She was the sexiest thing in a hard hat that architect Cody Johnson had ever seen, but structural engineer Abra Wilson also had a will as strong as a steel girder – and just about as flexible. But Cody had plans for Abra that not even this spirited beauty could resist…

Margaret Mary, the eldest Concannon sister, is a glass artist with an independent streak as fierce as her volatile temper. Hand-blowing glass is a difficult and exacting art, and while she may produce the delicate and the fragile, Maggie is a strong and opinionated woman, a Clare woman, with all the turbulence of that fascinating west country.

Determined to reevaluate her life, Jude Murray flees America to take refuge in Faerie Hill Cottage, immersing herself in the study of Irish folklore and discovering hope for the future of the magical past.

Atop the rocky coast of Maine sits a magnificent family mansion that is home to a legend of long-lost emeralds and the Calhoun Sisters.

Headstrong Catherine Calhoun wasn’t going to let anyone take away the Towers, especially not ruthless hotel magnate Trent St James. He was too handsome, too arrogant; Trent seemed to think he could take over the building and Catherine!

When the handsome Adam Haines shows up at Kirby Fairchild’s ancestral home looking for a quiet place to paint, she’s more than skeptical. Yet as days and nights wear on, the attraction she feels for him builds, whether she wants it to or not.

It’s the summer of 1949, and things have run smoothly at Cavendon Hall for years, with very few quarrels, dramas, or upsets between the two families. But since the end of World War II, changes have arrived at Cavendon. A new generation is at the helm, and also at the forefront of new scandal and intrigue.

Set in 1765 on the Caribbean islands of Grenada and Martinique, Sugar Money opens as two enslaved brothers – Emile and Lucien – are sent on an impossible mission forced upon them by their masters, a band of mendicant French monks.
The monks run hospitals in the islands and fund their ventures through farming cane sugar and distilling rum. Seven years earlier – after a series of scandals – they were ousted from Grenada by the French authorities, and had to leave their slaves behind. Despite the fact that Grenada is now under British rule, and effectively enemy territory, the monks devise an absurdly ambitious plan: they send Emile and Lucien to the island to convince the monks’ former slaves to flee British brutality and escape with them.

Having recently ended an abusive marriage, the beautiful and filthy rich Contessa Carlotta di Ponti looks to find true love on the beautiful French beaches of the Côte d’Azur. And what better place to find love than the playground of the wealthy and beautiful, the exquisite enclave of St. Tropez.

With the annual party season kicking into high gear at billionaire Harry Silver’s palatial mansion, tragedy soon strikes paradise. Among the high fashion, nude sunbathing and heavy drinking a bad oyster, a fatal wasp sting, and a faulty cliff railway have changed the mood of the party-goers. Death is in the air and these appear to be no accidents. Is there something far more sinister coming down upon the wealthy party-goers of the usually festive St. Tropez?

The gorgeous detective Gabrielle Poulpe makes it her mission to save the day, as well as the financial security of the town, and find the murderer in their midst. Otherwise, life in this sanctified corner of France could change forever. Can Gabrielle find the suspect before they strike again? St. Tropez is known as the ultimate playground of the rich and famous and thrives on the mega-money spent here, but now, it’s riddled with threats from within which is scaring everyone away…

The unhappiness continued into the next generation, with the name Getty, as one journalist put it, ‘becoming synonymous for family dysfunction’. Getty’s once favourite grandson John Paul Getty III was kidnapped by the Italian mafia who cut off his ear to raise a ransom and, after a lifetime of drink and drugs, became a paraplegic. His granddaughter Aileen has AIDS. And the Getty family itself has been torn apart by litigation over their poisoned inheritance.

But did the disaster have to happen? John Pearson, who has specialized in biographies of families as varied as the Churchills, the British Royal Family, the Devonshires and the Krays, sets out to find the answer. The result, first published in 1995, is a fascinating saga of an extraordinary dynasty.

He traces much of the trouble to the bizarre character of the avaricious, sex-obsessed billionaire, J. Paul Getty himself – and demonstrates how much of his behaviour has been repeated in succeeding generations. He describes the famous kidnapping of his grandson in graphic detail, revealing how the old man’s attitude added considerably to the boy’s sufferings. And he shows how the family has coped with the latest modern scourges: drugs and AIDS.

If Danny Cartwright had proposed to Beth Wilson on any other day, he would not have been arrested and charged with the murder of his best friend. But when the prosecution witnesses happen to be a group of four upper-crust college friends?a barrister, a popular actor, an aristocrat, and the youngest partner in an established firm’s history?who is going to believe Danny’s side of the story?