In the Lion's Den (House of Falconer Series #2)

by Barbara Taylor Bradford

Overview

From New York Times bestselling author Barbara Taylor Bradford comes the highly anticipated second book in the House of Falconer saga.

James Lionel Falconer has risen quickly from a mere shop worker to being the right-hand man of Henry Malvern, head of the most prestigious shipping company in London. With Malvern's daughter Alexis running away to the country after a terrible tragedy and refusing to return, James' ascent to head of the company seems inevitable. But even a charmed life like James' is not without its setbacks.

A terrible fire threatens to end his merchant career before it's had a chance to truly begin. Mrs. Ward, James' former paramour, has a secret that could change his life forever. And his distaste for Alexis Malvern is slowly growing into feelings of quite a different sort. Can James continue to be the master of his own fate, or will all of his charm, intelligence, and wit finally fail him when he has to enter the lion's den?

Spanning the years from 1889 to 1892, In the Lion's Den is Barbara Taylor Bradford at her historical storytelling best.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781250801944
Publisher:	St. Martin's Publishing Group
Publication date:	11/30/2021
Series:	House of Falconer Series , #2
Pages:	320
Sales rank:	135,030
Product dimensions:	7.00(w) x 4.70(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

Barbara Taylor Bradford, OBE, is one of the world's best loved storytellers. Her 1979 debut novel, A Woman of Substance, ranks as one of the top-ten bestselling books of all-time, with more than 30 million copies in print. All her novels to date have been major worldwide bestsellers.

Barbara was born in Leeds, West Yorkshire, the only child of Freda and Winston Taylor. She grew up in the Leeds suburb of Armley and left school at 15 for the typing pool at the Yorkshire Evening Post. At 16 she was a reporter, and at 18 she became the paper’s first woman’s page editor. By the time she was 20, she had moved to London where she became a fashion editor and columnist on Fleet Street. Barbara started writing fiction when she was just seven, and sold her first short story to a magazine for seven shillings and sixpence when she was ten years old.

Barbara’s books have sold more than 91 million copies worldwide in more than 90 countries and 40 languages. Ten of her books were made into Emmy-nominated miniseries and television movies by her late husband, the film producer Robert Bradford.

In 2007, Barbara was awarded an OBE by Queen Elizabeth II in the Queen's Birthday Honours list for her contributions to literature. A passionate supporter of literacy, she is an ambassador for the National Literacy Trust; in 2019 she was made an ambassador for Women in Journalism and in the same year she was presented with The Leeds Award, which recognised her loyalty to, and depiction of, her Yorkshire roots. Her original manuscripts are archived at the Brotherton Library at Leeds University, alongside the works of the Brontë sisters. She lives in New York City.

Her official website is: www.barbarataylorbradford.com

Hometown:

New York, New York

Place of Birth:

Yorkshire, England

Education:

Christ Church Elementary School and Northcote Private School for Girls in Yorkshire, England

Website:

http://www.barbarataylorbradford.com

Editorial Reviews

"In the Lion’s Den ticks all the boxes fans expect from Bradford’s romantic sagas." — Booklist

Praise for Barbara Taylor Bradford:

"Bradford’s many fans will find a vast new cast of characters to connect with." —Publisher's Weekly on Master of His Fate

"The launch of what promises to be another blockbuster Bradford series." —Kirkus Reviews on Master of His Fate

"Bradford's legion of fans will flock happily to this romantic saga." —Booklist on Master of His Fate

From the Publisher

03/02/2020

Bestseller Bradford adds a leisurely paced installment to her House of Falconer series (after Master of His Fate), set in Victorian England. The story tracks aspiring merchant James Falconer’s rising career at the shipping and real estate firm Malvern Market, run by Henry Malvern. While Henry’s middle-aged daughter, Alexis, the company’s expected successor, grieves for her dead fiancé, Henry promotes the ambitious James, 21, to second-in-command. After a family member embezzles from the firm, James proposes building a gallery of shops as a way to recoup those losses, but arson strikes the half-built gallery. (Though, curiously, no suspects are suggested, leaving readers to anticipate a reveal in a future series installment.) Bradford does offer a secret from James’s past love life, staging a seductive tryst between James and the lovely Irina, a dress designer, while a highly charged love affair between James and Alexis moves the plot. Bradford evokes the Victorian setting with aplomb, but a ham-handed intervention by Alexis’s late fiancé’s adult daughter, who professes to have looked up to her while telling her to “get back looks,” muddles the author’s apparent appeal to current values with its adherence to Victorian convention. Series fans will enjoy following along as the plot deepens. (May.)

Publishers Weekly

2020-03-30
The second in Bradford’s House of Falconer series about a retail dynasty.

By 1889, James Falconer, soon to turn 21, has made himself indispensable to commerce impresario Henry Malvern while dreaming of founding his own retail empire. As in the first installment, Master of His Fate(2018), James’ extended family is still warm and supportive. The decor of every dwelling, be it ever so bourgeois, is still lavishly detailed. And James is still exhibiting his preference for older women. His lover Mrs. Ward, age 31, left London for health reasons, but now there is Irina, age 22, fetching great-granddaughter of a Russian ambassador. One senses immediately, despite their speedy progress from attraction to a perfunctory “insert sex scene here,” that Irina is just a place holder—until James and Alexis, Henry’s daughter, between whom an attraction has been brewing since Master, can resolve their differences. Which seem to have mostly to do with competition for her father’s good graces. To Alexis' extreme resentment, James has effectively usurped her status as Malvern’s chief deputy since Alexis has chosen to remain, grieving, in the Kentish cottage her late fiance, Sebastian Trevalian, built for her before his untimely demise. While avoiding her own family, Alexis is still involved with Sebastian’s clan, which inhabits the large Trevalian country estate nearby—and she’s hurt when the Trevalians avert a potential scandal, involving an unwed mother, without her help. Too often, such misunderstandings take the place of actual conflict. The mystery of who hired thugs to attack James and a friend, left dangling in Vol. I, is also too abruptly solved here. As the undisputed heiress, however capriciously she treats her father, to the company James can only claim sweat equity in, Alexis is clearly a more suitable match for the budding tycoon. So of course they will end up together—it's just a matter of how much window dressing gets in the way.

Despite a few mild threats, nothing to suggest any actual lions in this den.

Kirkus Reviews