The Regency era, just after Napoleon's fall: four cheerful but clueless young men set out from England on the Grand Tour of Europe. Join George, Robert, Hugh, and Tobias along with a host of memorable characters as they travel through dozens of countries meeting kings, artists, and revolutionaries, while doing their best to escape misadventures with the police, secret societies, spies, and love.

Born the younger half-sister of Louise of Savoy, Filiberta was never sure of her place until her older sister arranged a marriage for her to the youngest son of Lorenzo the Magnificent. A pawn in a much larger game. Filiberta will have to find her feet if she is to survive in a family like the Medici, no longer the ruling house in Florence and excelled across Europe trying to find a way to reclaim what was taken from them. Book One of the Auld Alliance.

Venice, 1743. Violetta, the daughter of a humble theatre caretaker, has grown up on the fringes of the stage, dreaming from afar of a world she doesn't belong to. When an unexpected twist forces her to step in for the leading actress in a comedy by Carlo Goldoni, her life changes overnight. In the audience is Ewan Campbell, a Scottish nobleman on a secret mission, who is instantly struck by her rare presence. But their encounter sets off a chain of unforeseen events: in a clumsy attempt to speak to her, Ewan misplaces a crucial document entrusted to him by supporters of the Jacobite cause-one that could change the fate of Scotland. It is Violetta who finds it, and she soon finds herself, against her will, caught up in a dangerous web of secrets, conspiracies, and political intrigue. As the winds of war begin to rise on all sides, the bond growing between them may be their only salvation... or their downfall.

The royal guards were known for their brutality, especially when they descended into the village for patrols or to collect the king's taxes. In Medonia, silence was survival. That is, until Adena's path collides-literally-with a royal guard. What begins as an unintended collision slowly pulls them into a situation neither of them were ever meant to be part of... one that could change everything they know about loyalty, fear, and each other.

{Wattys 2018 Winner - The Contemporaries} Versailles, France 1789: Where the only things more prevalent than opulence and wealth, are secrets. At the dawn of the French Revolution, Paris is divided. In the glittering palace of Versailles, courtiers party without a care in the world, but in the city, people must fight to stay alive. Eighteen-year-old courtier Gabriel de la Marche is part of both worlds. When Gabriel was fourteen, his older sister went missing, and desperation for answers led him to strike a deal with an underground organization of assassins-they would use their connections to help Gabriel find his sister, if Gabriel agreed to kill members of nobility under the alias L'Ange de la Mort. Four years later, he still hasn't found his sister, and the repercussions of his decision are catching up with him. But he fears it might be too late to turn back now. The daughter of a French mother and a wealthy English earl, Lizabeth survived in the womb when her twin brother did not. Believed by her family to be cursed, she has grown up shamed and unloved, locked away in her father's estate. That is, until Lizabeth's mother strikes a deal of her own. If Lizabeth travels to Versailles and kills L'Ange de la Mort, she'll be granted her freedom. At the palace, Gabriel and Lizabeth fall headfirst into love, neither of them knowing the other's secret. Amid lavish court life, Lizabeth desperately searches for the identity of L'Ange de la Mort while Gabriel searches for the person rumored to want him dead. And when the truth is finally revealed, they discover they've become entrapped in a plot bigger than either of them could have imagined. One which could change all of France. stunning cover by storms_and_seas! aesthetics by makovea!

On a solitary drive across the states in search of refuge from her woes, a girl named Hensley stops in a peculiar small town perched on a plateau above the sea. The endeavor was only meant to be a pause for gas, but as Hensley goes to leave, she quickly finds that the roads off the shelf have vanished, and even worse, so have the towns residents. Now alone and trapped in a foreign place, Hensley quickly sets to looking for an escape, but as she soon finds, that's easier said than done. The town she's found herself in doesn't seem to be the same one she entered, decaying fast and rotted to ruin, and the sea below has drained into a bottomless, all consuming abyss. An abyss that's not empty... Beasts of utter horror are scurrying up the cliffs from the darkness, looking for lost morsels such as Hensley, and while she tries to duck them while looking for her way out, she fears that she won't be able to avoid them for long. Because the more she investigates, the more Hensely realizes she's not the first one on the shelf, and all the evidence points to her predecessors not making it out alive... Hensely only has herself to rely on now, and as time winds on, that statement proves to be darkly literal.

Nightingale is human - or would be, had it not been for the manner of her creation. Genetically engineered and grown to adulthood in a lab, she was created, not born. Why? For the sole purpose of the entertainment of rich men as one of the many Inamoratas in the bordello business . Beautiful, elegant, a superb dancer and an even better singer, she is the perfect lover for any man. Perfect, that is, except for her personality - the one thing you can't engineer.

The gentle young Earl of Ilmarie has his life turned upside down when he crosses paths with the fiery and wild Thea. A flash fic written for the #Shortys2024 Historical/ Romance Word count: 1921 [29/09/2024]