**"This absolute gem of a novel sparkles with creativity."--**Booklist starred reviewIt is 1903, and Lily Temple is a beautiful silent-film actress who spins fairy tales and plays frivolous roles in front of the cine-camera. But beneath the costumes and stage makeup is a woman with a quick wit, a murky past, and a tantalizing secret.Underground investigator to the wealthy, Peter Driscoll has been tasked with locating the legendary ...

When concert pianist Vivienne Mourdant’s father dies, he leaves to her the care of a patient at Hurstwell Asylum. Vivienne had no idea the woman existed, and yet her portrait is shockingly familiar. When the asylum claims she was never apatient there, Vivienne is compelled to discover what happened to the figure she remembers from childhood dreams.The longer she lingers in the deep shadows and forgotten towers at Hurstwell, the fuzzier the line between sanity and madness bec...

The essays in Pragmatist and American Philosophical Perspectives on Resilience offer a survey of the ways that “resilience” is becoming a key concept for understanding our world, as well as providing deeper insight about its specific actual and proposed applications. As a concept with multiple theoretical and practical meanings, “resilience” promises considerable explanatory power. At the same time, current uses of the concept can be diverse and at times inconsistent. The American philosop...

Women around the world are opting out of marriage. Through nuanced ethnographic accounts of the ways that women are moving the needle on marital norms and practices, Opting Out reveals the conditions that make this widespread phenomenon possible in places where marriage has long been obligatory. Each chapter invites readers into the lives of particular women and the changing circumstances in which these lives unfold - sometimes painfully, sometimes humorously, and always unexpecte...

A clever young woman, a contested will, and an estate that does not easily give up its secrets.It is 1901 when clockmaker and tinker Sydney Forrester receives a most unusual inheritance. Blakely House, the island estate of an estranged uncle she's never met, seems almost alive, revealing and hiding its secrets at will. It is filled with remarkable inventions, including an intriguing unfinished automaton Sydney is itching to get her skilled hands on.The esta...

When Aurelie Harcourt’s father dies in debtor’s prison, he leaves her just two things: his wealthy family, whom she has never met, and his famous pen name, Nathaniel Droll. Her new family greets her with apathy and even resentment. Only the quiet houseguest, Silas Rotherham, welcomes her company.When Aurelie decides to complete her father’s unfinished serial novel, writing the family into the story as unflattering characters, she must keep her identity as Nathaniel Droll hidden whi...

Raina Bretton is a rag woman in London’s east end when a handsome stranger appears in a dank alley and offers her a glittering smile and a chance for adventure. Rothburne Abbey has a unique position for her, one that will take her away from her hardscrabble life and give her a chance to be a lady. Things she could only dream of might be coming true. But some dreams turn out to be nightmares.Though Raina has traded squalor for silk and satin, something about the abbey is deeply unse...

He promised to help her reclaim the memories she lost—no matter what they found.Until she remembered another man.Cornwall, 1913For three years, Merryn has lived without a past—no family, no history, no home that's truly hers.When the threat of being locked away for her own “protection” looms, she takes a desperate chance on AJ Winthrop—a warmhearted, whimsical stranger who offers a hasty marriage of convenie...

A lonely young heiress becomes the poorest wealthy woman in Victorian England when her father dies without telling anyone where he hid his fortune. Can Tressa and the no-nonsense estate manager find the fortune before the greedy relatives get to it first?Tressa Harlowe’s father did not trust banks, but neither did he trust his greedy extended family. He kept his vast fortune hidden somewhere on his estate in the south of England and died suddenly, without telling anyone where he ha...

In the search for the truth, the line between fact and fiction is beginning to fall out of focusIt is 1903, and Lily Temple is a beautiful silent-film actress who spins fairy tales and plays frivolous roles in front of the cine-camera. But beneath the costumes and stage makeup is a woman with a quick wit, a murky past, and a tantalizing secret.As an underground investigator to the wealthy, Peter Driscoll has been tasked with locating the legendary Briarwood Teardrop, an exq...

The best moments in dance are the unscripted onesAt their core, all theater romances are tragedies. Ella Blythe knows this. Still, she cannot help but hope her own story may turn out different than most—and certainly different than the tragic story of the Ghost of Craven Street Theater.After a chance encounter with one of the ballet company's handsome dancers late one night, Ella is swept off her elegantly pointed toes. The dance they share and the promise ...

Focused on a career in medicine and not on romance, Willa Duvall is thrown slightly off course during the summer of 1865 when she discovers a never-opened love letter in a crack of her old writing desk. Compelled to find the passionate soul who penned it and the person who never received it, she takes a job as a nurse at the seaside estate of Crestwicke Manor.Everyone at Crestwicke has feelings—mostly negative ones—about the man who wrote the letter, but he seems to have disappeare...