The Thrilling Adventures of the Most Dangerous Woman in Europe Series

  The most dangerous woman in Europe meets the greatest danger of all: love. Miss Marian Halcombe thrilled the world In Wilkie Collins' Victorian best-seller THE WOMAN IN WHITE. In this sensational sequel, Marian uses all the wits and wiles she learned then to save her husband Theo Camlet from charges of bigamy and then murder. Women are supposed to be rescued in her world, but Marian fights to rescue everything she loves: her husband and her happiness.

A desperate father hides a little slip of solid gold in the back of an artist's canvas. It is a token, the clue to a vast international conspiracy to assassinate a world leader and change the course of the 19th century. A train crash puts it into the hands of Marian Halcombe Camlet and Walter Hartright. They unravel its secrets in a breakneck chase that takes them across Europe, through kidnappings, catacombs and nunneries, a major project to domesticate the hippopotamus for the British Army and, at the last, deep into the depths of the cruel dilemmas of women. Even the most dangerous woman in Europe can do only so much, when every law in Victoria's Britain is weighted in favor of men.

Marian Halcombe Camlet has just given birth to her first son, so it's not a good time for crisis. But her older stepson has run away from his abusive boarding school. And a fortune in diamonds and pearls, destined for Queen Victoria, has been stolen through the Camlet publication offices. Juggling maternity and parenting within the strict confines of Victorian womanhood, Marian attacks with all her customary vehemence.

In 1849 Walter Hartright was one of the few survivors of an expedition to British Honduras. Now a letter, pleading for rescue, has arrived from Sir Ambridge Skyllington, the lead explorer. Is it truly he, or is this a fraud? Walter journeys into the jungle to find out, and Theo Camlet goes with him. When they are captured by native partisans Marian Halcombe Camlet sails to the rescue of her husband and her brother-in-law with cases of rifles. But it is 1864, a dangerous time to cross the Atlantic when the Union is fighting the Civil War and the US Navy is on the watch for smugglers.

Marian's daughter Lottie is heartbroken when her fiancé becomes enmeshed in an American religious cult. They race off to Virginia to rescue him, carrying with them Marian's profligate nephew Wally, who has become entangled with an adventuress. Wally falls victim to another seductress – a violin – and Marian's daughter learns she must compete with a whole cult full of willing maidens and her fiancé's crippling sense of honour. And Marian discovers that the wily Father of the Agapal Fellowship wouldn't mind adding the most dangerous woman in Europe to the roster of wives!

Can it be that the fearsome master criminal Count Fosco yet lives? Marian Halcombe Camlet learns that Fosco escaped vengeance and has sold her husband Theo into captivity, winding his plots around everyone she loves once more! Her journey to rescue him and defeat Fosco, and incidentally to save Vaurantania from bloody revolution, takes her to the capitals of Europe and at last a grim castle high in the Alps.

Marian Halcombe Camlet wakes up in a strange bedroom, in a house she does not recognize. She has a new name, and a job, as the companion to the Dowager Countess of Brecon and Stowe, on the vast estate of Cranmorden in Gloucestershire. How did Marian get here, and why? The Earl of Brecon and Stowe has a secret, but Marian has forgotten it. She has to discover the lost memory, and then resolve the secret, before she can return home to her husband and baby.

For years publisher Theophilus Camlet has been discreetly distributing a pamphlet with some of the most incendiary information in Victorian England: birth control. When he is arrested for distributing pornography Marian's worst enemy seizes his chance to destroy her most valuable possession: her marriage. To save her husband's sanity Marian agrees to a false death certificate. But how long can she live as an impoverished widow and mother, when her man has fled to America?

When her husband Theo dies, Marian Halcombe Camlet's heart breaks. Her plan is to wear black and dwindle away into her grave. But then her brother reveals her late husband's deathbed request: Theo wants his beloved wife to be happy. To marry again! Suddenly everyone in her family has a likely prospect to offer, and men are lining up. Fed up with the demands of Victorian society, Marian takes the decision into her own hands by returning to her first love–adventure. She sails halfway around the globe and finds old enemies and new loves. Why does she become drawn into the murderous politics of a tiny pirate kingdom? Because the pirate is tall, dark, and irresistible! But when she takes him home to Britain, danger and treachery inexorably follow.

Marian's royal pirate husband was murdered, leaving her a perilous legacy: his son. Now Marian must fulfil his dying wish, to raise the orphan and restore him to his throne in Asia. As Zed Saylor, the boy heir has been safely hidden in England under her care. Now grown to manhood, Zed steps forward when his nation calls for him to overthrow the usurper and save his people. And Marian is ready with the plans and funding to set him on his throne. But all the weapons she prepared are the tools of the West. Zed's Asian kingdom is defended by powers that even Marian Halcombe did not foresee. These are the perils Zed must face to truly become the Cobra Marked King.

To a child, the world is a bright and innocent place. But while their famous mother Marian Halcombe is in Asia, William Camlet and his older sister Lester take turns recounting an adventure that took place 25 years ago, when they were adventurous children. And now they discover it was more dangerous than they knew. Treason, a duel to the death, blackmail, a bride compelled to the altar, and the recovery of an Egyptian treasure lurk in the past. But the lessons and weapons of childhood are the foundation for adult valor. William finds love, and Lester sets out on a quest for the biggest villain of the 1890s: Jack the Ripper!