"Winn Van Meter is heading for his family's retreat on the pristine New England island of Waskeke. Normally a haven of calm, for the next three days this sanctuary will be overrun by tipsy revelers as Winn prepares for the marriage of his daughter Daphne to the affable young scion Greyson Duff. Winn's wife, Biddy, has planned the wedding with military precision, but arrangements are sideswept by a storm of salacious misbehavior and intractable lust:...

Tiberius Flynn may be every inch the English lord, but smart, headstrong beauty Hester Daniels has no use for his high-handed ways--no matter how handsome, charming, or beguiling he is. They only see eye to eye in caring about the feisty little girl who is under their protection. Tiberius's haughty insistence that his wealthy estate in England is a better place for the child than her beloved, rundown Scotland home sparks Hester's fierce protectiveness,...

A mysterious minister who never removes the black veil shrouding his face, an eccentric scientist who experiments with the fate of his friends, a cheerful tombstone carver who speaks the wisdom of the graveyard, these are but a few of the unusual New Englanders you'll meet in Twice-Told Tales.

"In 1950s London, Tom Knelston is charismatic, charming, with a passion for politics and reform. He is a man with ambition―and someone to watch. His wife Alice, a former nurse, shares his ideals. It seems they are the perfect match. Then, out of the blue, Tom meets an old childhood acquaintance, the beautiful and unhappily married Diana Southcott, a fashion model. In many ways, she is everything Tom fights against, but she is also irresistible and...

Falsely accused of theft, Silas Marner is cut off from his community but finds refuge in the village of Raveloe, where he is eyed with distant suspicion. Like a spider from a fairy-tale, Silas fills fifteen monotonous years with weaving and accumulating gold. The son of the wealthy local Squire, Godfrey Cass also seeks an escape from his past. One snowy winter, two events change the course of their lives: Silas's gold is stolen and, a child crawls...

The Woman Lady Henrietta Maclellan longs for the romantic swirl of a London season. But as a rusticating country maiden, she has always kept her sensuous nature firmly under wraps -- until she meets Simon Darby. Simon makes her want to whisper promises late at night, exchange kisses on a balcony, receive illicit love notes. So Henrietta lets her imagination soar and writes... The Letter A very steamy love letter that becomes shockingly public....

This eerie short story by Sarah Orne Jewett remained uncollected during her lifetime.

As a member of the Junior Ganymede Club--an association of butlers and valets that is in reality an arm of the British intelligence service--Jeeves must ferret out a Fascist spy, with the help of his hapless employer, Bertie Wooster.

With neither friends nor family, Lucy Snowe sets sail from England to find employment in a girls' boarding school in the small town of Villette. There she struggles to retain her self-possession in the face of unruly pupils, an initially suspicious headmaster, and her own complex feelings, first for the school's English doctor and then for the dictatorial professor, Paul Emmanuel. Charlotte Brontë's last and most autobiographical novel is a powerfully...

"It's back to Corduroy Mansions--the slightly dilapidated but well-lived-in mansion block in London's hip Pimlico neighborhood--for the third installment in Alexander McCall Smith's newest popular series. There's never a dull moment for the residents of Corduroy Mansions: Berthea Snark is still at work on her scathing biography of the only loathsome Liberal Democrat member of Parliament--her own son, Oedipus; literary agents Rupert Porter and Barbara...