Wanda McCaddon

"Marianne Dashwood wears her heart on her sleeve, and when she falls in love with the dashing but unsuitable John Willoughby she ignores her sister Elinor's warning that her impulsive behaviour leaves her open to gossip and innuendo. Meanwhile Elinor, always sensitive to social convention, is struggling to conceal her own romantic disappointment, even from those closest to her. Through their parallel experience of love - and its threatened loss -...

When orphaned Mary Lennox comes to live at her uncle's great house on the Yorkshire moors, she finds it full of secrets. At night, she hears the sound of crying down one of the long corridors. Outside, she meets Dickon, a magical boy who can talk to animals. Then one day, Mary discovers the most mysterious wonder of all -- a secret garden, walled and locked, which has been forgotten for years and years. With the help of two unexpected companions,...

E. M. Forster's The Longest Journey is a searching meditation on the costs of conformity and the elusive pursuit of authenticity in Edwardian England. The story, Forster's favorite among his own novels, centers on Frederick (Rickie) Elliot, a physically frail and introspective Cambridge graduate, whose aspirations as a writer are thwarted by the suffocating expectations of family and society. Rickie's ill-fated marriage to the pragmatic Agnes Pembroke...

Eleanor Trewynn is a recently retired widow who has moved to the small village of Port Mabyn in Cornwall. A lifetime of traveling the world, working for a charitable organization in some of the poorest parts of the world, has made her capable of handling nearly anything. Now, however, Eleanor is ready for an uneventful life with her dog and friends in this quiet town, but unfortunately, excitement seems to follow her around.Her friend and neighbor,...

Walter Pater (1839-1894) attained a B.A. degree in Classics from Queen's College, Oxford, followed soon after by a M.A. degree from Brasenose College, Oxford, where he was made a Fellow in 1865. That same year Pater toured Italy, where he discovered what would become a lifelong passion for masters of the Italian Renaissance like Leonardo da Vinci, Sandro Botticelli, Michelangelo, among many others. In 1877 he published "The Renaissance: Studies in...

Orphaned into the household of her Aunt Reed at Gateshead and subject to the cruel regime at Lowood charity school, Jane Eyre nonetheless emerges unbroken in spirit and integrity. She takes up the post of governess at Thornfield Hall, falls in love with Mr. Rochester, and discovers the impediment to their lawful marriage in a story that transcends melodrama to portray a woman's passionate search for a richer life than that traditionally allowed women...

A model is murdered in this "first-rate" detective story by the Mystery Writers of America Grand Master (Kirkus Reviews). On a ship traveling back to England, Miss Agatha Troy finds Inspector Roderick Alleyn tedious and dull; he thinks she's a bohemian cliché. They may be destined for romance, but there's a murder in the way: No sooner has Alleyn settled in to his mother's house, eager for a relaxing end to his vacation, than he gets a call that...

A British police detective looks into sinister doings in the South of France in a crime thriller with "more than a little excitement" (Kirkus Reviews). Inspector Roderick Alleyn has decamped for the South of France on a family vacation—though for him, the vacation will involve some official poking around. Unfortunately, the object of his poking—the cultish denizens of a sinister and luxurious chateau—are not fond of being poked, and they have...

The New York Times–bestselling novel about a powerful Wall Street family in the 1920s and the illicit affair that threatens their empire. In public, Paul Van Zale and his partners at his Wall Street investment bank are exemplary citizens and pillars of the community. In private, however, their lives are riven by jealousy, ambition, hatred, and lust. When the clever and sexy Dinah Slade insinuates herself into Paul's life in the 1920s, the banker's...

The acclaimed author brings us crime at a country-house Christmas party in "one of her best and most baffling mysteries" (Daily Express). It's the Christmas season in 1972, and Agatha Troy is at a house party, enjoying the local holiday pageant and also painting the host's portrait. The painting's coming along fine, but the pageant goes a little pear-shaped when one of the players disappears. Could one of the eccentric guests have been involved? Or...