The beautiful Ilesa Harle and her father, the Honourable Mark Harle, the Vicar of the village of Littlestone, are finding it difficult to 'make ends meet', owning little of value other than the run-down Vicarage that they live in and the two fine pictures by the famous painter of horses, George Stubbs, that they have inherited.The lovely Ilesa, therefore, lives a simple sheltered life with her father unlike her glamorous and worldly half-sister Doreen, who has been widowed and has inherited her husband's vast riches And Doreen aims to further her ambitious social career by marrying the dashing and aristocratic Duke of Mountheron, who curiously is a collector of George Stubbs's paintings as well.The trouble is that Doreen has been caught in the arms of one of her lovers by an unsympathetic man who is sure to tell tales to the Duke and then ruin her prospects of marrying him. Doreen begs Ilesa to cover for her and tell the Duke lies that she was at the Vicarage at the time in question when she was not there.But, when the Duke arrives at the Vicarage and then invites the Vicar and both daughters to stay with him in his fine house called Heron Court, Doreen is beside herself with jealousy and even more so when it becomes obvious that the Duke is falling in love with 'the wrong sister'.

Dame Barbara Cartland was one of the most successful and well-known of all British romance novelists and was undoubtedly the most prolific, writing 723 books in her long lifetime of which 675 are romantic novels and include 160 brand new titles that are currently being published as the Barbara Cartland Pink Collection.She wrote across a wide variety of genres, but is of course most closely associated with romance, and with her stories of chaste heroines, dashing heroes and everyone finally living happily ever after. Barbara was a colorful character in many senses of the word and was as well known for her controversial and witty interviews and absorbingly exciting life story as she was for her bright pink clothes and extravagant appearance.To read Barbara Cartland's life story is to be impressed that someone could fit so much into only one life. As well as writing a staggering number of books, she was also involved with great advances in many diverse fields from aviation to alternative medicine and helped many groups who she perceived as being unfairly treated, from midwives in poor working conditions to Romany gypsy children who wanted to be allowed to attend school.She was fascinatingly contradictory in her interviews and novels, Barbara often extolled the virtues of traditional relationships between men and women and falling in love, but hers is the story of a driven, independent-minded woman who was unafraid to turn her hand to anything which interested her and right wrongs Barbara Cartland is synonymous with traditional romantic fiction, but her life story is perhaps just as engrossing as her fiction.To date she has sold 1 Billion copies sold in 38 languages