Showing results by author "Susan Leona Fisher" in All Categories

Penelope Clayton knows a lot more about sanitary engineering than she does about polite society. When her father sends her to London to stay with a well-connected cousin, she has little expectation of securing the society marriage he would like, for she’s never been taught to curtsey, nor can she dance a step. Despite these shortcomings, her natural aristocratic grace, with the help of some beautiful new gowns, ensures she catches the eye of apparent reprobate Lord Alexander Forsyth, who’s seeking a wife to enhance his budding political career. But philandering Viscount Midhurst is in ...

A young woman in search of her rightful inheritance falls into the clutches of a radical naval hero who has made his considerable fortune by prudent investment and seemingly intends to add her to his collection. But, in that era of post-Waterloo suspicion, a government spy has his eye on both of them and a dangerous adventure awaits. If you enjoyed the same author’s Victorian romance mysteries (Heiress to a Duke, Fair Play and Foul, & The Regiment’s Forgotten Daughter) you will love this, her regency debut. It has the same authenticity of a carefully researched historical context but ...

Thomas Robertson has worked with horses since the age of thirteen, mostly recently on a stud farm near the racing town of Newmarket. After notable successes at some of the big races, his reputation is made and he receives an offer to be head groom and trainer to Titus Fox, the Duke of Exford. It couldn’t have come at a better time, for Tom has been receiving unwelcome attention from the stud owner’s daughter—unwelcome at least so far as the stud owner is concerned, having someone of higher social status in mind for his only child. At Exford Hall, Tom finds himself treated with great ...

In 1918 Lily Deacon is surprised to be asked to join a commission investigating the morals of young Englishwomen serving at the Western front in the First World War, an interruption to her ordered life and her work as a factory inspector. While in France, by chance she hears the reminiscences of a wounded soldier and promises to find out what happened to the young doctor Edward Hamilton and nurse Lucy Smith, who saved his life on their voyage to South Africa in 1900. Within a matter of weeks she has fallen in love with an army surgeon, become a courier for secret information and uncovered ...

As the youngest son and tenth child of a country parson, Piers Nugent soon realises he must make his own way in the world. After six years in the army, he’s looking for a new career and is mystified as to why he gets appointed to join the team of Equerries supporting the busy life of the Prince of Wales. An important part of the role is to ensure confidentiality is maintained in regard to courtly activities, whether he approves of them or not. Meanwhile, he comes into contact with The JMM Inquiry Agency, whose function is to uncover the truth in matters they are hired to investigate. When...

Three Romantic Short Stories on the them town meets country, full of warmth, humour, unexpected meetings and happy endings. 1. New Lease of Life: Single mum Rosie struggles to hold onto her job and keep her teenage son out of trouble, till her friend Kate comes up with a suggestion that will help them both. The catch is, it involves adjusting to country life, but as it’s supposed to help Kate catch a man, it’s all in a good cause. Little does Rosie realise that local landowner Hugh has ideas of catching her. 2. Posing the Question: Fiona is thrilled when she hears of an old painting ...

Mutual Designs: Kay is proud of the company she’s created. Kilderscope Interior Design might be a relatively new and small-scale business but her reputation is growing and media coverage is promising. When an oil-rich sheikh requests her company’s professional services, she finds he will only deal with a male chief executive. To bring the deal off she needs a suitable man to play the part, so she hires Rob, believing him to be an out-of-work actor. That’s her first mistake… Written in the Beads: June goes to Africa for a working holiday after being dumped by both her boyfriend and ...

In 1897 orphan Rose Turner revisits Exeter, the city of her birth. A chance meeting inspires her to find a way to better her life and escape the drudgery for which she’s been trained. She also learns the truth of her family’s death in a tragic fire ten years before. Back in London she enrols at a cookery school and becomes a key member of the team hired out to grand houses to cater for important guests, for she has a particular talent with ice-cream. At several of these she encounters George Kemble, self-made businessman, in line to succeed to the Duke of Fairleigh’s title, should he ...

In 1890, shortly before her twenty-fifth birthday, Elizabeth Portland finds herself abandoned for the second time in her life. Against her better judgement she is persuaded to act as chaperone to an eighteen-year-old society girl to see her safely through a summer on the continent before her coming out season. Caught up in the parry and thrust of society match-making, she has no thought of herself becoming an object of interest, particularly to Hugh Wentworth, heir to a duke and reportedly a philanderer who makes his living by gambling. How unfortunate that circumstances keep throwing her ...

A traditional Regency tale, in which the so-called footman’s daughter, with the encouragement of a handsome naval captain who comes into her life by chance, learns the truth of her origins and begins to take charge of her own destiny. But will her future include him? NEW: AUDIO BOOK with British accents for the UK reader, obtainable from Amazon.com

Beatrice leaves behind her life and job in London to stay with her great aunt Jane, her only remaining relative. Being mixed race in the early eighties is not so unusual in the big city, but in the north she does rather stand out as different and wonders if she’ll be able to get work. As it happens there’s an aristocratic lady who needs a typist and is delighted to discover Beatrice’s half-African roots, when at last Beatrice manages to get there. She is somewhat late for her interview, which happens to fall on the day the snowy winter of 1981/2 begins. Beatrice’s car gets stuck in ...

Joanne Gifford has lived most of her life in the Devonshire seaside town of Stowmouth. Her father is the local vicar and she is the eldest of eight children. She left school when her mother died and took over the running of the household and the care of her younger siblings. At twenty-eight, with the youngest three still at home, she doesn’t see a time when she’ll ever be free of her responsibilities and able to develop a life of her own. Then handsome Swiss architect, Liam Keller, arrives in town, bent on acquiring a run-down Victorian hotel for his family’s five-star chain, and by ...

In September, 1938, with war threatening, seventeen-year-old Emily Flannigan is sent by her parents to Liverpool to board a trans-Atlantic liner. At the dockside her suitcase is stolen and the handsome Howard Mortimer, comes to her aid. On the voyage she meets a girl fleeing the Nazi persecution in Austria and a prostitute fleeing her sordid London life. Further challenges await once she reaches New England and she has to grow up fast and learn to survive. A further chance meeting with Howard Mortimer, now a British Naval Reservist, leads to a friendly exchange of correspondence throughout ...

When Ellen Roberts opens her front door and finds her long-absent granddaughter Janie standing there, little does she expect she will be confronted by the past. For, once Janie unearths a box of correspondence from the First World War hidden in a cupboard, memories come flooding back—how Ellen solved the mystery of those letters, the romance she found along the way, and a guilty secret she’s kept from her daughter Frances for years. That history belongs as much to Frances and Janie as to Ellen. Will she have the courage to share it? This Kindle E book is now also available as an AUDIO ...

Nadine Crichton is a glamorous thirty-something woman of the eighties, running a successful business with her friend Pat. But is it enough? Orphaned as a young adult, she longs to have a family to belong to. She’s not the sort to act on a whim, but as 1987 gets underway and heralds a whole series of tragedies from the Zeebrugge ferry sinking to the King’s Cross fire, that’s just what she does. Surely this look-alike woman from years ago must be a relative. Her search leads her first to a small English village, where she finds unexpected complications in the person of local farmer Josh...