The House of
Closed Doors Series
My stepfather was not particularly fond of me to begin with, and now that
he’d found out about the baby, he was foaming at the mouth.
Nell Lillington's struggle to reconcile independence, love, and respectability begins with her refusal to name her baby's father, and the path to her ideal life is strewn with murder. Set in the American Midwest of the 1870s, this series blends suspense, romance, history, and family drama in a fast-paced clean read.
Available widely as ebooks, paperbacks, or audiobooks.
The House of Closed Doors
Small town Illinois, 1870: Desperate to avoid marriage, Nell Lillington refuses to divulge the name of her child's father and accepts her stepfather's decision that the baby be born at a Poor Farm and discreetly adopted.
Until an unused padded cell is opened and two small bodies fall out.
Nell is the only resident of the Poor Farm who is convinced that the unwed mother and her baby were murdered, and the incident prompts her to rethink her own life. But the secret she uncovers means she may have no safe place to run to.
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Eternal Deception
Frontier Kansas, 1872: Nell hopes to support her daughter Sarah and friend Tess by working as a seamstress in an isolated seminary, despite the hostility she encounters there. As her talent as a dressmaker begins to win her commissions, Nell attracts the attention of two suitors: Reiner Lehmann, a wealthy senior student, and Judah Poulton, an impoverished professor. Shocking news from back home and another death at the seminary press Nell to make her decision.
A disastrous winter journey, a treacherous game, and an impossible love could wrest control of Nell's life out of her hands for good.
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The Shadow Palace
Chicago, 1876: For Nell, Chicago, and her new wealth, offer the promise of longed-for independence. Yet how can she settle in a town where she's far too likely to run into Martin Rutherford and his glittering, faithless wife, Lucetta? Can she resist her love for Martin for Sarah's sake?
But when Martin is arrested for murder, Nell's dreams appear to be swallowed up in the new web of secrets she constructs to help him. Secrets that threaten to alienate Tess, Sarah, and even Martin.
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The Jewel Cage
Adjusting to wedlock isn’t easy for a woman whose initial aversion to the married state took her to the Poor Farm. When a tragedy out of the blue prompts her to repay past debts, her charitable instincts threaten to wreck her happy new life. What does she really want - and what does she really need?
Attraction to an old friend shakes Tess’ world. Can she change his indifference to love?
Martin struggles with demons from his own past as he oversees the rebuilding of the store and the creation of a new home. Will his ambitions hurt those he loves the most?
Young Sarah faces the antagonist who knows the secret that might ruin her future.
Join the beloved characters from The House of Closed Doors series as we bridge the years between Nell’s Story and Sarah’s, interweaving stories of love and despair, darkness and light in the turbulent Chicago of the late 1870s.
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