The Runaway Heart

At the tender age of twenty-one, demure beauty Karina Burke looks considerably younger.
Having lost her parents at an even younger age, she is beholden to her imperious Aunt Margaret and Uncle Simon, who have taken her in at their sombre mansion, Letchfield Park.
Now they are insisting that Karena should marry her cousin, Cyril, and, as if the fact that she does not love him is not enough, he is also mentally deficient and repellent.
With the invaluable assistance of her charming Cousin Felix, she runs away from her uncle and aunt and finds herself in the middle of the sophisticated Social world that revolves around her new employer, the immensely handsome, famous but unfriendly City magnate, Garland Holt.
And, although Garland's incorrigible cousin, Jim, declares his love for her, as does the increasingly suspect Cousin Felix, Karina is aghast to discover that it is only the aloof and unreachable Garland Holt that her runaway heart desires.

Barbara Cartland was the world's most prolific novelist who wrote an amazing 723 books in her lifetime, of which no less than 644 were romantic novels with worldwide sales of over 1 billion copies and her books were translated into 36 different languages.
As well as romantic novels, she wrote historical biographies, 6 autobiographies, theatrical plays and books of advice on life, love, vitamins and cookery.
She wrote her first book at the age of 21 and it was called Jigsaw. It became an immediate bestseller and sold 100,000 copies in hardback in England and all over Europe in translation.
Between the ages of 77 and 97 she increased her output and wrote an incredible 400 romances as the demand for her romances was so strong all over the world.
She wrote her last book at the age of 97 and it was entitled perhaps prophetically The Way to Heaven.
Her books have always been immensely popular in the United States where in 1976 her current books were at numbers 1 & 2 in the B. Dalton bestsellers list, a feat never achieved before or since by any author.
Barbara Cartland became a legend in her own lifetime and will be best remembered for her wonderful romantic novels so loved by her millions of readers throughout the world, who have always collected her books to read again and again, especially when they feel miserable or depressed.
Her books will always be treasured for their moral message, her pure and innocent heroines, her handsome and dashing heroes, her blissful happy endings and above all for her belief that the power of love is more important than anything else in everyone's life.