Central Kansas Library System

Maisie Dobbs entered domestic service in 1910 at thirteen, working for Lady Rowan Compton. When her remarkable intelligence is discovered by her employer, Maisie becomes the pupil of Maurice Blanche, a learned friend of the Comptons. In 1929, following an apprenticeship with Blanche, Maisie hangs out her shingle: "M. Dobbs, trade and personal investigations." She soon becomes enmeshed in a mystery surrounding The Retreat, a reclusive community of...

"Set in London during the years of 1939-1942, when citizens had slim hope of survival, much less victory; and on the strategic island of Malta, which was daily devastated by the Axis barrage, Everyone Brave is Forgiven features little-known history and a perfect wartime love story inspired by the real-life love letters between Chris Cleave's grandparents. This dazzling novel dares us to understand that, against the great theater of world events, it...

"Alexia Tarabotti, the Lady Woolsey, awakens in the wee hours of the mid-afternoon to find her husband, who should be decently alseep like any normal werewolf, yelling at the top of his lungs. Then he disappears - leaving her to deal with a regiment of supernatural soldiers encamped on her doorstep, a plethora of exorcised ghosts, and an angry Queen Victoria. But Alexia is armed with her trusty parasol, the latest fashions, and an arsenal of biting...

"In Victorian London, there's only so far an unmarried woman can go, and Betsey Dobson has relied on her wits and cunning to take herself as far as she can-- to a position as a typewriter girl. But still, Betsey yearns for something more-- so when she's offered a position as the excursions manager at a seaside resort, she knows this is her chance for security, for independence, for an identity forged by her own work and not a man's opinion. Underqualified...

During the tempestuous reign of Henry VIII, London alchemist Bianca Goddard has seen up close what keeps a man alive and what can kill him. A good thing, for she will need all her knowledge to keep a friend away from the gallows . . . Bianca and her husband John are delighted to share in the glad fortune of their friend, Boisvert, the silversmith, who is to wed Odile, the wealthy widow of a goldsmith. But a pall is cast over the upcoming nuptials...

Roddy is a decidedly upper-crust "society mouse" who lives the life of a pampered pet in a posh Kensington flat. When a sewer rat named Sid comes out of the sink, he desides he had hit the jackpot. Roddy schemes to rid himself of Sid by luring him into the "whirlpool." Sid may be an ignorant slob, but he's no fool, but it is Roddy who winds up being flushed away into the bustling sewer world of Ratropolis. There Roddy meets Rita, an enterprising scavenger...

In her diary in 1912, thirteen-year-old Margaret Ann describes how she leaves her lonely life in a London orphanage to become a companion to a wealthy American woman, sails on the Titanic, and experiences its sinking.

Follows a fourteen-year-old American girl whose life unexpectedly transforms when she moves to London in 1952 and gets swept up in a race to save the world from nuclear war.

"The King's Speech" presents a sideways glance at a crucial period in 20th-century history--as the monumentally awkward Prince Albert, or Bertie, becomes King George VI unexpectedly in 1936 when his older brother Edward VIII abdicates to marry American divorc�ee Wallis Simpson. In imperial Britain between the wars, that was problem enough, but Bertie suffered from a chronic stammer that made his public appearances painful for everyone. In an age...