Flower Historical Fiction

Miss Katherine Danvers has always been a wallflower. But now with her family on the brink of financial ruin, she finds herself a desperate wallflower. To save her family, she'll do anything. Luckily, she has the perfect plan.... She'll impress the ton by simply announcing she is engaged to the reclusive and mysterious Duke of Thornton, Alexander Masters, and secure strong matches for her sisters. No one has heard from the duke in years. Surely he'll never find out before her sisters' weddings and she can go back to her own quiet life.

In this second installment of Carola Dunn's cozy mystery series set in 1923 England, plucky Daisy Dalrymple embarks on another assignment for Town and Country magazine and discovers that daffodil bulbs aren't all that's buried in a country estate's flower bed.

Miss Maryann FitzWilliam is too witty and bookish for her own good. No gentleman of the ton will marry her, so her parents arrange for her to wed a man old enough to be her father. But Maryann is ready to use those wits to turn herself into a sinful wallflower. When the scandal sheet reports a sighting of Nicolas Ives climbing out the chamber windows of a house party, Maryann does the unthinkable. She anonymously claims that the bedchamber belonged to none other than Miss FitzWilliam, tarnishing her own reputation - and chances of the dastardly union her family secured for her.

Lady Ophelia Darby exists in two worlds. In one, she is the impudent, willful daughter of a powerful marquess and darling of the ton. In the other, she moves through the underworld's shadows as songstress Lady Starlight, protected only by the notoriously wealthy scoundrel Devlin Byrne. But when she stumbles upon her beloved father's darkest secrets, the line between her two worlds quickly blurs. Now she needs the help of the one man a lady should never trust.

South China coast, 1801. Sold as a child to a floating brothel, twenty-six-year-old Yang has finally bought her freedom, only to be kidnapped by a brutal pirate gang and forced to marry their leader. Dragged through stormy seas and lawless bandit havens, Yang must stay scrappy to survive. She embeds herself in the dark business of piracy, carving out her role against the resistance of powerful pirate leaders and Cheung Po Tsai, her husband's flamboyant male concubine.

In 19th-century China, when wives and daughters were foot-bound and lived in almost total seclusion, the women in one remote Hunan county developed their own secret code for communication: nu shu (“women’s writing”). With the arrival of a silk fan on which Snow Flower has composed for Lily a poem of introduction in nu shu, their friendship is sealed. As the years pass, through famine and rebellion, they reflect upon their arranged marriages, loneliness, and the joys and tragedies of motherhood.

The only thing Lady Cordelia and Lord Rockport can agree on is their mutual abhorrence. Lady Cordelia was supposed to be the perfect debutante. But three broken engagements later, she's the subject of titters rather than laudations. Now relegated to the wallflower section of every ballroom, she does not want anything to plummet her further into scandal. She absolutely does not want to have anything to do with the too handsome, too roguish, too Scottish Marquess of Rockport.

Life for Victoria Lacey should be perfect. And it is - perfectly boring. Agree to marry a lord who has yet to inspire a single, solitary tingle? Why, of course. Smile as though this is not the thousandth time he's mentioned hounds and hunting? It's all in a day's work for the oh-so-proper sister of the Duke of Blackmore. Surely no one would suspect her secret longing for heart-racing, head-spinning passion. Except, perhaps, a dark stranger...on a terrace...at a ball where she should definitely not be kissing a man she has only just met.

Nuneaton, 1880. Twenty year old Daisy Armstrong lives a happy life with her loving father, Jed. They have a special bond, particularly after losing her beloved Irish mother and younger brother. But when Jed falls in love with a local widow, everything is set to change for them both. With expensive tastes and a lavish lifestyle, moving into Daisy and Jed's humble forge is not what the widow or her spoiled son, Gilbert, expected - and they make that very clear. Worked to the bone trying to look after their busy home, Daisy is exhausted.

Maude Sutherland grew up racing the boys, but when adolescence arrived, she became the ugly duckling of her clan. Sent to the Scottish royal court of King Robert the Bruce, forced to navigate the social machinations of courtiers, Maude is certain no man will choose her over the more elegant ladies-in-waiting. When a Highland laird arrives and sweeps her off her feet, Maude finds hope that she might grow into a swan. Can he convince her to trust his intentions are true?

Kizzie McAdams spent her childhood longing to see beyond her secluded Blue Ridge Mountain home, but when her job as a servant in a landowner’s house results in an unplanned pregnancy, the excitement of her new life dissolves into alienation and heartbreak. Her father disowns her, the father of her child gives inconsistent affection and broken promises, and the matriarch of the area is determined to distance Kizzie from her son by any means necessary.

Gertrude, the eldest Killoran sister, has spent a lifetime being underestimated - especially by her own family. She may seem as vulnerable as a kitten, but given the chance, she can be as fierce as a tiger. Her adopted brother, Stephen, has just been snatched back by his true father, and she’ll be damned if she relinquishes the boy to the man reviled throughout London as the Mad Marquess.

Charlotte tries to make headway in her town's social life but reveals herself to be unaware of all the intricacies of polite society. Though Edward pitches in, tutoring her in society's expectations, she just seems to make things worse. And the more she comes to know of her father's assistant, the more trouble she has imagining life without him. Caught in a trap of her own making and seeing the hopelessness of her prospects, will Charlotte get to keep her work, or will she have to cede her heart?

Lord Rupert Haywood, future Duke of Belmonte, has no desire to manage an estate with his corrupt father. He prefers to roam the ocean with his crew of rugged pirates. Ever since Louisa Carmichael's brother unexpectedly inherited a dukedom, her mother's expectations for her have veered in a distinctly vertical direction. Louisa dreams not of glittering ballgowns but of exploring the tropical waters of the Caribbean with her latest invention, an underwater breathing apparatus.

Lord Frederick Bowen, Duke of Salisbury, is expecting an heiress for Christmas. The fact does not bring him pleasure. Ever since the war ended, he would rather focus on experiments for his new waterproof material. Celia might be the daughter of an earl, but she's of the illegitimate variety. She has resigned herself to life as a maid for the wicked countess and her two half-sisters. When Celia's half-sister begs her to pretend to be her, Celia is thrust into a fairy tale. Everyone knows though that fairy tales never come true....

Lady Madeline Mulbourne, widow of a renowned art critic, has secrets. Pretty secrets. Sparkling secrets. Ever since the wars on the continent ended, she's been determined to return the jewels the French confiscated to their rightful owners, even if it means stealing them herself. Lord Arthur Carmichael, Marquess of Bancroft and a former spy, is in need of a bride. Who is more suited than the woman he'd once intended to marry? But when jewels disappear at balls Madeline attends, Arthur suspects Madeline might have more than one reason for not wanting to marry him.

Veronique Daventry absolutely believes in true love. When the baron she's corresponded with for years over long distance suggests they elope in Scotland, she eagerly assents. Perhaps she's never met him, but she's certain their souls are meant to be joined for eternity. Lord Miles Worthing is surprised when he is ushered to a chapel on a visit to Scotland and finds a beautiful woman. His happiness halts when her family discovers them in a compromising position. Veronique is devastated to have mistaken this stranger for her fiance.

December 1937: The Japanese have taken Nanking. A group of terrified schoolgirls hides in the compound of an American church. Among them is Shujuan, through whose 13-year-old eyes we witness the shocking events that follow. Run by Father Engelmann, an American priest who has been in China for many years, the church is supposedly neutral ground in the war between China and Japan. But it becomes clear the Japanese are not obeying international rules of engagement.

At 26, Bushrod Carter is already an old soldier, a veteran of all his regiment's campaigns since Shiloh. Now, on an Indian summer afternoon in 1864, Bushrod finds himself in the line of battle once again, on a plain below the obscure village of Franklin, Tennessee. The dark flower of his destiny is opening in the twilight, just as it has on other fields, and Bushrod must pass once again under its shadow if he is to see tomorrow.

Sarah Drayton is eager to spend time with her best friend at her crumbling Northumberland castle estate. Yet she finds herself being inveigled into a marriage of convenience with her friend's rakish brother. When James Langley returns to his family's estate, he can't be bothered to pay attention to his responsibilities as the heir. But his roguish ways have backed him into a corner, and he has little choice but to obey his father's stunning decree: marry before returning to war, or else. Suddenly he finds himself wedded to a clever and capable woman he does not love.