Oliver Milburn

Suddenly fatherless and penniless, young Nicholas Nickleby can find no help for himself and his family. His uncle Ralph may be rich, but he is neither a kind nor an honorable man, so it is up to Nicholas to take responsibility. His adventures in Victorian England will take Nicholas to a job at a boys' school run by a brutal and dictatorial headmaster, a London slum, and a theater troupe where he works under an assumed name and into a web of revenge,...

Evangelical Christian do-gooder, Laura Marshall fills her home with down-and-out boarders. Laura's shy teenage son, Ben, lands a job tending to self-proclaimed "Dame" Evie Walton, an over-the-hill actress with the mouth of a drunken sailor and an insatiable lust for life. The battle for Ben's soul begins as Evie shanghais Ben away from his repressive roots and transforms him from a boy to a man.