Eleanor Wellesley has lived with her father's neglect and indifference all her life. When Sir Edward Wellesley is killed in a card game, Eleanor discovers he has left her destitute, and at the mercy of an evil man.

To save her family from scandal, Emily Collicott must marry. Ruined in her first season in London, she is given no choice but to wed her father's pick for a husband, or be cast out from her home. Emily agrees to marry William Hazlitt, a man she hardly knows. But William remembers her. Growing up as a tenant on her father's estate, he admired her from afar, their lives kept separate first by class, and then by loss. Emily seeks to begin a new life with this quiet man to whom she finds herself wedded. But the scandal she escaped in London soon finds her again, the very man who destroyed her reputation threatening to tear down the happiness she's found with her new husband. To keep from losing everything, she must either make a deal with a devil... or learn how to destroy one.

Sophia has sacrificed everything for her younger sister, Lucy. She has removed them from the only home they ever knew, taken on the care of Lucy's illegitimate son, George, and even assumed the role of a widow and mother in order to erase all hint of scandal from the boy's birth. But rumor continues to follow them like the darkest of clouds, and Sophia must adapt to her new existence as a false widow with no prospects beyond the doors of her small cottage. Lord Haughton - "Finn" to those close to him - will stop at nothing to prevent the slightest whiff of disgrace from tainting his family's name. When he learns of his younger brother's latest indiscretion-one that leaves a bastard child in his wake-Haughton rushes across the country to offer the boy's mother a comfortable living in exchange for her silence about the child's true parentage. But he arrives only to have his generous offer thrown back in his face by Sophia Brixton, a sharp-tongued and sharper-witted woman who proceeds to toss him out of her house. But just because he is banished from her home does not mean he is so easily banished from her life.

#WATTYS2017 Winner - HIGHEST RANKING # 5 - DOWNTON ABBEY meets Libba Bray's THE DIVINERS in this YA Historical Fantasy set in 1922 England. Unlike all the Debutantes she knows, eighteen-year-old Vita couldn't care less about her coming out ball. Trapped in her gloomy country estate, all she wants is to spend the summer dancing to jazzy numbers in East End clubs with her best friend Izzy. Freshly returned from a year abroad, Izzy is ready for the thrill of the London Season, with its endless whirl of balls, shopping sprees and horse races. Most importantly, she's counting on Vita to help her find the rich and handsome husband every high society girl deserves. But when Vita is kidnapped and found barely alive in an East London alleyway, the carefree summer the girls had planned turns into something much stranger than they could ever have imagined. With flappers turning up dead all over the city, and Vita terrified of hybrid monsters she swears she can see lurking in Mayfair's marbled houses, Izzy can't help noticing that darkness is seeping into their lives. As Vita starts to believe she's turning into a monster herself, Izzy suspects her friend's sanity is slipping away. Both girls have to find out what's happening before they lose their friendship and status, and their crowd of Bright Young Things becomes a thing of the past. *** A Wattpad Featured Story from 16/02/17 to 25/07/17 HIGHEST RANKING: # 5 on the Wattpad Historical Hot List *** THE BRIGHT AND THE LOST Pinterest Board: http://uk.pinterest.com/emcastellan/the-bright-and-the-lost/ *** Cover designer: Amalia Chitulescu *** Copyright © 2016. All works posted here are the property of EM Castellan. Please do not use without permission. Any duplication or reproduction of all or part of the work without explicit permission by the author is illegal.

**A Blue Beard retelling** Based on Charles Perrault's fairytale, this YA Historical Fantasy short story set in Victorian England mixes romance, magic and mystery. After agreeing to an arranged marriage to escape her greedy relatives, 18-year-old heiress Amelia moves into her husband's manor determined to start a new life. But the gothic mansion's forbidding surroundings, the servants' strange demeanour and her husband's mysterious past soon awaken her suspicions. If Amelia truly wants to become the lady of the house, she'll have to discover what secrets lie beyond closed doors and unravel the mystery of the old house's forbidden room. But sometimes secrets are kept for a good reason... HIGHEST RANKING IN HISTORICAL FICTION # 44 Copyright © 2017. All works posted here are the property of EM Castellan. Please do not use without permission. Any duplication or reproduction of all or part of the work without explicit permission by the author is illegal. Cover artist: @seventhstar