not only an iconic symbol, but a lens through which to understand the shifting fortunes of the British élite. Twinned with the orthodox narrative...

"Earl Ciel Phantomhive looks on in horror as Sebastian, his infallible manservant, is struck down by the death scythe of an unforeseen combatant. Devil though he may be, even Sebastian is not immune to the blade of a reaper's scythe. As Sebastian's cinematic record spills forth, the tale of how a devil became a butler to a little lost lord flickers to life in shades of sepia, blood, and ash...."

When the rather austere Sister Ursula is appointed the new head of Nonnatus house, Sister Julienne finds herself demoted and working back alongside the midwives as an ordinary member of staff.

Chronicles the lives of a group of midwives who care for expectant mothers in the East End of London in the late-1950s to mid-1960s.

A riveting account of the most consequential year in English history, marked by bloody conflict with invaders on all sides. 1066 is the most famous date in history, and with good reason, since no battle in medieval history had such a devastating effect on its losers as the Battle of Hastings, which altered the entire course of English history. The French-speaking Normans were the pre-eminent warriors of the 11th century and based their entire society...

"From the New York Times bestselling author of The Secret Rooms, the extraordinary true story of the downfall of one of England's wealthiest families. Fans of Downton Abbey now have a go-to resource for fascinating, real-life stories of the spectacular lives led by England's aristocrats. With the novelistic flair and knack for historical detail Catherine Bailey displayed in her New York Times bestseller The Secret Rooms, Black Diamonds provides a...