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  Mystery at the Station Hotel -...

  Edward Marston

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  Shrewsbury, 1866. At the Station Hotel, staff struggle in vain to rouse Mr Julian Lockyer who requested an early wake-up call to catch a train. When they force open the door, they are horrified to discover a bloodied corpse in the bed, a knife still in the dead man's hand.
  Inspector Robert Colbeck, the Railway Detective, is dispatched to investigate and soon begins to question whether this is really a case of suicide. For why would a man reaching the pinnacle of his career, about to be named the Chairman of the Great Western Railway, choose to take his own life? And why was his trip to Shrewsbury a secret from his family?
  Colbeck and Sergeant Leeming must probe deeply into Lockyer's life and lies to find the answers and to catch the killer.

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  The Golden Illusion

  Barbara Cartland

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  Since her mother’s death, the beautiful but innocent Linetta Falaise has led a sheltered life under the wing of her kindly French Governess. So she is heartbroken to find that her beloved Mademoiselle is at death’s door and that she, Linetta, had unknowingly been living off her meagre savings for the last two years.As she now has no money, there is no alternative but for Linetta to travel to Paris and ask Mademoiselle’s niece, Marie-Ernestine, to help her find suitable employment, perhaps teaching English to French children.Almost as soon as she boards the cross-channel Steamer heading for Calais, her innocent eyes are opened to the wicked ways of the world when a strange man’s unwanted and frightening attentions drive her to seek the protection of a handsome and noble stranger, the Marquis of Darleston, who is travelling to Paris on a secret mission for the British Prime Minister.After they part company, Linetta is introduced to the heady glamour of Paris Society by the glamorous Marie-Ernestine, who is really the celebrated and infamous Blanche d’Antigney.Linetta is appalled by Les Grandes Cocottes, who sell love to the highest bidder, especially since she is expected to join them because she is so young and enchanting.Afraid, alone and beset by lecherous ‘gentlemen’, Linetta remembers the handsome distinguished Marquis she met on the Steamer and prays fervently that he will come to her rescue yet again.

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  A Miracle in Music

  Barbara Cartland

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  A much-admired patron of the arts and something of a ‘ladies’ man, the Duke of Arkholme, a very rich and celebrated aristocrat, is as passionate about music as he is bored by the attentions of predatory Society ladies. He decides to launch at his own expense a competition to encourage talented new composers, but he finds that the entrants he has to listen to are insipid and uninspiring.So when he hears the sparkling brilliant music he has been searching for being played on his own piano in a room next to his bedroom in his own home in the middle of the night, he is bewitched. Even more so when the pianist proves to be a pale, elfin, auburn-haired beauty called Vanola. She forces the Duke at gunpoint to listen longer to her music and she relates the story of her Hungarian father and his failure to attract any interest in his superb and innovative compositions in England.He is also horrified to be told by Vanola that his employees are corrupt and taking bribes from entrants to his auditions, so that the real talent, such as her father’s, is excluded. Realising that she is half-starved and that her father is at death’s door, he is determined to make amends, despite her implacable contempt for him for employing crooked Managers. Soon the Duke realises that he has fallen in love – but too late. Vanola’s father is dead and in her grief and fury she has fled to who knows where and it seems that he has lost her and his one chance of happiness forever.

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  The Treasure of the Lake

  H. Rider Haggard

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  Gentleman adventurer Allan Quartermain discovers a strange African village in this 1926 novel by the author of King Solomon’s Mines.An Englishman living in South Africa, Allan Quartermain has spent his life exploring the mysteries of the Dark Continent. When he hears the legend of a lost tribe ruled by a magical priestess, he goes in search of a remote holy lake surrounded by tall cliffs. Together with his companion Hans, Allan discovers a land and a people even more peculiar than the legend describes. Published posthumously in 1926, The Treasure of the Lake is one of the last Allan Quartermain novels written by H. Rider Haggard. Set in the Victorian era, it is a quintessential tale of colonial adventure.

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  The Irresistible Buck

  Barbara Cartland

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  Handsome, dashing and a close friend of the Prince of Wales, Lord ‘Buck’ Melburne has London’s Society ladies permanently swooning at his feet and so his nickname stuck with him.
   
  So, when Lord Melburne goes to his magnificent country seat at the urgent request of a young lady called ‘Clarinda Vernon’, a nearby neighbour of his, it turns out that she despises and hates him and so he is shocked and perplexed as this has never happened to him before.
   
  What could he possibly have done to offend her?
   
  He is even more shocked at Clarinda’s request – that he agrees to marry her, purely to indulge the last wish of her dying uncle. Once Sir Roderick Vernon has passed away Clarinda will, she assures him, release him from his promise.
   
  Despite himself Lord Melburne is really fascinated by this innocent yet feisty red-headed beauty and he is deeply concerned for her safety when he hears of sinister Satanic goings-on in the nearby caves orchestrated by someone who means Clarinda harm and even worse.
   
  When she finds herself prone on the sacrificial Altar amid a terrifyingly depraved Black Mass, it is for his Lordship to save her that she prays to God.
   
  And when at last her prayers are answered, she realises that her hatred has turned to love and that for her too, Buck Melburne really is irresistible!

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  The Yellow God - An Idol of Africa

  H. Rider Haggard

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  A former British Army major voyages to West Africa to discover a lost city of gold in this adventure novel by the author of King Solomon’s Mines.Since a bout of blackwater fever robbed Maj. Alan Vernon of his military post, he has cast about for a new vocation. A business scheme in the Sahara seems like the perfect fit for his engineering skills, until revelations about his partners give him pause. To save his family estate, Vernon decides to undertake his African venture on his own.Years ago, Vernon’s uncle brought a small golden idol back from Western Africa. The idol itself is worth little, but its strange powers will lead Vernon on a perilous journey to a world of riches. And there he will meet a beautiful but fearsome tribal ruler who is determined to make him her next husband.

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