Valeria Allegro was hoping to embark on a life of freedom when she left Italy to travel to Australia for an arranged marriage with Roberto Morandi. The last thing she expected to encounter was harassment by Roberto’s friend and neighbour, Luca Abandonato. Valeria begins to wonder if marrying a virtual stranger at eighteen was a wise decision, especially when her new husband and his family demonstrate greater loyalty to Luca. Alone in a foreign country and struggling to feel settled and secure, it appears that Valeria must face a dangerous enemy alone unless love can be her salvation.

A stunning new ebook original story by J. M. Sidorova Includes an exclusive excerpt of Sidorova’s acclaimed debut novel, The Age of Ice. Speculative fiction icon John Crowley calls J. M. Sidorova’s The Age of Ice “marvelous.” Karen Joy Fowler, author of The Jane Austen Book Club, hails it as “everything you could want in a novel.” Now, in this special ebook-only story, Sidorova returns to the world of The Age of Ice—her captivating blend of fiction, history, and fantasy—offering a mesmerizing new tale of the power of cold. In April 1814, just days after Napoléon’s defeat by the coalition of the European powers, Prince Alexander Velitzyn, the hero of The Age of Ice, is drifting around Paris, coming to grips with the brutality of the war and his role in it. Unbeknownst to him, Alexander strolls through the same passageways as another human being just like him. Hidden behind costume and makeup, twenty-two-year-old Cherie performs a daily show in the Palais-Royal, a noble palace where shopkeepers and showgirls have set up all manner of risqué commerce—boutiques, gambling rooms, and pubs designed to satiate every desire of the senses. Cherie, though, is an unusual act. Her feat relies on physics, not trickery. She is a young woman making do with the fate she’s been dealt—not just the terror of revolution, but her own, crippling coldness. Then, one evening, a wounded young soldier named Julien comes to her room, and what happens threatens to upend Cherie’s notion of the world and herself. The Colors of Cold is a beautifully imagined glimpse into two lives trapped by frost—metaphorical and literal—set amid one of the most stirring moments in the history of Paris.

18th century China. Lady Qing has spent the past seven years languishing inside the high red walls of the Forbidden City. Classed as an Honoured Lady, a lowly ranked concubine, Qing is neglected by the Emperor, passed over for more ambitious women. But when a new concubine, Lady Ying, arrives, Qing’s world is turned upside down. As the highest position at court becomes available and every woman fights for status, Qing finds love for the first time in her life… if Lady Ula Nara, the most ambitious woman at court, will allow her a taste of happiness. If you loved Memoirs of a Geisha and enjoy books by Anchee Min, Lisa See and Pearl S. Buck, then the Forbidden City series is for you. Based on real women in 18th century China who became concubines to emperors of the Qing dynasty and spent their lives in the Forbidden City, this is historical fiction at its most intriguing, gripping and romantic. I had trouble reviewing this, because I was desperately looking for something I could nitpick on. I didn’t find it. It is well researched. It is beautifully written. It stands out because it is the story of courtly games from (the viewpoint of) those who are the victim of them: the pieces, not the power players, and it makes those pieces all too human. A beautifully told and excellently researched tale of relationships and romance in the 18th-century Chinese court. Flawless… BookAngel Five star reviews from Amazon readersAn enchanting love story but so much more.Beautifully written and wonderfully descriptive.Instantly and seamlessly transported me to a foreign land, century, and culture.A lovely story about love.I was not able to put it down, finishing two hours later.A delight! Want to watch a book trailer for this title? Just scroll down on the US site, visit my Amazon author page on the UK site or come to my own website which has all my book trailers. Happy viewing! About author Melissa AddeyYou can read about me and my books (and get a free novella) on my website, MelissaAddey.com. I mainly write historical fiction, focusing on the Forbidden City in China’s 18th century (now complete) and Morocco in the 11th century (completing soon). Next up, Ancient Rome! I’m in the final year of my Creative Writing PhD and was the 2016 Leverhulme Trust Writer in Residence at the British Library. In 2019 I won the Page to Podcast competition as well as the Novel London award.

Fourteen wartime Christmas tales for you to enjoy this holiday season. This collection of short stories is our gift to bring you something positive and joyful with which to end the year. Soldiers stumbling upon mercy and miracles; children sharing gifts of friendship and love; Romance finding its way into lonely, war-weary hearts; resistance fighters, spies, families on the home front—all bringing their own ray of hope in the darkest of time. For this holiday season, we offer you this collection of short stories to lift your spirit, and to remember a time when love and the strength of human spirit prevailed. We hope you will enjoy stepping back into the wartime Christmases in these stories with us.

May Lindsay and her young stepsister Maggie are left penniless and homeless when their father the local doctor dies. Maggie can go to live with her three maiden aunts, but May at the age of nineteen is faced with a choice. Should she take the position of companion to a girl she doesn’t know, who lives some distance away, or accept a proposal of marriage from the man who has been her friend since they were small children? May Lindsay makes her decision, but it is not long before she wonders if she has done the right thing. This is a story of life in Victorian England as May, who has led a sheltered life, is pushed out into a much bigger world than she has previously known. She soon encounters titled families, and is taken on a tour of the Holy Land which occupies much of the story. Two men seem to be a big disappointment to May Lindsay. Will her Christian faith hold strong in these troubles? Was she right in the decision she made before leaving home? Chris Wright is the author of over thirty books, starting with young fiction for an English Christian publisher in 1966. He has written both fiction and non-fiction, mostly with a Christian theme, for a variety of publishers. Chris is married with three grownup children, and lives in the West Country of England where he is a home group leader with his local church.