Kate Coscarelli

In James Mitchell's latest novel, Leading Lady, the central character is struggling to make sense of her life in 1930s' Newcastle. It charts the troubled history of Jane Whitcombe, whose story began in A Woman to be Loved and continued in An Impossible Woman. She's rich, beautiful and loved by wealthy banker Charles Lovell, but she is concerned and distressed about her dead fiance's home town of Felston. She travels with Charles to Hollywood and then on to Mexico, where he secures a contract to build a destroyer for the Mexican government — a contract that might just save Felston from ruin. On their return to England, Jane and Charles marry, but she soon finds other causes to fight for and finds herself in Spain helping the casualties of the civil war. Charles is appalled by her behaviour and Jane doesn't know whether he will ever forgive her. Jane's struggle for a better and meaningful existence is something that James understands all too well. He, like his fictional character, strove for excellence in the face of unfortunate circumstances and won. "If you ever give in," he says, "you're dead," — later adding that his attitude is what his parents taught him. His father was a fitter who became a union man and eventually the mayor of South Shields, James's home town, in 1940.

Join the Exodus or die. Cecilia After years of evading the Exodus, the secret society responsible for my family’s destruction, I’m back and seeking revenge. Every decade, the Exodus hosts the Reckoning, a deadly gathering where members engage in sinister games. My to cause as much destruction as I can even if it means infiltrating their prestigious party and eliminating them. Nothing will stand in my way—not even Darian Delacroix, the enigmatic Elder who has me in his sights. Darian Cecilia Van Der Meer believed she could escape the Exodus, but she was mistaken. As the heiress to one of the largest fortunes in the country and the daughter of the Elder behind my family’s demise, she has become a target. Fortunately for me, she’s now caught in my web, and I refuse to let her slip away. I’m determined to break her, just as her father shattered my family. But the stakes are high, and the lines between love and vengeance are about to blur. What’s it going to be, Cecilia? Marry me or die?

After spending much of his life as a self-reliant boot-black on the streets of late-1860's New York, genial, fifteen-year-old Dick Hunter finds it hard to adjust to his new job and improved social status, especially when jealous enemies frame him for theft.