Light Hardcover (1 lb or less)

North Dakota

This is the ultimate journey around England. Christopher Winn takes us to each county, to see where history happened, where people and ideas were born, where dreams took flight and where men and women now rest from their labours. To tread in their footsteps, to touch and experience some of what inspired and moved them is to capture some of the flavour of their lives and make their stories alive and real. Crammed with facts and information, I NEVER KNEW THAT ABOUT ENGLAND celebrates the places and people that make the country unique and includes history, legends, firsts, supremes, unusuals, inventions, birthplaces and gossip. You'll be able to visit the bridge where Pooh and Piglet played Poohsticks and see where Alfred burnt the cakes. In a small village in Bedfordshire you can visit the graveyard where Long John Silver and Wendy rest. These stories will bring any place that you visit to life (keep one copy in the car and one in the house!) and enable you to discover England's rich and surprising history.

I Never Knew That About England UK Edition 

055e5948-6521-4121-87e1-fec384e1077c-1

Miranda Carter

Heavy Hardcover (2 to 4 lbs)

Texas

Three Royal Cousins and the Road to World War I

In the years before the First World War, the great European powers were ruled by three first cousins: King George V of Britain, Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany and Tsar Nicholas II of Russia. Together, they presided over the last years of dynastic Europe and the outbreak of the most destructive war the world had ever seen, a war that set twentieth-century Europe on course to be the most violent continent in the history of the world.

Miranda Carter uses the cousins' correspondence and a host of historical sources to tell the tragicomic story of a tiny, glittering, solipsistic world that was often preposterously out of kilter with its times, struggling to stay in command of politics and world events as history overtook it. George, Nicholas and Wilhelm is a brilliant and sometimes darkly hilarious portrait of these men--damaged, egotistical Wilhelm; quiet, stubborn Nicholas; and anxious, dutiful George--and their lives, foibles and obsessions, from tantrums to uniforms to stamp collecting. It is also alive with fresh, subtle portraits of other familiar figures: Queen Victoria--grandmother to two of them, grandmother-in-law to the third--whose conservatism and bullying obsession with family left a dangerous legacy; and Edward VII, the playboy "arch-vulgarian" who turned out to have a remarkable gift for international relations and the theatrics of mass politics. At the same time, Carter weaves through their stories a riveting account of the events that led to World War I, showing how the personal and the political interacted, sometimes to devastating effect.

For all three men the war would be a disaster that destroyed forever the illusion of their close family relationships, with any sense of peace and harmony shattered in a final coda of murder, betrayal and abdication.

George, Nicholas and Wilhelm

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#hardcover #fiction #protectivecover #formerlibrarybook #england #thriller #fantasy #horror #imaginative

Hardcover (1 to 2 lbs)

California

A Novel

"The laws of Smoke are complex. Not every lie will trigger it. A fleeting thought of evil may pass unseen; a fib, an excuse, a piece of flattery. Next thing you know its smell is in your nose. There is no more hateful smell in the world than the smell of Smoke." England. A century ago, give or take a few years. An England where people who are wicked in thought or deed are marked by the Smoke that pours forth from their bodies, a sign of their fallen state. The aristocracy do not smoke, proof of their virtue and right to rule, while the lower classes are drenched in sin and soot. An England utterly strange and utterly real. An elite boarding school where the sons of the wealthy are groomed to take power as their birthright. Teachers with mysterious ties to warring political factions at the highest levels of government. Three young people who learn everything they've been taught is a lie--knowledge that could cost them their lives. A grand estate where secrets lurk in attic rooms and hidden laboratories. A love triangle. A desperate chase. Revolutionaries and secret police. Religious fanatics and coldhearted scientists. Murder. A London filled with danger and wonder. A tortured relationship between a mother and a daughter, and a mother and a son. Unexpected villains and unexpected heroes. Cool reason versus passion. Rich versus poor. Right versus wrong, though which is which isn't clear. This is the world of Smoke, a narrative tour de force, a tale of Dickensian intricacy and ferocious imaginative power, richly atmospheric and intensely suspenseful. From the Hardcover edition.

Smoke

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Marcia Willett

First Edition.
Rated 4 out of 5 on Goodreads.

Maryland

Marcia Willett's The Garden House is a charming and heartwarming novel about family, yearning, and long-buried secrets ...

Fresh out of university and right on the precipice of adulthood, El is trying her best to figure out what it is she really wants from life. This is complicated by the fact that she is also dealing with the loss of her father, Martin. After his sudden death, El inherits and moves into his home just outside Tavistock, in the Devon countryside. Her stepbrother and sort-of friend, Will, comes to help her through her grief and to go through her father's belongings. As El spends time in her father's home, she uncovers more about his life, and the secrets he had been keeping from her and her family. This includes mysterious messages on his phone from someone El suspects may have been more than just a friendly acquaintance.

Julia is also mourning Martin, but for many reasons, they thought best to keep their relationship a secret. So she must now grieve entirely on her own. All she has to remember of her love are the text messages they sent to each other in their secret code, and the memories of their time spent at The Garden House: a beautiful community garden and teashop nearby. It is where they met, fell in love, and where their secret affair will inevitably be uncovered one day.

As El and Will begin to decipher the messages on Martin's phone, and piece together her father's long-buried secrets, they are brought closer and closer to each other, to Julia, and to a truth that is difficult for all to face.

The Garden House

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Frances Liardet

Iowa

In the disorderly evacuation of Southampton, England, newly married Ellen Parr finds a small child asleep on the backseat of an empty bus. No one knows who little Pamela is. Ellen professed not to want children with her older husband, and when she takes Pamela into her home and rapidly into her heart, she discovers that this is true: Ellen doesn't want children. She wants only Pamela. Three golden years pass as the Second World War rages on. Then one day Pamela is taken away, screaming. Ellen is no stranger to sorrow, but when she returns to the quiet village life she's long lived, she finds herself asking: In a world changed by war, is it fair to wish for an unchanged heart?

We Must Be Brave

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Hardcover book in like new condition with the exception of a blacked out name on the first page (see last picture)

An Adam Dalgliesh Mystery

Commander Adam Dalgliesh and his team investigate the murder of a trustee of the Dupayne, a small private London museum locked in a battle over its future, and find their probe complicated by a second corpse.

The Murder Room

62b194ab-2e28-4825-8bde-d0e6cb4f93c7-1

Anne Glenconner

Arizona

My Extraordinary Life in the Shadow of the Crown

Discover untold secrets with this extraordinary memoir of drama and tragedy by Anne Glenconner--a close member of the royal circle and lady-in-waiting to Princess Margaret. 

 
Anne Glenconner has been at the center of the royal circle from childhood, when she met and befriended the future Queen Elizabeth II and her sister, the Princess Margaret. Though the firstborn child of the 5th Earl of Leicester, who controlled one of the largest estates in England, as a daughter she was deemed "the greatest disappointment" and unable to inherit. Since then she has needed all her resilience to survive court life with her sense of humor intact.
 
A unique witness to landmark moments in royal history, Maid of Honor at Queen Elizabeth's coronation, and a lady in waiting to Princess Margaret until her death in 2002, Anne's life has encompassed extraordinary drama and tragedy. In Lady in Waiting, she will share many intimate royal stories from her time as Princess Margaret's closest confidante as well as her own battle for survival: her broken-off first engagement on the basis of her "mad blood"; her 54-year marriage to the volatile, unfaithful Colin Tennant, Lord Glenconner, who left his fortune to a former servant; the death in adulthood of two of her sons; a third son she nursed back from a six-month coma following a horrific motorcycle accident. Through it all, Anne has carried on, traveling the world with the royal family, including visiting the White House, and developing the Caribbean island of Mustique as a safe harbor for the rich and famous-hosting Mick Jagger, David Bowie, Raquel Welch, and many other politicians, aristocrats, and celebrities.
 
With unprecedented insight into the royal family, Lady in Waiting is a witty, candid, dramatic, at times heart-breaking personal story capturing life in a golden cage for a woman with no inheritance.

 
New York Times Bestseller

USA Today Bestseller

The Sunday Times Bestseller

The Globe and Mail Bestseller

ABA Indie Bestseller

The Times (UK) Memoir of the Year

One of Newsweek's Most Anticipated Books of 2020

Lady in Waiting

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Danielle Steel

"A ... novel about a young American woman who finds love and fulfillment in the course of her involvement with a Downton Abbey-style TV show in England"--

Beauchamp Hall

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Based on a real-life scandal that gripped Britain in the 1860s, this domestic thriller – explores a feminist spinster’s reluctant involvement in a sordid divorce. Joint winner of the Lambda Literary Award for Lesbian Fiction, longlisted for the Scotiabank Giller Prize and the Orange Prize, a Now Magazine Top Ten Book of the Year. Reached No. 7 in paperback fiction sales in the UK and No. 1 in Ireland.

The Sealed Letter is a delicious tale of secrets, betrayal, and forbidden love.

Helen Codrington is unhappily married. Emily 'Fido' Faithfull hasn't seen her once-dear friend for years. Suddenly, after bumping into Helen on the streets of Victorian London, Fido finds herself reluctantly helping Helen to have an affair with a young army officer.

The women's friendship quickly unravels amid courtroom accusations of adultery, counter-accusations of cruelty and attempted rape, and the appearance of a mysterious 'sealed letter' that could destroy more than one life . . .

Ex-library book in like new condition with the exception of library stickers on the front and spine as well as a library stamp on the 4th page.

The Sealed Letter

Anne Perry

Florida

When a clairvoyant is found murdered following a late night sâeance, Thomas and Charlotte Pitt become entangled in a battle over a crucial seat in Parliament when they discover that the wife of one candidate participated in the fatal sâeance.

🎆Southampton Row

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Large print for easy reading.
You are about to travel to Edgecombe St. Mary, a small village in the English countryside filled with rolling hills, thatched cottages, and a cast of characters both hilariously original and as familiar as the members of your own family. Among them is Major Ernest Pettigrew (retired), the unlikely hero of Helen Simonson's wondrous debut. Wry, courtly, opinionated, and completely endearing, Major Pettigrew is one of the most indelible characters in contemporary fiction, and from the very first page of this remarkable novel he will steal your heart.


The Major leads a quiet life valuing the proper things that Englishmen have lived by for generations: honor, duty, decorum, and a properly brewed cup of tea. But then his brother's death sparks an unexpected friendship with Mrs. Jasmina Ali, the Pakistani shopkeeper from the village. Drawn together by their shared love of literature and the loss of their respective spouses, the Major and Mrs. Ali soon find their friendship blossoming into something more. But village society insists on embracing him as the quintessential local and her as the permanent foreigner. Can their relationship survive the risks one takes when pursuing happiness in the face of culture and tradition

Forced to confront the realities of life in the 21st century when he falls in love with widowed Pakistani descendant Mrs. Ali, a retired Major Pettigrew finds the relationship challenged by local prejudices that view Mrs. Ali, a Cambridge native, as a perpetual foreigner. (General fiction).

Major Pettigrew's Last Stand

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In like new condition with the exception of a black dot on the bottom of the outside pages. #mystery #QueenElizabethI #thriller #historicalfiction #suspense #drama #England #royalfamiky￼

An Elizabeth I Mystery

The vibrant pageant of Elizabethan England comes to life in Karen Harper's fifth novel in her acclaimed Elizabeth I Mystery Series. Hailed as "extraordinary" by The Los Angeles Times, these historical mysteries beautifully blend fact and fiction as the young Queen Elizabeth Tudor becomes an amateur sleuth to save her court, crown, and kingdom.Though summering in the lush countryside to escape the plague rampaging through London, the queen and her court cannot escape the reach of a multiple murderer who seems to disappear at will. In the gardens of Hampton Court, Elizabeth proudly shows a famed visiting lawyer her huge hornbeam maze. But the intricate labyrinth soon becomes a scene of horror as Elizabeth herself is attacked and the lawyer is murdered within its leafy dead ends.The queen calls upon her small, select band of advisors to help herferret out the identity of the maze murderer. When the court must flee the encroaching Black Death, even the royal haven of Hatfield House with its charming knot garden holds terror.Undaunted, the queen and her chief advisor, William Cecil, set a trap in the flooded thorn maze at Cecil's nearby estate. But even if they snare the ghostly murderer before he or she strikes again, will they unmask not only the villain but the person they love best in all the realm?

The Thorne Maze

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Part of Antonia Fraser’s series of books on monarchy 

Minnesota

The Life and Times of Richard III

John J. Eddleston

Famous London Cases

TRUE CRIME. Women have sometimes been seen as less criminally inclined than men. But, as John Eddleston shows, London's history is crowded with cases of women who broke the law. In vivid detail he reconstructs a series of dramatic, often harrowing cases in which women were involved and puts their acts in the context of their times. Taking episodes from the eighteenth century to near the present day, he looks at criminal women of all types, from all walks of life. The work of the London police, the courts and the prisons is an essential element in his study, and each chapter reveals much about how attitudes to crime and punishment have changed over the centuries. Fascinating portraits of these criminal women as individuals emerge from their stories - their cases come to life - as does the London in which they lived.

Criminal Women

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#hardcover #youngadult #england #fiction #historicalfiction #scotand #ya #youngadultfiction 

Saying good-bye to Scotland is the hardest thing that Jenna MacDuff has had to do--until she met Lord Pembroke. Jenna's small clan has risked their lives traveling the countryside as masons, secretly drumming up support and arms at every stop for the exiled King James Stuart so that he may retake the British throne. But their next job brings them into enemy territory: England.

Jenna's father repeatedly warns her to trust no one, but when the Duke of Keswick hires the clan to build a garrison on his estate, it seems she cannot hide her capable mind from the duke's inquisitive son, Lord Alex Pembroke--nor mask her growing attraction to him.

But there's a covert plan behind the building of the garrison--a secret that cannot be revealed. Will Jenna hide her family's mutinous plot and assist her clan's cause, or protect the life of the young noble she's falling for?

In Shelley Sackier's lush, vivid historical debut, someone will pay a deadly price no matter what Jenna chooses.

The Freemason's Daughter

7afaf350-2107-4504-baf2-84fdb8c5a138-1

Helen Simonson

Light Paperback (1 lb or less)

New York

NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • “A novel to cure your Downton Abbey withdrawal . . . a delightful story about nontraditional romantic relationships, class snobbery and the everybody-knows-everybody complications of living in a small community.”—The Washington Post The bestselling author of Major Pettigrew’s Last Stand returns with a breathtaking novel of love on the eve of World War I that reaches far beyond the small English town in which it is set. NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY THE WASHINGTON POST AND NPR East Sussex, 1914. It is the end of England’s brief Edwardian summer, and everyone agrees that the weather has never been so beautiful. Hugh Grange, down from his medical studies, is visiting his Aunt Agatha, who lives with her husband in the small, idyllic coastal town of Rye. Agatha’s husband works in the Foreign Office, and she is certain he will ensure that the recent saber rattling over the Balkans won’t come to anything. And Agatha has more immediate concerns; she has just risked her carefully built reputation by pushing for the appointment of a woman to replace the Latin master. When Beatrice Nash arrives with one trunk and several large crates of books, it is clear she is significantly more freethinking—and attractive—than anyone believes a Latin teacher should be. For her part, mourning the death of her beloved father, who has left her penniless, Beatrice simply wants to be left alone to pursue her teaching and writing. But just as Beatrice comes alive to the beauty of the Sussex landscape and the colorful characters who populate Rye, the perfect summer is about to end. For despite Agatha’s reassurances, the unimaginable is coming. Soon the limits of progress, and the old ways, will be tested as this small Sussex town and its inhabitants go to war. Praise for The Summer Before the War “What begins as a study of a small-town society becomes a compelling account of war and its aftermath.”—Woman’s Day “This witty character study of how a small English town reacts to the 1914 arrival of its first female teacher offers gentle humor wrapped in a hauntingly detailed story.”—Good Housekeeping “Perfect for readers in a post–Downton Abbey slump . . . The gently teasing banter between two kindred spirits edging slowly into love is as delicately crafted as a bone-china teacup. . . . More than a high-toned romantic reverie for Anglophiles—though it serves the latter purpose, too.”—The Seattle Times

The Summer Before the War

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Stella Rimington

In her new assignment, MI5 officer Liz Carlyle uncovers a plot to silence Nikita Brunovsky, an increasingly vocal opponent of Vladimir Putin. The Foreign Office is adamant about forestalling a crime that could become a full-blown international incident, b

Illegal Action

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Leo Cooper

Leo and Jilly Cooper on Cricket

eb357291-2587-411c-a59e-8a082a4eed16-0

Oregon

A Ben Jurnet Mystery

Death of a God

Victoria Holt

Carmel March unravels the mysteries of life, love, and a long-ago murder for which she believes a man was unjustly convicted

The Black Opal

8bbc4297-a4f7-4fd4-ab5a-6e9655904125-1

#hardcover #classic #shakespeare #romeoandjuliet #homeschool #plays #englishliterature #livingbook #classicliterature #england 

Guild Shakespeare: Romeo & Juliet and Titus Andronicus

#hardcover #kingarthur #history #england #englishhistory 

Colorado

The Truth Behind the Legend

King Arthur is often written off as a medieval fantasy, the dream of those yearning for an age of strong, just rulers and a contented kingdom. Those who accept his existence at all generally discard the stories that surround him. This exciting new investigation argues not only that Arthur did exist, as a Dark Age chieftain, but that many of the romantic tales - of Merlin, Camelot and Excalibur - are rooted in truth.
In his quest for the real King Arthur, Rodney Castleden uses up-to-date archaeological and documentary evidence to recreate the history and society of Dark Age Britain and its kings. He revives the possibility that Tintagel was an Arthurian legend, and proposes a radical new theory - that Arthur escaped alive from his final battle. A location is even suggested for perhaps the greatest mystery, the whereabouts of Arthur's grave.
King Arthur: The Truth Behind the Legend offers a more complete picture of Arthur's Britain and his place in it than ever before. The book's bold approach and compelling arguments will be welcomed by all readers with an interest in Arthuriana.

King Arthur

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Jane Austen

Alfred Mac Adam

North Carolina

As Catherine Moreland begins to mature, many of her illusions collapse under the reality of middle-class life.

Northanger Abbey

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#merrybrgot #faeries #fae #witchcraft #England

Set during the tumultuous era of the Civil War in England, this stunning debut by a student of Philip Pullman (His Dark Materials) captures the superstition, passion, madness, and magic of a vanished age.

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Save this search

Christopher Winn

I Never Knew That About England UK Edition

Miranda Carter

George, Nicholas and Wilhelm

Dan Vyleta

Smoke

Marcia Willett

The Garden House

Frances Liardet

We Must Be Brave

P. D. James

The Murder Room

Anne Glenconner

Lady in Waiting

Danielle Steel

Beauchamp Hall

Emma Donoghue

The Sealed Letter

Anne Perry

🎆Southampton Row

Helen Simonson

Major Pettigrew's Last Stand

Karen Harper

The Thorne Maze

Anthony Cheetham

The Life and Times of Richard III

John J. Eddleston

Criminal Women

Shelley Sackier

The Freemason's Daughter

Helen Simonson

The Summer Before the War

Stella Rimington

Illegal Action

Leo Cooper

Leo and Jilly Cooper on Cricket

S. T. Haymon

Death of a God

Victoria Holt

The Black Opal

William Shakespeare

Guild Shakespeare: Romeo & Juliet and Titus Andronicus

Rodney Castleden

King Arthur

Jane Austen; Alfred Mac Adam

Northanger Abbey

Julie Hearn; Michael Frost

The Minister's Daughter