Mary Balogh
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Piers Westhaven and Alice Penhallow have always been close friends, even during their marriages to other partners. Now they are both widowed, and Piers, who needs an heir, has asked his friend to help him choose a new bride. Alice has always been in love with him herself, but hiding her feelings has become second nature to her. As a boy, he dearly loved her too until his best friend announced his intention of courting and marrying her. Soon their...
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Kate Mannering, a lady's companion, is mistaken for the lady herself and kidnapped by a dashing masked highwayman. When she hears his story, however, before being released, she decides to help him recover his stolen birthright and soon gets herself embroiled in danger from smugglers and a would-be seducer. Meanwhile, an annoying, indolent guest at the home of her employer insults her at every opportunity but rescues her from every danger, even when...
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Freddie Sullivan, having failed to persuade his cousin Julia to marry him, goes to Bath in desperate search of a rich wife so that he can pay off his debts. Clara Danforth, plain and wheelchair-bound, seems the ideal choice, and Freddie sets about wooing her with his good looks, flattery, and considerable charm. Clara is not deceived for a moment, but she encourages him anyway as for once she wants to possess something beautiful in her life. The path...
4) Snow Angel
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A sudden snowstorm strands Rosamund Hunter and Justin Halliday, Earl of Wetherby, at a hunting lodge in the country. Despite their initial embarrassment over the fact that they are strangers, they soon relax and enjoy a magical three days of friendship, fun, and passion. They part reluctantly, expecting never to meet again. She is on her way, after a year of mourning for her late husband, to rejoin her family for the celebration of the long-awaited...
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A DAY FOR LOVE. The Substitute Guest. Claire Ward is invited at the last moment to a Valentine's house party when another guest withdraws. She soon feels very out of place, however, when she realizes the party is intended to be something wild. When each gentleman draws the name of the lady who will be his Valentine for the next three days, the Duke of Langford, the worst rake of them all, finds himself deliberately but quite inexplicably choosing...
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The Earl of Beaconswood wanted his beloved step-granddaughter to be married and settled happily before he died, but when he realized it was not going to happen, he amended his will. He left his home to Julia on condition she accepted an offer from one of her five step-cousins within a month. They all court her and offer her marriage-all, that is, except Daniel, the new earl, who has always disapproved of Julia's wild ways just as she had always despised...
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A Rogue's Downfall. The Anniversary. After the Earl of Reardon, one of London's most notorious rakes, ruined the virtue and reputation of a young lady at a masquerade ball on Valentine's Day, he did the honorable thing and married her before settling her at his country estate and abandoning her there. Now, one year later, he has returned home to his wife and young son, wondering if it is too late to woo her properly and make amends for a year of shameful...
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Harriet, Lady Wingham, widowed after a four-year marriage to an older man, takes her young daughter to London to stay with friends. There she becomes reacquainted with the Duke of Tenby, the man who broke her heart six years earlier when he offered her carte blanche instead of marriage. This time he has honorable intentions toward her, but Harriet misunderstands and impulsively agrees to become his mistress for a short while until she returns home....
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Rebecca Shaw was heartbroken when Christopher Sinclair, whom she had loved passionately and who had sworn that he loved her in return her, left her without explanation to marry a far wealthier woman. Rebecca has since found consolation and peace as the fiancée of the local vicar, whose worthy work and dreams she shares. But Christopher, now widowed, is back and Rebecca has to keep reminding herself that he once betrayed her and must never be trusted...
10) No Ordinary Love
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The North Tower: Daphne Borland has inherited an old castle from her grandfather-provided she marries the earl of Everett, whom she has never met. She has never seen the castle either, yet she feels a deep connection to it as soon as she arrives there. As she awaits the arrival of the earl with trepidation, she gets caught up in the events and passions of long ago and finds herself falling deeply in love with a man who has been dead for a hundred...
11) Deceived
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Seven years ago, Christopher Atwell, newly and happily married to Lady Elizabeth Ward, was framed for several misdemeanors. When no one, even his wife, would believe his protestations of innocence, he fled to Canada, while Elizabeth's powerful father arranged for a divorce. But now Christopher has inherited an earldom upon the death of his own father and has returned to England to take up his responsibilities-and prove his innocence. The first thing...
12) Second Chances
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SECOND CHANCES
Another Dream
Eleanor Thompson, spinster owner and headmistress of a girls' school in Bath, finds herself somewhat lonely and not as happy with her chosen way of life as she had expected. Then, on her way to help celebrate the birthday of the Duke of Bewcastle, her brother-in-law, she is stranded by a storm at a country inn, where she indulges in a brief, sweet flirtation with a gentleman who is also stranded there with his two young...
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Jessica Moore, demure governess to a spoiled young girl who is expecting a marriage proposal from the Earl of Rutherford, a guest in her father's home, is unwise enough to creep downstairs to the library one night when she cannot sleep, to choose a book to read. There she is discovered, first by the earl, and then by her employer. Though she is quite innocent of any wrongdoing, she is dismissed without notice and without a character. The earl, conscience-stricken,...
14) Christmas Belle
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Jack Frazer is resigned to spending Christmas in the country with his family, even knowing that his grandmother has invited a young lady and her family with the specific intention of matchmaking for him. His grandmother has also invited the newly widowed Isabella, Comtesse de Vacheron, an acclaimed actress, and her two children. The whole family is delighted to have the comtesse among them to enliven their traditional family theatricals. All except...
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Alexander Stewart, Viscount Merrick, is honor-bound to marry Anne Parrish after a snowstorm strands them alone together overnight. But nothing is going to force him into living with her when he believes she deliberately ensnared him. He settles her on his country estate and does not see her again until his grandmother, determined to bring them back together, invites Anne to join the whole family at a house party in honor of her Golden Wedding anniversary....
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Giles Fairhaven, Viscount Kincade, does not believe his life can get much worse after his purse is stolen at an inn before he has paid his bill and then he is set upon by three ruffians in the inn yard before he can leave. But it does grow worse when a little slip of a lady clad only in a flannel nightgown and wielding a large black man's umbrella comes to his rescue and puts his assailants to rout and then - after he has left - pays his reckoning...
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A very proper aristocrat, who always does his duty and never sets a foot wrong, the young Duke of Mitford is on his way into the country to propose marriage, sight unseen, to a young lady of equal virtue and propriety chosen for him by his grandfather and hers. For once in his life, Paul decides to have a little adventure by traveling there incognito and without his usual ducal entourage. He finds the experience disappointing until at an inn one evening...
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Margaret Wells has been deeply, hopelessly in love with the handsome, dashing Richard Adair, Earl of Brampton, since she met him at a masquerade ball six years ago. Passion had flared between them then, but she had fled before the time for unmasking. Now Richard merely needs a wife to give him an heir, and the quiet, demure Miss Wells seems as suitable as anyone else. Margaret, longing to ignite some sort of passion in her dull marriage, wonders what...
19) Red Rose
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Edward Marsh, Earl of Raymore, is a connoisseur of beauty, whether it be music or art or women. When he inherits two wards, however, and decides to marry them off as soon as possible during a London Season, he finds one of them virtually unmarriageable. Rosalind Dacey has none of the delicate, blond beauty of her cousin, and a pronounced limp resulting from a childhood riding accident has robbed her of grace and self-assurance. She resents what she...
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CHRISTMAS MIRACLES brings together three previously published and long out-of-print novellas, each of which demonstrates how the wonder of the season can bring together two would-be lovers or two estranged lovers and create a bond between them that will last a lifetime and beyond. In "The Wassail Bowl" an aristocrat has summoned his young son to a family house party but is disconcerted when his estranged wife and her illegitimate daughter arrive with...