Can the festive ball of the Season bring these couples together in time for the holidays? A collection of Regency romances with star-crossed lovers, fast-paced plots and timeless connections ... Cuddling under mistletoe, fine lace, snowy linen, and true love to be found in the flickering light of a hundred gas lamps. Pearler House is bedecked for the holidays and everyone is attending the event of a lifetime. Experience the joy of the season with six all-new tales of passion. Some are sweet, some are spicy, all will capture your heart. He gambles for a ticket to the ball, but might win the love of his life. When the impoverished Prussian baron came to London, little did he expect to entangle with an irritatingly beautiful Russian spy with shared targets: the wealthy hosts of a grand charity ball. While everyone is distracted with holiday preparations, can they fool the other guests by pretending to be a couple? Will they both achieve their objectives despite a series of unfortunate events before their time in London runs out? A story of espionage, strategy, and distracting kisses under the mistletoe for a holiday season like no other. High society's rules make it impossible to meet. Is their love doomed to remain a scandalous secret? She is his perfect woman in every way except social standing. While Cameron is determined to find someone to formally introduce them before they are forced apart for the holidays, Isabelle scrambles to find an honorable solution for their hidden romance. With Christmas quickly approaching, will they finally begin their public courtship during the most wonderful time of the year or will duty stand in their way? A tale of etiquette, expectations, and enduring passion. A young woman forging a career as a bareknuckled boxer. A footman looking for something more … and an overturned platter at the event of the year. Ruby knows that a career as a fighter will be harder for her than it was for her father—or at least, the man she believes is her father. As she is about to wrangle an introduction, a clumsy footman spills his tray, effectively ending her night. But the Max is determined to help her career as recompense for spilling his tray on her—and maybe see if this young lady boxer might be interested in spending a Sunday afternoon or two with him as well. Will her secret stand in the way of their second chance at love? For years widowed artist Lily has hidden herself away, because of a scandalous secret in her past. When her niece persuades her to come to London, she reluctantly agrees, only to find herself wooed by Alastair, a man she once promised to marry, but cruelly discarded. Lily’s instinct is to flee, even when her heart implores her to stay. But it soon will be Christmas, the season of joy and forgiveness, and if she stays, the magic of the Mistletoe Ball just might lead to a second chance at love. He's her brother's best friend, and he wants her for Christmas. Widowed Bryony is auctioning off the last vestiges of her old life—paintings her dead husband commissioned for his mistress. What should be a simple task takes an unexpected turn when Captain Nathaniel Davies, a retired naval officer and her brother's best friend, dares Bryony to explore her newfound freedom and join him on a holiday adventure across London. But will one scandalous evening end with a lump of coal... or will Christmas magic create a merry match of love? What’s an earl to do when his sister’s best friend becomes the one temptation he can’t resist? When Nicholas, the cold and duty-driven Earl of Chatteris, is unexpectedly kissed beneath the mistletoe at a charity ball by Pippa, his entire world is thrown into chaos. Even worse, the moment their lips part, she acts as if it never happened! Can Nicholas pretend along, or will his legendary restraint finally snap this Christmas season?

The acclaimed author of Witches, Druids, and King Arthur presents a “lucid, open-minded” cultural history of the Druids as part of British identity (Terry Jones). Crushed by the Romans in the first century A.D., the ancient Druids of Britain left almost no reliable evidence behind. Historian Ronald Hutton shows how this lack of definite information has allowed succeeding British generations to reimagine, reinterpret, and reinvent the Druids. Hutton’s captivating book is the first to encompass two thousand years of Druid history and to explore the evolution of English, Scottish, and Welsh attitudes toward the forever ambiguous figures of the ancient Celtic world. Druids have been remembered at different times as patriots, scientists, philosophers, or priests. Sometimes portrayed as corrupt, bloodthirsty, or ignorant, they were also seen as fomenters of rebellion. Hutton charts how the Druids have been written in and out of history, archaeology, and the public consciousness for some 500 years, with particular focus on the romantic period, when Druids completely dominated notions of British prehistory. Sparkling with legends and images, filled with new perspectives on ancient and modern times, this fascinating cultural study reveals Druids as catalysts in British history.

From four beloved writers—Eloisa James, Christi Caldwell, Janna MacGregor, and Erica Ridley—come four original stories that tell a hilarious tale of a Christmas house party that serves up love and scandal in equal measure! The Duke of Greystoke’s Christmas Revelry is famous throughout the British Isles for its plays, dancing, magical grotto… not to mention scandals leading to the marriage licenses he hands out like confetti. But not everyone welcomes a visit from Cupid. Lady Cressida, the duke’s daughter, is too busy managing the entertainments—and besides, her own father has called her dowdy. Her cousin, Lady Isabelle Wilkshire, is directing Cinderella and has no interest in marriage. Lady Caroline Whitmore is already (unhappily) married; the fact that she and her estranged husband have to pretend to be together just makes her dread the party all the more. But not as much as Miss Louisa Harcourt, whose mother bluntly tells her that this is her last chance to escape the horrors of being an old maid. A house party so large that mothers lose track of their charges leads to a delightful, seductive quartet of stories that you will savor for the Season!

Kate Matcham needs a fortune or a husband. She wants neither. With a tainted inheritance in the balance, she receives one offer to become a scoundrel's mistress and another offer of a marriage of convenience. Before resigning herself to a choice, she accepts the invitation to visit a childhood friend, considering it a last hurrah before embarking on a bleak future. The visit goes sideways when she falls for the gentleman her friend intends to marry, a man well out of Kate's league--and one who seems to be hiding something. Smuggling has overtaken the county, and it seems that everyone is complicit in the trade that killed her father. One by one, her options dwindle as she struggles against her strengthening feelings for a duplicitous man, a determination not to hurt her friend, and keeping the promise she made long ago: to stand up to the people who killed her father.

When we finally kiss good night: "When Flora Younger first met Konrad Juncker, she thought she'd found her match, only to have her hopes dashed is now a famous playwright whose plays Flora has secretly panned in reviews. But a chance meeting in a secluded inn may help them rewrite this star-crossed romance"--