"A shabby, fourth-rate theater, the Vulcan is not where Martyn Tarne hoped to work, when she moved from New Zealand to London in hope of a glittering acting career. But a girl has to eat, so Martyn takes a job as dresser to the Vulcan's leading lady. This provides her with a ringside seat to the backstage circus: the aging alcoholic actor, the waspish playwright, the ingénue on the make, the surprisingly gracious grande dame. There is, of course,...

A rakish English knight is caught up in an actress's seductive secrets in this Elizabethan-era historical romance by a New York Times–bestselling author.
Since childhood, Rosie's life has been the stage—passing herself off as a boy playing women's roles in the somewhat disreputable theatrical troupe of actor Danny Plympton, Rosie's adoptive father. But when unanticipated danger confronts them, they must flee London, taking refuge...

A Room Without Toys is essentially the story of Victoria Windsor, beautiful and brilliantly gifted star of the London stage and apparently a woman to be envied. Yet when we go behind the velvet curtain which would ordinarily separate the actress from her audience, we find the reality of her life to be quite different. From a childhood which with one touching exception is a lonely one, we follow her through the frustration of endless auditions to the...