Widowed Lady Charlotte Hobart and her two youngdaughters have lived comfortably under her father-in-law's roof, but everything changes on his death. The new Lord Hobart fills Easterley Manor withhis disreputable friends and treats Charlotte withcontempt. With no money, and nowhere to go, she feelssuddenly bereft—and not a little frightened. Viscount Stacey Darton wants to protect Charlotte,and to do that he has to pretend to be as bad as the restof the unwelcome houseguests. It's obvious to Staceythat this tall, elegant lady is no light-skirt but a truegentlewoman. She is also proud, so whatever he doesto help her must be done in secret.

Sophie Garnett is left impoverished by her father’s death, but a favourite uncle’s will leaves her his library. While she is packing the books, she discovers a fortune in bank notes and uses them for a London season. Her cousin Jonathan, now Viscount Lowell, once stole a kiss from her and she’s determined to prove she is no longer an impetuous schoolgirl, but a marriageable young woman. Regency Romance by Emily Hendrickson; originally published by Signet

John Davidson came to the North Carolina back country circa 1751 as a young man, with his sister and widowed mother. Typical of Scots-Irish settlers, they arrived with little more than basic farming tools, determined to make it on their own terms. Davidson worked hard, prospered, married well and built a plantation on the Catawba River he called Rural Hill. The Davidson's were loyal British citizens who paid their taxes and participated in colonial government. When the Crown's overbearing authority interfered, independence became paramount and Davidson and his neighbors became soldiers in the Revolutionary War. After the war Davidson managed his plantation, created shad fisheries, helped develop the local iron industry with his sons-in-law and was an early planter of cotton. His sons and grandsons, along with their slave families, continuously increased and improved the acreage and became early practitioners of scientific farming. Drawing on public documents, family papers and slave records, this history describes how a fiercely independent family grew their lands and fortunes into a lasting legacy.

This book is about the ways that ordinary people in town and country creatively define themselves, their families and their social networks. It explores inheritance strategies, personal possessions, attitudes to commemoration after death, the daily fashioning of identity and the interactions between imagination and daily life.