Leslie Carroll

Overview

The Memoirs of Helen of Troy recounts the extraordinary life story of antiquity’s most legendary beauty, narrated in the first person by the woman forever known as “the face that launched a thousand ships.” But does Helen really deserve the blame for the Trojan War, the most devastating conflict of her era? As I read and re-read voluminous source material in the researching of the novel, it was clear to me that without changing any of the “facts,” the actions of some of the most famous players in Greek and Trojan history could be viewed in a completely new light! Feisty, wise, compassionate, sometimes willful, occasionally vain, but always alluring, Helen excited the ardor of all who beheld her.

Overview

A funny, sexy novel of romance, mystery, and time travel…and the perfect treat for all Jane Austen fans.

C.J. Welles, a New York actress who loves the novels of Jane Austen, is on the verge of landing her dream role: portraying her idol in a Broadway play. But during her final audition—garbed in full nineteenth-century dress—she exits stage left and emerges onto the stage of quite another theatre in an altogether different time, having been mysteriously transported to the English city of Bath in the year 1801. But nineteenth-century Bath is not the picturesque costume drama C.J. had always envisioned. The brutal life of a servant, the harsh treatment of women, and the limited hygienic facilities are all terrifyingly alien to her.

Just as she wishes she could click her heels together and return to Manhattan, C.J. serendipitously meets the delightfully eccentric Lady Euphoria Dalrymple, a widowed countess with some rather advanced notions about the world. On a whim, the countess decides to take C.J. into her home, introducing her to Georgian society as a poor relation. An at an assembly ball, C.J. meets the dashing Earl of Darlington, whose cousin is none other than Jane Austen!

When a crisis develops, C.J.—in a race against time—becomes torn between two centuries. An attempt to return to her own era might mean forever forfeiting her blossoming romance with the irresistible Darlington and her growing friendship with Jane Austen, but it’s a risk she must take. And in the midst of this remarkable series of events, C.J. discovers something even more startling-a secret from her own past that may explain how she wound up in Bath in the first place.

Overview

Emma Hamilton is renowned as the real-life heroine of the greatest love story in British history: yet her passionate and enduring romance with Lord Horatio Nelson remains the stuff of legend.

She had the accent—and mouth—of a bawdy Welsh maid, but Emma’s breathtaking beauty captivated some of the most influential and powerful men in Europe The impoverished daughter of an illiterate country farrier, young Emily Lyon sold coal by the roadside to help put food on the family’s table. By the time she was fifteen, she had made her way from London nursemaid to vivacious courtesan, and continued a meteoric rise through society, rung by slippery rung. And by the end of the eighteenth century, she had become the most talked-about woman in all of Europe, an artful performer, an ambassador without portfolio, mistress of many tongues, a key envoy in Britain’s and Italy’s war against the French, and confidante to a queen. Once she met Nelson, Emma’s fascinating life grew even more tumultuous, as she and England’s greatest hero of the age braved the censure of king and peers, and the sneers of society, all in the name of true love.

This novel, inspired by her remarkable life, recounts Emma’s many extraordinary adventures, the earth-shattering passion she eventually found with Lord Nelson, and how they braved the censure of king and country, risking all in the name of true love.

Overview

Overnight she became a star. Over many nights she became a legend.

At the age of fifteen, Mary Robinson was married off to an unfaithful wastrel. During the next seven years, her spellbinding talent, beauty, and drive would lead her from the denigration of debtors’ prison to the London stages, where a star was born. With the heart of a poet and face of an angel she was sold as society’s darling. Though dubbed “the priestess of taste” for her dashing style, her unabashed exploits made her the queen of scandal, envied by women worldwide, and desired by every man within reach.

From Mary Robinson’s shocking affair with the Prince of Wales and the fortuitous liaisons that titillated the country, to heartbreaking betrayals and a restless pursuit of true romance, this breathtaking novel paints a vivid portrait of a woman who changed history by doing as she pleased-for money, for fame, for pleasure, and above all—for love.