The beautiful Vanessa Shotworth was being made extremely unhappy at the way she was being treated by her stepmother while her beloved father was away in India with his Regiment. When she was late for breakfast because she had been out riding on a lovely summer's morning, she was humiliated by her stepmother by being told to scrub the kitchen floor or she will not be given anything to eat. Vanessa then decided to run away to her relatives in the North of England, having elicited the help of the faithful family butler, Bates. She sets out on her adored horse, Samson, and had not gone far when she stumbled into a group of highwaymen preparing for their evening meal in a wood. Initially she was frightened, but the Chief highwayman, who was well-spoken and who had obviously had a good education, offered to accompany her on her journey North and make sure that she came to no harm. It was when they were near the estate belonging to the Marquis of Westfield that the Chief highwayman told Vanessa that the Marquis was looking for a Governess for his very difficult niece aged twelve, who was impossible to teach and previous Governesses had left in despair after a very short time in the job. How Vanessa secures the position as Governess at Westfield Castle with no references. And how she manages to tame the difficult niece with charm and subtlety and encourages her to ride and dance. And what happens when Vanessa's cruel stepmother eventually catches up with her. And how unexpectedly she finds love in what can only be described as a strange way is all told in this unusual romance by BARBARA CARTLAND.

“A beautifully written and well-researched cultural criticism as well as an honest memoir” (Los Angeles Review of Books) from the author of the popular New York Times essay, “To Fall in Love with Anyone, Do This,” explores the romantic myths we create and explains how they limit our ability to achieve and sustain intimacy. What really makes love last? Does love ever work the way we say it does in movies and books and Facebook posts? Or does obsessing over those love stories hurt our real-life relationships? When her parents divorced after a twenty-eight year marriage and her own ten-year relationship ended, those were the questions that Mandy Len Catron wanted to answer. In a series of candid, vulnerable, and wise essays that takes a closer look at what it means to love someone, be loved, and how we present our love to the world, “Catron melds science and emotion beautifully into a thoughtful and thought-provoking meditation” (Bookpage). She delves back to 1944, when her grandparents met in a coal mining town in Appalachia, to her own dating life as a professor in Vancouver. She uses biologists’ research into dopamine triggers to ask whether the need to love is an innate human drive. She uses literary theory to show why we prefer certain kinds of love stories. She urges us to question the unwritten scripts we follow in relationships and looks into where those scripts come from. And she tells the story of how she decided to test an experiment that she’d read about—where the goal was to create intimacy between strangers using a list of thirty-six questions—and ended up in the surreal situation of having millions of people following her brand-new relationship. “Perfect fodder for the romantic and the cynic in all of us” (Booklist), How to Fall in Love with Anyone flips the script on love. “Clear-eyed and full of heart, it is mandatory reading for anyone coping with—or curious about—the challenges of contemporary courtship” (The Toronto Star).

Sir John Gilmour has received a letter from his old friend Gavron Murillo, who lives in Paris to say that he only has a very short time to live and wants to see him urgently before he dies. Gavron, who was of Oriental appearance and a very rich man, had helped Sir John and his father with their finances when they had been almost on the point of bankruptcy and he had made them very wealthy. When Sir John arrives at Gavron’s bedside, the old man tells him that his dying wish is that he should marry his daughter, the beautiful Melita. Sir John feels that he cannot refuse the old man after all he had done for him and his father, although he is extremely surprised as he had no idea that Gavron had ever married. Melita, who had been living in a Convent in Thailand after her mother had died giving birth to her, is notified to travel to Paris immediately. When Sir John meets her and tells her what he had promised her father, Melita says that she only wants to marry for love. It is then agreed that they will pretend to their families that they have been married quietly and secretly in Paris while they attempt to find real love with someone else. When they finally return to England and go to live in Sir John’s enchanting house in the country, Melita is very happy. Then it is reported in the newspapers that she and Sir John have inherited all Gavron’s vast amount of money and estates. How Melita is kidnapped. How Sir John is blackmailed by the kidnappers and suffers the agony of trying to find and rescue her. And how in the end they both find real love, which is not very far away from them, is all told in this romantic and exciting story by BARBARA CARTLAND.

An investigation of love in all its forms, featuring conversations with Lisa Taddeo, Esther Perel, Emily Nagoski, Kate Bowler, Alain de Botton, Stephen Grosz, Roxane Gay and others Journalist Natasha Lunn was almost 30 when she realized that there was no map for understanding love. While she was used to watching friends fall in and out of love, the older she got the more she had to acknowledge: her friends' relationship struggles could no longer be chalked up to youth, and the more she learned about her parents, grandparents, work colleagues, and mentors the clearer it became that age had not brought any of them any closer to understanding this elusive, transformative, consuming emotion. One night during the months she found this realization settling over her, she sat up in bed and jotted three words in a notebook: conversations on love. In that moment, Lunn understood that she didn't want advice about love, she wasn't looking for the answers, or evergreen wisdom but she craved candid, wide-ranging, sometimes uncomfortable conversations about the parts of love that often don't make it into our everyday discussions of marriage, sibling relationships, friendships, or mother/daughter bonds. Conversations on Love started as an experiment aimed at interviewing experts about what love meant to them, in all of it's messiness, and quickly blossomed into a newsletter that attracted thousands of subscribers and a prestigious range of interviewees. It turns out that Lunn wasn't the only person ready to talk more openly and expansively about love. Interweaving personal essays and revealing interviews with some of the most sough-after experts on love, journalist Natasha Lunn guides us through the paradoxical heart of three key questions about love--How do we find love? How do we sustain it? And how do we survive when we lose it?--to deliver a book that is a solace, a beacon, a call to arms, a tool-kit. The real-life love stories in these pages will leave you hopeful and validated, while the insights from experts will transform the way you think about your relationships. Above all, Conversations on Love will remind you what love is: fragile, sturdy, mundane, beautiful, always worth fighting for.

The beautiful Ilena Foringham not only helped her father, who was a senior Member of Parliament, with his speeches but she also assisted Lord Witherington with his. She had always found him a tremendous bore, but when he eventually proposed marriage to her she knew that this was something that she could not bear and that she could never be happy with him. As Ilena realised that her parents also wanted her to marry Lord Witherington, she knew that she had no option but to run away. After visiting an Employment Agency, she was not only given the position of secretary to Lord Henry Brantford, but Mrs. Morton at the Agency gave Ilena the passport belonging to her dead niece so that she could travel under an assumed name to avoid being followed and brought back home ignominiously by Lord Witherington. When Ilena met Lord Henry on the train to Dover and they set sail from England, she began helping him with a book that he was writing by taking down in shorthand as he was dictating to her. They were very busy with his book, at the same time enjoying the voyage until they stopped at Rome and to Ilena’s horror she saw from the porthole of her cabin Lord Witherington coming aboard the ship. She managed to keep herself hidden until they stopped at Greece when something very frightening happened to Ilena. What took place and how she was able eventually to find happiness and the real love that she was seeking is told in this intriguing novel by BARBARA CARTLAND.

The Duke of Lavenham learns from a letter that the beautiful Lady Penelope who he finds fun and amusing, is telling her friends that she is going to marry him. The Duke is horrified as he has no intention of marrying anyone for many years to come and he hurries to visit Penelope to discuss the matter with her and tell her that he has no intention of marrying anybody. As he is leaving the house, a young girl sobbing hysterically jumps into his carriage and begs him to take her away. The girl, Devinia, who is a cousin of Penelope’s, tells the Duke that Penelope has had her dog killed and she wants to die too. She is terribly unhappy and he thinks that she has been very badly treated by Penelope and her family. The Duke takes her to his Castle in the country and it is then that he has the idea that, if he and Devinia pretend to become engaged to each other, Penelope’s father cannot accuse him of breach of promise. But the Duke is quite certain if Penelope has told so many people of their intended marriage that her father will consider that he has damaged her reputation and will insist on him marrying her. All this could be prevented if Devinia would become engaged to him and they could break it off as soon as it is safe to do so. Devinia is very happy at the Duke’s Castle in the country and loves riding his horses. How Penelope’s revenge on him is to have her kidnapped by a foreign nation and carried away to become the concubine to a ruler of their country. And how the Duke desperately sets out to find her, is told in this exciting and romantic novel by BARBARA CARTLAND.

The beautiful Alvita who had lost both her parents, was living quietly in her family home in Southern Russia. Her father had been Russian and her mother had been English. Alvita was pleased to receive a visit from her brother, Ivor, but shocked when he told her that they must leave Russia immediately, as a Revolution was inevitable and would start very soon. He had brought with him his friend, Nicholas, who said that he would help them pack up as many of their treasures as they could and make their way to England. Alvita felt a little unsure of Nicholas, but thought that perhaps she might be mistaken. Ivor insists that he should be a Russian Prince and Alvita a Princess as the English are always impressed by grand titles, although Alvita is none too sure about the deception. After packing her mother's jewellery, some valuable pictures and silver, they know that they must avoid the dangerous Revolutionaries and travel as fast as possible to the nearest Port to find a ship to take them to England. This Nicholas arranges for them and, when they arrive in England, Ivor by chance meets an old friend, Charles, the Marquis of Harrington, who he was friends with when they were at Oxford University. Charles takes them to his impressive house in London and, when he learns that they want to sell their treasures, he arranges for them to be displayed in the ballroom and the stables. It is when Alvita sees a valuable painting being removed from its frame that she knows that Nicholas is attempting to cheat the Marquis. How she warns Charles of what is happening in his house And how she and her brother find the love that they both sought but believed would never be theirs is all told in this unusual romance by BARBARA CARTLAND.

Michael, the handsome Earl of Monkford, returns from fighting in the Napoleonic War to find that his beloved home, Monk Hall, once a Monastery, has become thoroughly dilapidated from lack of money. And his estate has been sadly neglected with broken down farms and barren fields. His mother, the aging Countess, and his cousin, the beautiful Linka, who he grew up with, have done their best to keep everything going with much difficulty. Michael is constantly told by his mother that he must marry a rich wife, but when he meets a local heirless she is determined not to marry as she prefers her horses to fortune-hunters! Link prays fervently every day to the statue of Saint Anthony that some miracle will save them. And, when she tries to pull bindweed off the statue, she discovers a horde of treasure hidden by the monks under the statue itself. This changes their lives completely and Linka suddenly realises that she has always been in love with Michael. How Linka believes that Michael will marry a beauty from the Beau Monde. How she is terrified at night by the beauty’s brother and runs frantically for help. And how both Linka and Michael both find true love is told in this fascinating tale by BARBARA CARTLAND.

The Marquis of Darincourt who is the greatest matrimonial catch in the Beau Monde decides at last that he will get married and has chosen Lady Charlotte Warde to be his wife. He has been pursued for years by every debutante and ambitious mother, but he has, however, preferred the sophisticated married women who amuse him with their provocative wit and attractions. He is a hero from the war with Napoleon and the Duke Wellington had twice awarded him the Gold Medal for Bravery. As he is the owner of one of the most famous houses in England, immensely rich and of high social standing, he is determined not to be married except for himself as a man. However, as his family are so insistent on his marrying for an heir to carry on the title, he drives to Lady Charlotte’s house to ask her to be his wife. When he arrives to his astonishment Lady Charlotte informs him that she is going to marry the young Duke of Nottingham simply because he is a Duke. Furious and frustrated, he drives his phaeton away, but is stopped on the drive by a young girl who begs him to take her with him. The beautiful Serla Ashton is the niece of the Earl of Langwarde and Lady Charlotte’s cousin, who has been very badly treated because her mother ran away the night before her Wedding to a Royal Prince. Serla persuades the Marquis to take her to London and on the way he has the brilliant idea of saving himself from being laughed at for losing Lady Charlotte by announcing that he and Serla are engaged to be married. She agrees to the charade and with the help of the Marquis’s grandmother she becomes one of the beauties of the Beau Monde overnight. How the Marquis is delighted at making people believe that it is he who has rejected Lady Charlotte rather than the other way round. How Lady Charlotte takes a bitter and frightening revenge on Serla and the Marquis and how they both eventually find the love they are seeking is all related in this exciting and unusual story by BARBARA CARTLAND.

The beautiful Joanna West’s parents had been killed in a very nasty road accident and as she is the only child she inherits her father and mother’s house in the County of Huntingdonshire. When she sees the condition of her house, she realises at once that it will need a great deal of money to be spent on it to make it as warm and cosy as her mother had done. Wondering what she could do to acquire the money that she so badly needs, Joanna remembers the big and impressive Castle nearby and wonders if she could use the spacious ballroom to give dancing lessons to earn her some money. When she approaches the charming and handsome Earl of Hollington, who has recently inherited the ancient Castle as well as his title, he too is desperately in need of money as The Castle had been badly neglected by his predecessors and is looking decidedly dilapidated and shoddy. He agrees to hire out the ballroom to Joanna for her dancing lessons after she has redecorated it and at her suggestion to let other members of the County rent rooms from him, providing that they pay to have those rooms restored. It is then that Lady Carisford, who the Earl only met on board the Liner when he was returning to England, arrives at The Castle unexpectedly. She is determined to capture the Earl as she realises that by marrying him she will own an important title and this will open wide the doors of High Society which she longs to shine in What happens when Lady Carisford tells Joanna that the Earl has asked her to marry him and how she and the Earl finds true happiness is all told in this romantic novel by BARBARA CARTLAND.