NCW Libraries

Anne Bronte's first novel, Agnes Grey, combines an astute dissection of middle-class social behavior and class attitudes with a wonderful study of Victorian responses to young children which has parallels with debates about education that continue to this day. In writing the novel, Bronte drew on her own experiences, and one can trace in the work many of the trials of the Victorian governess, often stranded far from home, and treated with little respect...

"Amber Patterson is fed up. She's tired of being a nobody: a plain, invisible woman who blends into the background. She deserves more--a life of money and power like the one blond-haired, blue-eyed goddess Daphne Parrish takes for granted. To everyone in the exclusive town of Bishops Harbor, Connecticut, Daphne--a socialite and philanthropist--and her real-estate mogul husband, Jackson, are a couple straight out of a fairy tale. Amber's envy could...

Overworked city gal Grace Evans is ready for a relaxing getaway on a Wyoming ranch, where the owner is handsome Calvin Wells. But when she hears of a missing woman, things soon change for the worse. "You’ve opened up your house and your heart to a total stranger … What could possibly go wrong? Grace Evans, an overworked New Yorker looking for a total escape from her busy life, books an Airbnb on a ranch in the middle of Wyoming. When she arrives...

"Alex Turner is never The One-but always the last one an ex dates before finding love--and now she's determined to find out why in this hilarious new rom-com. Single divorce attorney Alex Turner is watching reality TV when she sees her latest ex's new fiancée picking out her wedding dress. Yet again, the guy she dumped went on to marry (or at least seriously commit to) the next person he dates after her. Fed up with being the precursor to happily...

"For as long as she can remember, Belle has been insidiously obsessed with her skin and skincare videos. When her estranged mother Noelle mysteriously dies, Belle finds herself back in Southern California, dealing with her mother's considerable debts and grappling with lingering questions about her death. The stakes escalate when a strange woman in red appears at the funeral, offering a tantalizing clue about her mother's demise, followed by a cryptic...

"Faith Ferguson is New York's most in-demand wedding planner, an arbiter of taste for elegant affairs, lavish ceremonies, and exclusive f�etes. She appreciates a simple celebration as much as a dazzling event, for she knows that a dream wedding is not necessarily the most expensive one. As much as Faith enjoys her work, her two failed engagements leave her with no desire to get married herself. She finds fulfillment in her close relationship with...

"Inspired by the history of the British "brideships," this captivating historical debut tells the story of one woman's coming-of-age and search of independence--for readers of Suzanne Desrochers's Bride of New France. Tomorrow we would dock in Victoria on the northwest coast of North America, about as far away from my home as I could imagine. Like pebbles tossed upon the beach, we would scatter, trying to make our way as best we could. Most of us...

In 1887 rural Missouri, Lyric Bolton lives a life of isolation to care for her mother when Ian Cawley bursts into her life on a runaway stallion.

"In this charming epistolary romance, a book-loving librarian is unwillingly enrolled in an online matchmaking service and embarks on a journey toward love that starts with emails to a quirky islander and ends in a choice that will change her future forever"--

"A high society amateur detective at the heart of Regency London uses her wits and invisibility as an 'old maid' to protect other women in a new historical mystery series. Lady Augusta Colebrook, "Gus," is determinedly unmarried, bored by society life, and tired of being dismissed at the age of forty-two. She and her twin sister, Julia, who is grieving her dead betrothed, need a distraction. One soon presents itself: to rescue their friend's goddaughter,...