Lauren Willig

Nothing goes right for Eloise.  The one day she wears her new suede boots, it rains cats and dogs.  When the subway stops short, she's always the one thrown into some stranger's lap.  Plus, she's had more than her share of misfortune in the way of love.  In fact, ever since she realized romantic heroes are a thing of the past, she's decided it's time for a fresh start.  Setting off for England, Eloise is determined to finish her dissertation on that dashing pair of spies, the Scarlet Pimpernel and the Purple Gentian.  But what she discovers is something the finest historians have missed:  the secret history of the Pink Carnation - the most elusive spy of all time.  As she works to unmask this obscure spy, Eloise stumbles across answers to all kinds of questions.  Like how did the Pink Carnation save England from Napoleon?  What became of the Scarlet Pimpernel and the Purple Gentian? And will Eloise Kelly escape her bad luck and find a living, breathing hero all her own?

The secret history of the Pink Carnation

"Brings to life old world New York City and London with all the splendor of two of my favorite novels, The Age of Innocence and The Crimson Petal and the White. Mystery, murder, mistaken identity, romance--Lauren Willig weaves each strand into a page-turning tapestry." -Sally Koslow, author of The Widow Waltz "Her best yet...A dark and scintillating tale of betrayal, secrets and a marriage gone wrong that will have readers on the edge of their seats until the final breathtaking twist." -Pam Jenoff, New York Times bestselling author of The Orphan's Tale From New York Times bestselling author, Lauren Willig, comes this scandalous novel set in the Gilded Age, full of family secrets, affairs, and murder. Annabelle and Bayard Van Duyvil live a charmed life in New York: he’s the scion of an old Knickerbocker family, she grew up in a Tudor house in England, they had a fairytale romance in London, they have three-year-old twins on whom they dote, and he’s recreated her family home on the banks of the Hudson and named it Illyria. Yes, there are rumors that she’s having an affair with the architect, but rumors are rumors and people will gossip. But then Bayard is found dead with a knife in his chest on the night of their Twelfth Night Ball, Annabelle goes missing, presumed drowned, and the papers go mad. Bay’s sister, Janie, forms an unlikely alliance with a reporter to try to uncover the truth, convinced that Bay would never have killed his wife, that it must be a third party, but the more she learns about her brother and his wife, the more everything she thought she knew about them starts to unravel. Who were her brother and his wife, really? And why did her brother die with the name George on his lips?

A Novel

The English Wife

Karen White

Beatriz Williams

The New York Times bestselling authors of The Glass Ocean and The Forgotten Room return with a glorious historical adventure that moves from the dark days of two World Wars to the turbulent years of the 1960s, in which three women with bruised hearts find refuge at Paris’ legendary Ritz hotel.

The heiress . . .
The Resistance fighter . . .
The widow . . .
Three women whose fates are joined by one splendid hotel

France, 1914. As war breaks out, Aurelie becomes trapped on the wrong side of the front with her father, Comte Sigismund de Courcelles. When the Germans move into their family’s ancestral estate, using it as their headquarters, Aurelie discovers she knows the German Major’s aide de camp, Maximilian Von Sternburg. She and the dashing young officer first met during Aurelie’s debutante days in Paris. Despite their conflicting loyalties, Aurelie and Max’s friendship soon deepens into love, but betrayal will shatter them both, driving Aurelie back to Paris and the Ritz— the home of her estranged American heiress mother, with unexpected consequences.

France, 1942. Raised by her indomitable, free-spirited American grandmother in the glamorous Hotel Ritz, Marguerite “Daisy” Villon remains in Paris with her daughter and husband, a Nazi collaborator, after France falls to Hitler. At first reluctant to put herself and her family at risk to assist her grandmother’s Resistance efforts, Daisy agrees to act as a courier for a skilled English forger known only as Legrand, who creates identity papers for Resistance members and Jewish refugees. But as Daisy is drawn ever deeper into Legrand’s underground network, committing increasingly audacious acts of resistance for the sake of the country—and the man—she holds dear, she uncovers a devastating secret . . . one that will force her to commit the ultimate betrayal, and to confront at last the shocking circumstances of her own family history.

France, 1964. For Barbara “Babs” Langford, her husband, Kit, was the love of her life. Yet their marriage was haunted by a mysterious woman known only as La Fleur. On Kit’s death, American lawyer Andrew “Drew” Bowdoin appears at her door. Hired to find a Resistance fighter turned traitor known as “La Fleur,” the investigation has led to Kit Langford. Curious to know more about the enigmatic La Fleur, Babs joins Drew in his search, a journey of discovery that that takes them to Paris and the Ritz—and to unexpected places of the heart. . . .

A Novel of the Ritz Paris

All the Ways We Said Goodbye

The New York Times bestselling historical novelist delivers her biggest, boldest, and most ambitious novel yet—a sweeping Victorian epic of lost love, lies, jealousy, and rebellion set in colonial Barbados. Barbados, 1854: Emily Dawson has always been the poor cousin in a prosperous English merchant clan-- merely a vicar’s daughter, and a reform-minded vicar’s daughter, at that. Everyone knows that the family’s lucrative shipping business will go to her cousin, Adam, one day. But when her grandfather dies, Emily receives an unexpected inheritance: Peverills, a sugar plantation in Barbados—a plantation her grandfather never told anyone he owned. When Emily accompanies her cousin and his new wife to Barbados, she finds Peverills a burnt-out shell, reduced to ruins in 1816, when a rising of enslaved people sent the island up in flames. Rumors swirl around the derelict plantation; people whisper of ghosts. Why would her practical-minded grandfather leave her a property in ruins? Why are the neighboring plantation owners, the Davenants, so eager to acquire Peverills? The answer lies in the past— a tangled history of lies, greed, clandestine love, heartbreaking betrayal, and a bold bid for freedom. A brilliant, multigenerational saga in the tradition of THE THORN BIRDS and NORTH AND SOUTH, THE SUMMER COUNTRY will beguile readers with its rendering of families, heartbreak, and the endurance of hope against all odds.

The Summer Country

From the New York Times bestselling authors of The Forgotten Room comes a captivating historical mystery, infused with romance, that links the lives of three women across a century—two deep in the past, one in the present—to the doomed passenger liner, RMS Lusitania. May 2013 Her finances are in dire straits and bestselling author Sarah Blake is struggling to find a big idea for her next book. Desperate, she breaks the one promise she made to her Alzheimer’s-stricken mother and opens an old chest that belonged to her great-grandfather, who died when the RMS Lusitania was sunk by a German U-Boat in 1915. What she discovers there could change history. Sarah embarks on an ambitious journey to England to enlist the help of John Langford, a recently disgraced Member of Parliament whose family archives might contain the only key to the long-ago catastrophe. . . . April 1915 Southern belle Caroline Telfair Hochstetter’s marriage is in crisis. Her formerly attentive industrialist husband, Gilbert, has become remote, pre-occupied with business . . . and something else that she can’t quite put a finger on. She’s hoping a trip to London in Lusitania’s lavish first-class accommodations will help them reconnect—but she can’t ignore the spark she feels for her old friend, Robert Langford, who turns out to be on the same voyage. Feeling restless and longing for a different existence, Caroline is determined to stop being a bystander, and take charge of her own life. . . . Tessa Fairweather is traveling second-class on the Lusitania, returning home to Devon. Or at least, that’s her story. Tessa has never left the United States and her English accent is a hasty fake. She’s really Tennessee Schaff, the daughter of a roving con man, and she can steal and forge just about anything. But she’s had enough. Her partner has promised that if they can pull off this one last heist aboard the Lusitania, they’ll finally leave the game behind. Tess desperately wants to believe that, but Tess has the uneasy feeling there’s something about this job that isn’t as it seems. . . . As the Lusitania steams toward its fate, three women work against time to unravel a plot that will change the course of their own lives . . . and history itself.

The Glass Ocean

"Historical fiction novel set in Newport, Rhode Island across multiple decades, from bestselling author trio"--

The Lost Summers of Newport

Karen S. White

The Forgotten Room

"With heart and humor, Willig explores the complexities of female friendships--feuds, forgiveness, and all. A touching portrait of triumph and found family in the midst of war. Bravo "--Stephanie Dray, New York Times Bestselling author of America's First Daughter & The Women of Chateau Lafayette A group of young women from Smith College risk their lives in France at the height of World War I in this sweeping novel based on a true story--a skillful blend of Call the Midwife and The Alice Network--from New York Times bestselling author Lauren Willig. A scholarship girl from Brooklyn, Kate Moran thought she found a place among Smith's Mayflower descendants, only to have her illusions dashed the summer after graduation. When charismatic alumna Betsy Rutherford delivers a rousing speech at the Smith College Club in April of 1917, looking for volunteers to help French civilians decimated by the German war machine, Kate is too busy earning her living to even think of taking up the call. But when her former best friend Emmeline Van Alden reaches out and begs her to take the place of a girl who had to drop out, Kate reluctantly agrees to join the new Smith College Relief Unit. Four months later, Kate and seventeen other Smithies, including two trailblazing female doctors, set sail for France. The volunteers are armed with money, supplies, and good intentions--all of which immediately go astray. The chateau that was to be their headquarters is a half-burnt ruin. The villagers they meet are in desperate straits: women and children huddling in damp cellars, their crops destroyed and their wells poisoned. Despite constant shelling from the Germans, French bureaucracy, and the threat of being ousted by the British army, the Smith volunteers bring welcome aid--and hope--to the region. But can they survive their own differences? As they cope with the hardships and terrors of the war, Kate and her colleagues find themselves navigating old rivalries and new betrayals which threaten the very existence of the Unit. With the Germans threatening to break through the lines, can the Smith Unit pull together and be truly a band of sisters?

Band of Sisters

Raised by her widowed mother in genteel poverty in the 1920s in an isolated English village, for the past six years Rachel Woodley has been working in France as a nursery governess. When her mother unexpectedly dies, she returns to England to clear out the cottage, and finds a scrapbook full of cuttings from London society pages—all pictures of her supposedly deceased father, very much alive. He's an earl, socially prominent, with another daughter who is living a charmed life: a debutante, much photographed, and engaged to a rising Tory MP. Rachel's cousin confirms the horrible truth: her father is alive, with a legitimate, acknowledged family. Which makes Rachel...not legitimate. Everything she thought she knew about herself and her past—even her very name—is a lie. Still reeling from the death of her mother, and furious at this betrayal, Rachel enters into an uneasy alliance with a mysterious man-about-town, who promises her access to her father. With his help, Rachel sets herself up in Roaring Twenties London under a new identity and insinuates herself into the party-going crowd of Bright Young Things, with a steely determination to unveil her father's perfidy and bring his—and her half-sister's—charmed world crashing down. Very soon, however, Rachel faces two unexpected snags: she finds she genuinely likes her half-sister, Olivia, whose situation isn't as simple it appears; and that Rachel herself might just be falling for her sister's fiancé. From Lauren Willig, author of the New York Times Best Selling novel The Ashford Affair, comesThe Other Daughter, a page-turner full of deceit, passion, and revenge.

The Other Daughter

When a London War Office courier is murdered for the confidential dispatch he carried for an elusive spy known as the Pink Carnation, Henrietta Uppington and Miles Dorrington decipher a secret message and work with the War Office to prevent the Pink Carnation's assassination by a deadly French spy. Reprint. 150,000 first printing.

The Masque of the Black Tulip

Feeling unfulfilled in the face of an imminent legal partnership and a broken engagement, Manhattan lawyer Clementine Evans learns of a long-buried family secret that leads her to the inner circles of World War I British society and the red hills of Kenya. By the award-winning author of the Pink Carnation series. 100,000 first printing.

The Ashford Affair

A continuation of the popular series that began with The Secret History of the Pink Carnation and The Masque of the Black Tulip pits the top spies of England and France against one another in 1803 Ireland, while Letty Alsworthy finds herself forcibly married to her sister's undesirable fianc.

The Deception of the Emerald Ring

A continuation of the series that began with The Masque of the Black Tulip and The Deception of the Emerald Ring finds Mary accepting a secret assignment from spy Lord Vaughn to infiltrate the Black Tulip's operation in order to prevent an invasion of England. 40,000 first printing.

The Seduction of the Crimson Rose

In this irresistible Regency Christmas caper, Arabella Dempsey accepts a position at a quiet girls' school in Bath, but she hardly imagines coming face to face with French aristocrats and international spies. Guest appearances by Dempsey's best friend Jane Austen and characters from previous installments of the Pink Carnation series round out the laugh-out-loud holiday-themed romance of intrigue.

The Mischief of the Mistletoe

Inheriting a London house from an unknown relative, Julia begins work on the house at the side of an alluring antiques dealer before discovering an old painting that reveals the house's shrouded history and the story of a mid-19th-century woman trapped in a loveless marriage. 60,000 first printing.

That Summer

As Lady Frederick Staines, Penelope Deveraux plunges into the treacherous waters of the court of the Nizam of Hyderabad and with the assistance of Captain Alex Reid draws out the deadly plans of the spy known as the Marigold.

The Betrayal of the Blood Lily

An atrocious poet teams up with an American widow to prevent Napoleon's invasion of England.

The Garden Intrigue

Returning to his English estate to avenge his mentor's murder during the 1803 Battle of Assaye, the duke of Dovedale infiltrates a secretive club where he encounters Lady Charlotte, who has loved him since childhood. By the author of The Seduction of the Crimson Rose. 40,000 first printing.

The Temptation of the Night Jasmine

Tiring of the Little Season's endless parties and balls in the fall of 1806, Sally investigates a ton rumor that reclusive duke Lucien is an actual vampire, an effort that is complicated by the exsanguination death of a young woman. By the Rita Award-winning author of The Mischief of the Mistletoe. Original. 40,000 first printing.

Lauren Willig

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