E-books - Axel Press

BEHIND A MASK by Louisa M. Alcott (E-book)

Jean Muir is an unsuccessful actress whose stage career in France is effectively over because she has reached the wizened old age of 30 – which is considered “over the hill” by Victorian standards. She decides to salvage her situation by applying for the position of governess with the upper-class Coventry family in England.<br>BEHIND A MASK is a delightfully twisted tale starring a governess who weaponizes sexism so effectively that nobody guesses her true aim.<br>The novella was originally published in 1866 under the pseudonym A. M. Barnard. Many literary critics have taken interest in the novella because its material was controversial for its time, and Behind a Mask is considered Alcott’s masterpiece in the genre of sensation fiction.

Violet Strange (E-book)

Violet Strange is considered by many to be the first “girl detective,” being only seventeen in her first story–a sort of Victorian-era Nancy Drew, a rebellious, wealthy young white woman (a New York debutante, in fact) whose intellectual restlessness drew her into all kinds of mayhem. But she was no amateur–she was a no-nonsense professional, discreetly (and occasionally reluctantly) taking on cases for an unnamed detective agency in order to earn money that wasn’t controlled by her domineering father.

The Phantom Airship (E-book)

Peggy and her BFF Jess are "new" girls - they drive cars, fly planes, even fight for the same opportunities and prize money as boys in the air races. What is so “new” about that? Not much today, but they live in Sandy Bay in 1911.<br>Peggy Prescott and her brother Roy share a love of aviation that they inherited from their late father. They manage to build a plane starting with the framework their father had begun, and they are determined to enter it in a young aviator’s contest for a prize of $5000.Peggy and Roy along with their best friends, Jess and Jimsy Bancroft – also sister and brother, experience many adventures – many of them while flying the Golden Butterfly. A kidnapping, missing jewels and contact with some desperate characters are just some of what the Prescotts encounter in their Long Island village of Sandy Bay.<br>