After all, it's 1825 and this is the land of opportunity!

     In TUESDAY NIGHTS, boxer Michael Cunningham is more interested in building his fortune than finding a wife, but made a promise he would marry by his twenty-eighth birthday. Reminded of the deadline by his sister, Michael realizes he has much to do in the three weeks he has if he’s to propose to Olivia—or she’ll become his sister’s governess! With no time for courtship, banns, or wedding planning, his sister insists Michael ruin Olivia! Despite feeling affection for Michael since the day he rescued her from a rake, Olivia is still shocked—and ruined!—when he climbs into her bed. Once they're married, Michael is sure Olivia despises him, while she is sure he wandered into the wrong bedchamber that fateful Tuesday night. Will a week be enough time for Michael to court Olivia, to convince her of his affections? Or will he regret his last-minute efforts to keep his promise? Only time will tell… When Clarinda married the Earl of Norwick, she thought she was marrying the Fitzwilliam twin who courted her. But it was David's identical twin brother Daniel, the spare heir, who captured her heart with pink roses and delectable kisses. So when the rakish David made her his countess, the embittered Daniel left London to run the earl's estates in Sussex. With David's sudden death comes a reunion of the star-crossed lovers—and Clarinda's randy mother-in-law. Clarinda thinks Daniel despises her for being a fortune hunter—and because she's pregnant with what might be an heir to the earldom. Daniel knows Clarinda despises him, but can't remember what caused the row they had when they last spoke. Meanwhile, David's ghost is paying nocturnal visits to Clarinda while annoying Daniel with instructions to pursue his widow and pleas to discover who caused his untimely death. Who can be in mourning when twin brothers are causing so much trouble? Or is two times the romance worth a bit of sibling rivalry? Twins double the fun in THE WIDOWED COUNTESS. When Lady Julia and her friend Samantha notice an especially handsome groom from their vantage point of a second-story bedchamber window in Mayfield House, they decide the man would make the perfect gentleman. Julia accepts Samantha's challenge to transform the man in time for a ball. Little do they know Alistair Comber is already a gentleman. The estranged second son of an earl works in service in order to make good on a promise he made to a fellow soldier while he was an officer in the British Army. Alistair agrees to Julia's request that he learn how to bow, dance and dress like a gentleman in time for her mother's ball. After all, how hard can it be when MY FAIR GROOM is already a gentleman? How hard indeed!

    She is hidden in the words of her lover. This is the first in a string of ancient riddles that will lead archaeologist Erica Conner on the most dangerous expedition of her life. After agreeing to help an esteemed colleague and a no-nonsense FBI agent, she finds herself in a race against a mysterious cult. A faction that was founded in Egypt over two thousand years ago. Erica joins forces with Agent Matt Pierce. The two exasperate each other at every turn, while they battle the intense desire growing between them. He is the one man who knows the evil group's secrets, and she is the one person who can outwit them. As the riddles lead Erica and Matt around the world, the true horror unfolds. They must fight for their own lives and defeat the cultists before an unspeakable plan is unleashed on the world.

    Now Megan Mayhew Bergman, author of Birds of a Lesser Paradise, resurrects these women, lets them live in the reader's imagination, so we can explore their difficult choices. Nearly every story in this dazzling collection is based on a woman who attained some celebrity—she raced speed boats or was a conjoined twin in show business; a reclusive painter of renown; a member of the first all-female, integrated swing band. We see Lord Byron's illegitimate daughter, Allegra; Oscar Wilde's troubled niece, Dolly; West With the Night author Beryl Markham; Edna St. Vincent Millay's sister, Norma. These extraordinary stories travel the world, explore the past (and delve into the future), and portray fiercely independent women defined by their acts of bravery, creative impulses, and sometimes reckless decisions.The world hasn't always been kind to unusual women, but through Megan Mayhew Bergman's alluring depictions they finally receive the attention they deserve. Almost Famous Women is a gorgeous collection from an "accomplished writer of short fiction" (Booklist).

    When they do talk: Muriel Kemp eyes my pregnant belly and tells me if I really want to succeed, I'd get rid of the baby.Driven to find out more about her curmudgeonly neighbour, Jane Cooper begins to investigate the life of Muriel, who claims to be a famous artist from Sydney's bohemian 1920s. Contemporary critics argue that legend, rather than ability, has secured her position in history. They also claim that the real Muriel Kemp died in 1936.Murderer, narcissist, sexual deviant or artistic genius and a woman before her time: Who really is Muriel Kemp?

    A young nobleman. And death stalks them both.... The date is 1191 Aumary Belvoir is seventeen. Seventeen, and bound by an oath so holy, he dare not break it.
 Unexpectedly thrust into the position of the Warden of the Savernake; a woodland of one hundred and fifty square miles in Wiltshire, will Aumary succeed in stamping his authority on the forest? He has also acquired a half brother he did not know he had. With the help of his experienced staff and his willing family, things go well. The surprise brother, Robert proves a worthy assistant. Then the deaths begin. Are they accidents as they seem or is there something more sinister happening in the forest? Seventy year old Aumary is dictating his story to a scribe. He can no longer write for himself and wishes to set down for all time, the truth of two mysteries; the death of Arthur Duke of Brittany, King John's nephew and rival, and other more disturbing deaths closer to home. Aumary Belvoir sets off to uncover a plot so dastardly and deadly, so patient and well planned that it takes thirteen years to lay bare.

    He had more than his share of adventure when he went by the name Will Scarlet and fought corrupt authority alongside Robin Hood. Now widowed and alone, and estranged from his adult daughter, he has taken holy orders and sought refuge in a remote Benedictine abbey.But even there, trouble and violence follow him. The abbot, John de Wystow, is a good man but a weak leader, and easily undermined by a faction of dissident monks. When the rebels, led by Brother Robert de Flexburgh, run riot in the local community—stealing, drinking, fornicating—Scaflock’s old instincts return. Reluctantly taking charge of the abbey’s moral defence, he finds himself embroiled in a series of fierce clashes with de Flexburgh’s rowdy gang.As the abbey’s tranquillity is shattered, its cloisters stained with blood, Scaflock is forced to reconsider the direction of his life. Has he really left Will Scarlet behind him—or has he simply been running from reality?

    In Stealing Athena, Karen Essex chronicles the Marbles' amazing journey through the dynamic narratives of Mary Nisbet, wife of the Earl of Elgin, the British ambassador to Constantinople, and Aspasia, the mistress of Pericles, the most powerful man in Athens during that city's Golden Age.At the height of the Napoleonic Wars, the twenty-one-year-old, newly wed Countess of Elgin, a Scottish heiress and celebrated beauty, enchanted the power brokers of the Ottoman Empire, using her charms to obtain their permission for her husband's audacious plan to deconstruct the Parthenon and bring its magnificent sculptures to England. Two millennia earlier, Aspasia, a female philosopher and courtesan, and a central figure in Athenian life, plied her wits, allure, and influence with equal determination, standing with Pericles at the center of vehement opposition to his vision of building the most exquisite monuments the world had ever seen.Rich in romance and intrigue, greed and glory, Stealing Athena is an enthralling work of historical fiction and a window into the intimate lives of some of history's most influential and fascinating women.

    Only one old man, Gypsy Deak, sticks by her, but Gypsy alone can’t raise a crew from the depleted population. In desperation, Alice turns to the only source of plentiful workers: the women of Melbourne. In a bold move, she and Gypsy empty a brothel, promising the escaped women a new life. Her all-woman (save one) crew put their backs and hearts into the voyage, but Alice finds training her sailors much harder than she expected. Her faith is tested to the limit. With a cargo to sell, angry brothel and tavern owners in pursuit, pirates to evade, and a mysterious stowaway, will the seafaring women of the Vera B. survive to tell the tale of this daring adventure?

    A time-travel romance where a Sioux warrior from the 1800's meets a contemporary woman doctor, Across the Wilderness is a love story that transcends time, bringing two soul mates together on a journey interwoven with romance, revenge, and intrigue.

    Nestled in her little village in inland Africa, this young pregnant mother of two boys already had the hopes and dreams which any Igbo woman her age would want of her time. And her joy was furthered with the impending birth of their third child, a child whom they were hoping would be the girl her husband wanted. But she was captured against her will and helpless at that point because of her pregnancy, she yielded to her assailants without question. What happens next is a terrible ordeal for this young woman who learns about the savagery of life's sharp ends and about where betrayals begin - on the very soil that is Africa. Along the way, Adaku meets people like her who were kidnapped against their will and soon she forges friendship with women across all tribes, all in search of a common cause to escape from the brutal trade and greed of certain nations of the coastal blacks and those of the northern African landscape who know nothing but of selling human flesh for the gratification of what the white men could offer them.In Part I of The Story of Adaku, Adaku encounters treachery and hopelessness of being branded a slave. Already, she learns the dangers of running and in the early times of her capture, her determination for escape eventually materializes towards acceptance when she realizes the trade for human flesh is far too robust for one single person to fight.I hope you find this story a beautiful one and one that will eventually spur you on towards the reading of my next story which covers Adaku's journey into The Middle Passage. This will be Part II, now available on Amazon.com.There is no excuse for slavery and there is no excuse to what has been done but gradually, the healing should give way to a better hope for tomorrow.

    

    The time of the story is in the 6th century B.C.E, long before that favorite trio of fiction writers of ancient Rome - Julius Caesar, Mark Anthony and Cleopatra - whose actions caused the fall of the Republic. It is the story of a fictional character but within the framework of the historical record (what little there is) and includes the well known names of that time, including Lucius Junius Brutus and Lucius Tarquinius Collatinus, the first Consuls of the Republic, and Tarquinius Superbus, the overbearing King with the insatiable appetite for conquest. And of course, the person of Lucretia, the wife of Collatinus - that woman of many romantic myths and tragic tales of that time.

     After five years of hard work, Elliott Maitland has succeeded to make profitable the ranch he bought on a whim from a gambler who had no interest in working with cattle. A frosty winter day finds Elliott in town, hoping to conclude his business before the blizzard starts in earnest. Sam, the owner of the mercantile, asks him to give shelter to the new schoolteacher, who just arrived in town and has nowhere to stay. Celestine Tillman is in desperate need of a job and a place to live. Being hired as a teacher in Wyoming is a blessing. Discovering that no one is waiting for her at the train depot and no room is available in town so close to Christmas is distressing. Going home with this rancher could be dangerous, but what choice does she have? This adventure packed fictional story is set in Laramie, Wyoming at the end of the nineteen century and presents a true picture of the western town with all the good and the bad, the modern and the old west mixed together. An enduring town moving forward and changing with the times.

    Discovered by the police, Bincy is taken to an orphanage, where she learns that Mama is not the only person who doesn't want her. In truth, nobody wants her, and Bincy is forced to cling to the orphanage bully Mae for comfort. As the years pass, Mae forces Bincy to do everything she demands, from picking on the younger girls to giving up her meager allotment of food. When Bincy is betrayed by Mae, she's sent to work in a manor house as a scullery maid. That's where Bincy meets two young men: Judd, the street urchin who comes into the cellar to scavenge for food, and Henry, the charismatic young master of the house. Despite Judd's warnings, Bincy finds herself falling for Henry. But when Henry demands more from her than she's willing to give, Bincy has to make a choice: give herself to him or face her greatest fear of being alone and discarded once more.