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 collection of essays extended from The New York Times' most-read article of 2016. Anyone we might marry could, of course, be a little bit wrong for us. We don’t expect bliss every day. The fault isn’t entirely our own; it has to do with the devilish truth that anyone we’re liable to meet is going to be rather wrong, in some fascinating way or another, because this is simply what all humans happen to be – including, sadly, ourselves. This collection of essays proposes that we don’t need perfection to be happy. So long as we enter our relationships in the right spirit, we have every chance of coping well enough with, and even delighting in, the inevitable and distinctive wrongness that lies in ourselves and our beloveds.

“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.

Most dating books tell you what NOT to do. Here's a book dedicated to telling you what you CAN do. In his book, Get the Guy, Matthew Hussey—relationship expert, matchmaker, and star of the reality show Ready for Love—reveals the secrets of the male mind and the fundamentals of dating and mating for a proven, revolutionary approach to help women to find lasting love. Matthew Hussey has coached thousands of high-powered CEOs, showing them how to develop confidence and build relationships that translate into professional success. Many of Matthew’s male clients pressed him for advice on how to apply his winning strategies not to just get the job, but how to get the girl. As his reputation grew, Hussey was approached by more and more women, eager to hear what he had learned about the male perspective on love and romance. From landing a first date to establishing emotional intimacy, playful flirtation to red-hot bedroom tips, Matthew’s insightfulness, irreverence, and warmth makes Get the Guy: Learn Secrets of the Male Mind to Find the Man You Want and the Love You Deserve a one-of-a-kind relationship guide and the handbook for every woman who wants to get the guy she’s been waiting 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.