Though she loves him, Nicole's father has always focused on what she's not. Not male. Not married. Not able to run Renard Shipping.Vowing to find a suitable husband to give her father the heir he desires before it's too late, Nicole sets out with the Renard family's greatest treasure as her dowry: the highly coveted Lafitte Dagger. But her father's rivals come after the dagger, forcing a change in Nicole's plans.After a boiler explosion aboard the Louisiana nearly took his life, Darius Thornton has been a man obsessed. He will do anything to stop even one more steamship disaster. Even if it means letting a female secretary into his secluded world.Nicole is determined not to let her odd employer scare her off with his explosive experiments, yet when respect and mutual attraction grow between them, a new fear arises. How can she acquire an heir for her father when her heart belongs to another? And when her father's rivals discover her hiding place, will she have to choose between that love and her family's legacy?

    She would wilt there like a rose without water. He'd be sending her back to Boise before the first snows. He'd be willing to bet on it.She could say what she wanted. Emily Harris didn't belong in the hard life of the Blakes. Beautiful and refined, she was accustomed to the best life had to offer. Heaven only knew why she wanted to leave Boise to teach two young girls on a ranch miles from nowhere. He'd wager it had to do with a man. It always did when a beautiful woman was involved. Emily wanted to make some sort of mark on the world before marriage. She wanted to be more than just a society wife. Though she had plenty of opportunities back East, she had come to the Idaho high country looking to make a difference. Gavin's resistance to her presence made her even more determined to prove herself. Perhaps changing the heart of one man might make the greatest difference of all.

    But inside is the means to a new life, a position as a scout on a wagon train bound for the Western Territories. All she has to do is convince the wagon master, Paden Callahan, she's the right person for the job. After his wife was murdered by the Comanche, Paden let his work as a Texas Ranger consume him. Now he wants nothing more than to disappear into the West. Unfortunately, the one man he can't refuse has asked him to guide a wagon train full of tenderfoots across thousands of miles of Indian land. But Paden's greatest challenge turns out to be Hannah, a woman his heart won't allow him to ignore even though she was raised by an enemy he hates.Between Heaven & Hell is the first book in the LONESOME HEARTS series where America’s breathtaking but harsh frontiers forge legendary men and women. The adventure continues with Following Faith (Oregon Territory 1852), Choosing Bravery (Oregon Territory 1868), Rescuing Raven (Deadwood 1876). This series follows the frontiersmen and women who meet the on Oregon Trail and afterward. Each story features characters from the other books but is also a standalone read.If you enjoy epic journeys featuring heroes with lost souls and heroines caught between two worlds, you'll love this edge-of-your-seat adventure that pushes pioneers to their limits and turns enemies into lovers and families into foes on the Oregon Trail.~ Click here to read an excerpt on my website ~

    A family to save. A love that can’t be.When Emma Daniels’ well-to-do family finds itself destitute, she answers an ad for the Gilbert Company seeking young women to be waitresses at hotel restaurants along remote railroad lines out west. The rules for a Gilbert Girl are strict: work hard, act respectably at all times, and no courting allowed. None of them present a problem for Emma, at least until she meets the hotel’s builder, Monroe Hartley. His smile and teasing manner were the last things Emma expected to find on the Colorado frontier. But as intriguing as he is, Emma would be risking her job – and her family’s lives – if she allowed his attentions.Building this hotel for the Gilbert Company is the perfect opportunity for Monroe. Not only will it advance his career, it barely gives him a moment to drown in guilt over his wife’s death. When Emma arrives, he finds himself drawn to her. But he can’t promise her anything, not unless he wants her to end up with the same fate his wife suffered.Giving in to their feelings would mean losing everything, yet they find themselves growing closer as the summer stretches on. When a man who covets Monroe’s job discovers their secret and threatens to reveal it, they must each decide whether their love is worth uprooting everything they’ve worked so hard for.Building Forever is the first book in the new Gilbert Girls series. Like all of Cat's books, this sweet and clean historical romance will warm your heart and fill you with hope.

    Through thick and thin, good and bad, fire and rain, their friendship has only gotten stronger—so strong that nothing could possibly break their bond, a bond that, for Ray, has suddenly changed from simply friends to something stronger and deeper… Something that makes her dream of days and nights beside the man she loves, something that makes her wish she were more than just the shepherd’s daughter. Then Billy’s mail order bride arrives. Rebecca DuCastille is everything Ray is not: refined, well-mannered, and pretty as a porcelain tea cup. How can Ray possibly compete for Billy’s heart when his new bride is everything he could want in a proper wife? Can the shepherd’s daughter convince her childhood friend that their love for one another goes beyond friendship, or will Billy marry the pretty interloper and leave Ray out to pasture?

    In "A World Such as Heaven Intended," Amara McKirnan and Nathan Simmons share a devotion to their Catholic faith but their loyalties lie on opposite sides of the conflict. Dedicated to the Confederate cause, Amara offers to help out at her uncle’s makeshift hospital in Atlanta. Fate brought Nathan to their doorstep and into Amara’s life. Little does Amara know that the wounded soldier she cares for harbors a secret that will not only jeopardize his life but hers as well. Follow Amara and Nathan’s story from the heart of war-torn Atlanta to the Northern Georgia battlefields to the plains of East Texas as their lives become intertwined in a way that shatters the separate worlds they once knew.

    He’s tired of being overlooked. It’s going to be a long two years.Eleanor Barrington has one rule: don’t draw attention to yourself. Her father does that far too often. She has one goal: marry a Peer with enough social status to protect her family from embarrassment. When her father decides on a last-minute Grand Tour, Eleanor finds herself spending time with the one man who cannot help her: a younger son who draws attention to himself everywhere they go. Her brother’s best friend.As the younger son of an earl, Percy Hauxton has to fight for everything. A Grand Tour is the perfect opportunity to pursue his ambition to work for the Foreign Office. But traveling with Eleanor and her parents wasn’t part of the plan.When circumstances draw them apart and a secret from the past threatens to unravel everything, Eleanor has to rethink her goals and decide one thing. Can she marry for love, or does she need a marriage of convenience?

    Her mother had been the town midwife, but after her daughter Alice died under her care, she refused to assist in a childbirth ever again. Since then Rachel has assumed the work. She also takes care of Alice's six-year old, Charlotte, because the child's father was lost in World War I. But Rachel's principal job is running the boardinghouse that is the family's main source of income. One day, Charlotte befriends a stranger ill with influenza, a man who has taken refuge in an old cabin in the woods nearby. Although badly scarred by wounds suffered in the War, he is strong and slowly recovers. When he gradually takes on odd jobs around the house, Rachel accepts his help. She is drawn to him despite his disfigurement, and his voice is comforting, vaguely familiar...

    The two families have been neighbors for centuries, and as a child the tomboyish Billie ran wild with Edward and Andrew. Either one would make a perfect husband... someday.Sometimes you fall in love with exactly the person you think you should...Or not.There is only one Rokesby Billie absolutely cannot tolerate, and that is George. He may be the eldest and heir to the earldom, but he's arrogant, annoying, and she's absolutely certain he detests her. Which is perfectly convenient, as she can't stand the sight of him, either.But sometimes fate has a wicked sense of humor...Because when Billie and George are quite literally thrown together, a whole new sort of sparks begins to fly. And when these lifelong adversaries finally kiss, they just might discover that the one person they can't abide is the one person they can't live without...

    And waiting.Because of a foolish mistake in her youth, she's not allowed "out" in Society until her three older sisters are wed. But while she's trying to be good, she keeps bumping elbows—and, more distressingly, lips—with notorious rake Harry Wright. Every moment she spends with him, she risks complete ruin.The sensual passions he stirs in her are so wrong . . . but Eliza just can't resist Mr. Wright.

    Assisted by the handsome curate who calls himself Sebastian Cantrip, she spirits away to her estranged father's quiet country village, pursued by the family she left in uproar. But when the dust of her broken engagement settles and Sebastian disappears under mysterious circumstances, Poppy discovers there is more to her hero than it seems. With only her feisty lady's maid for company, Poppy secures employment and travels incognita—east across the seas, chasing a hunch and the whisper of clues. Danger abounds beneath the canopies of the silken city, and Poppy finds herself in the perilous sights of those who will stop at nothing to recover a fabled ancient treasure. Torn between allegiance to her kindly employer and a dashing, shadowy figure, Poppy will risk it all as she attempts to unravel a much larger plan—one that stretches to the very heart of the British government, and one that could endanger everything, and everyone, that she holds dear.

    But now, in a lonely Utah canyon, the Pinkerton agent has drawn her six-gun on a rugged stranger—only to discover that, far from the dangerous outlaw she's been tracking, he is Branch McCauley, hired gun . . . and the most irresistible rascal ever to tempt and torment a woman. The Right Woman If there's one thing McCauley trusts less than a female, it's a female that packs a six-gun. Vowing to bring the sensuous hellcat to heel, McCauley has no inkling that their passionate battle of wills has just begun. Taming Jenna will be the most seductive—and satisfying—job he's ever taken on . . .

    Paris, Milan, London—Shannon has been everywhere, but somewhere along the way, she realizes she’s really…nowhere.Having graduated from high school and about to board yet another flight for yet another destination, Shannon is offered an alternative: stay in Portland, Oregon, with her parents’ close friend and help his law firm investigate a group of strangers living near the local university. A will with a substantial inheritance is being contested, and Shannon’s task is to gather information on the unlikely recipients of the money.Using an assumed name and working as a waitress in a diner, Shannon finds herself entirely on her own for the first time in her life; and as the long summer days go by, she tries to sort out who she really is and what her future holds.Originally published in 1968 and newly released as part of Nancy Pearl’s Book Crush Rediscoveries, Greensleeves is a smart and timeless tale of how far people must go to find themselves.

    She’s ramshackle, always says what she thinks and prefers riding and fishing over sewing and social graces. Grayson Lyall, Marquis of Carraway, is Society’s ideal of a perfect gentleman. He’s handsome, wealthy and considered a war hero by everyone but himself. A gentleman, that is, until he sets eyes on the intriguingly different Lady Juliana, emotionally jilted and humiliated and under pressure to change everything about herself. For her, he is quite willing to play the hero to a reluctant damsel in distress. But nothing is ever easy with Lady Juliana. It will take persistence.

    In eighteenth-century Virginia, the lush lands embraced the rivers that bounded the great plantations. There Clayton awaited his English lady...but when he showered his bride with ardent kisses, the woman he found in his arms was Nicole Courtalain!