Showing results by author "C.J. Archer" in All Categories

Cleo’s holiday with her family to the seaside resort town of Brighton is everything she hoped it would be…until she receives a blackmail note. The blackmailer demands Cleo help her or a story revealing Cleo’s investigating will appear in the newspaper. With her uncle warning her to keep her detecting activities private, Cleo agrees to meet the blackmailer when they return to London. But when the woman is seen getting on the train but not off, Cleo grows concerned.

India Steele is desperate. Her father is dead, her fiancé took her inheritance, and no one will employ her, despite years working for her watchmaker father. Indeed, the other London watchmakers seem frightened of her. Alone, poor, and at the end of her tether, India takes employment with the only person who’ll accept her–an enigmatic and mysterious man from America. A man who possesses a strange watch that rejuvenates him when he’s ill.

December 1899. After the death of her beloved grandmother, Cleopatra Fox moves into the luxury hotel owned by her estranged uncle in the hopes of putting hardship and loneliness behind her. But the poisoning of a guest on Christmas eve throws her new life, and the hotel, into chaos. Cleo quickly realizes no one can be trusted, not Scotland Yard and especially not the hotel’s charming assistant manager.

Seven years ago a woman with too many secrets and a man with too many lies fell in love. Then she left him. Isabel's quiet life as an assistant to one of London's famous apothecaries hides a deadly secret. A secret that could see her put on trial for witchcraft if the authorities uncover the truth. But when the authority figure who turns up at her shop is Sir Nicholas Merritt, she's at risk of losing more than her life. She could lose her heart and soul, and the man she loves.

Librarian Sylvia Ashe knows nothing about her past, having grown up without a father and a mother who refused to discuss him. When she stumbles upon a diary that suggests she's descended from magicians, she's skeptical. After all, magicians are special, and she's just an ordinary woman who loves books. She seeks answers from a member of the most prominent family of magicians, but she quickly learns that finding the truth won't be easy, especially when he turns out to be as artless as her, and more compelling and dangerous than books.

December 1899. After the death of her beloved grandmother, Cleopatra Fox moves into the luxury hotel owned by her estranged uncle in the hopes of putting hardship and loneliness behind her. But the poisoning of a guest throws her new life, and the hotel, into chaos. Cleo quickly realizes no one can be trusted, not Scotland Yard and especially not the hotel’s charming assistant manager. With the New Year’s Eve ball approaching fast and the hotel’s reputation hanging by a thread, Cleo must find the killer before the ball, and the hotel itself, are ruined.

She was admired by women and desired by men, until jealousy and past secrets took center stage. Help Cleo and her friends solve the murder of one of London’s leading actresses. When a hotel guest’s mistress is found dead in the stalls of the Piccadilly Playhouse, a verdict of suicide is given. Convinced his lover didn’t kill herself, Lord Rumford wants the truth uncovered. Against his better judgement, he hires Cleo Fox to find the murderer. Cleo needs to solve this case if she wants to make a living from being a private detective.

When a notorious cad is bludgeoned to death with a candlestick in the library at the most important ball of the London social season, Cleo finds herself in the prime position to solve the crime. After all, she stumbled across the body soon after the victim’s demise and is a witness to the evening’s events.

Finding an old manuscript in the attic has always been a fantasy of Sylvia’s. She just never expected the fantasy to come true, or for it to lead her to answers about her mysterious family.

A wealthy businessman with a reputation for taking risks rose from the slums to the height of success. But success comes at a price, especially when it’s achieved at the expense of others.

When the husband of the king’s mistress is poisoned, Josie must pretend he died of natural causes, or risk putting her own life in danger. It’s yet another secret she must learn to keep, yet another intrigue whispered about in the gilded halls of King Leon’s mysterious palace. With her enemies intent on ruining her, Josie needs all the friends she can get. Friends that include the captain of the guards, a man determined to find out about his past before he gives in to desire.

The king's magnificent palace was built in a matter of weeks. No one saw the builders, no villagers are allowed beyond the gilded gate, and only one servant has ever left. The haunted look in her eyes as she was recaptured by the palace guards is something Josie, daughter of the village doctor, has never forgotten. For Josie, the palace is a mystery that grows more intriguing after she meets the captain of the guards, a man known only as Hammer, as mysterious and captivating as the palace itself. Whispers of magic fuel Josie's desire to uncover the truth, but an ordinary girl like her can only dream of ever being invited inside.

Orlando Holt has never assassinated a woman before. The lovely, feisty Lady Lynden will be his first. She's supposed to be a vicious murderess, but when Orlando begins to have doubts, he sets out to discover the identity of the person who hired him. What he learns will turn his world upside down and propel him headlong into love with a woman who's immune to his charms.

Guilt and desire battle within Hughe, Lord Oxley’s, soul. When the enigmatic leader of the Assassin’s Guild learns that the widow of one of his targets is at the mercy of a cruel man, he does the only thing left in his power to do. He marries her. Then the worst thing happens. He falls in love with her. With more than one person trying to kill him and a family to rescue, Hughe needs the help of all his Assassins Guild friends to stay alive and keep his wife from learning the truth. Because he knows, and dreads, what will happen when she discovers what he did.

India's study into the language of spells is interrupted by the arrest of her teacher for an unpaid debt. Before Matt can repay it for him, the powerful magician escapes from his prison cell. To make matters worse, the moneylender is murdered and the magician is implicated. Convinced of his innocence, India and Matt must discover who really killed the moneylender before the police find the magician. Their investigation leads them down a path littered with lies, betrayal, scandal, and interference from people they don't trust.

This boxed set contains the first three books in C. J. Archer's popular Ministry of Curiosities series. Titles in the set include The Last Necromancer, Her Majesty's Necromancer, and Beyond the Grave. Description of The Last Necromancer: For five years, Charlotte (Charlie) Holloway has lived as a boy in the slums. But when one theft too many gets her arrested, her only means of escape lies with a dead man.

Cole’s heart is dark. He’s a mystery, even to those closest to him in the Assassins Guild. All anyone really knows for sure is that he’s ruthless, grim, and cares little for his own life. So when he loses his memory during an attack and thinks himself a naive 18-year-old again, no one can really believe the transformation. But as his memory returns, so do the nightmares and the dark reality of who he has become.

Hannah Smith thinks she’s safe now that Reuben Tate is set to face trial. But when an unusual creature is let loose on the Freak House estate, everybody is in danger, including Jack. To hunt it down, the household must take risks, but the greatest risk is to Hannah’s heart. She’s in danger of falling deeply in love with Jack, a man whose very touch can kill her.

Time is running out for Hannah. With her life hanging by a thread and Tate trying to kidnap her, she finds help in an unusual quarter – the man who put the narcoleptic memory block on her as a child. Yet the powerful hypnotist may not be all that he seems. It’s difficult to trust a man who regularly hypnotizes his wife against her wishes, and who is much too interested in Jack’s unnatural abilities.

When the editor of The Weekly Gazette is killed, controversial journalist and ink magician, Oscar Barratt, asks India and Matt to investigate. As the recipient of threatening letters written on magic paper, he believes he was the intended target. With suspects ranging from Oscar's brother to guild masters and London's elite, India and Matt have a lot of investigating to do. But the more they dig, the more dark secrets they uncover.