Book picks similar to
The Dark Guardian by Vanessa Blake


gothic
historical-fiction
adult-mystery-thriller
romance

The Madman's Daughter Trilogy


Megan Shepherd - 2015
    Wells, Robert Louis Stevenson, and Mary Shelley, is perfect for fans of Libba Bray, Leigh Bardugo, and classic horror and science fiction. This collection also contains a sneak peek of The Cage, the first book in Megan Shepherd's gripping new series about teens held captive in a human zoo by an otherworldly race.The Madman's Daughter, inspired by The Island of Dr. Moreau, is the story of Dr. Moreau's daughter Juliet, who travels to her estranged father's island only to encounter murder, madness, and a scintillating love triangle.Her Dark Curiosity: Inspired by The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde, this tantalizing sequel explores the hidden natures of those we love and how far we'll go to save them from themselves.A Cold Legacy: With inspiration from Mary Shelley's Frankenstein, this breathless conclusion to the Madman's Daughter trilogy explores the things we'll sacrifice to save those we love . . . even our own humanity.

A Fashionable Address


Pamela Evans - 1993
    Cyril Potter is a secret gambler whose debts have become so crippling that he can see no way out, and he commits suicide. Left to clear the debts, his family are forced to sell everything the own. As daughter Kate labours in a hat-making factory to support the family, she catches the eye of the wealthy factory owner. But tragedy strikes the family once more when unmarried Kate is left pregnant...

Embracing Destiny


Vivian Rose Lee - 2015
    Life for Randa in the Brewster household was hard because of an uppity aunt and a pair of cousins who considered the young girl beneath their standing. They labeled her the shame of the elite black Brewster family, a dark mark on the good Brewster name, and made her life miserable because of it. Unwanted and unloved in a house filled with strangers, things looked bleak for Randa, but her circumstances took a sudden and dramatic change when her grandfather was made aware of her plight. Vowing to her that things would be different from here on out, her grandfather took a shy, introverted little girl under his wing and over time molded her into a strong, intelligent young woman. After the death of her beloved grandfather, the now wealthy Randa, thanks to a deathbed blessing, moved to Tullahassee, Oklahoma with the desire to locate the mother she was taken away from, but what she found instead was a life she never imagined she would ever have.

Moonlight on the Mersey


Anne Baker - 1996
    When Jill's stoical stepgrandmother tells her the harrowing tale of her tragic past, Jill must learn the price of forgiveness and the power of love.

The Promise


Benita Brown - 2009
    The girls believe they have found a refuge when charming businessman Victor Bateman proposes to Marion and they move into his luxurious home. But Marion’s friend Daniel Brady is conducting his own investigation into Henry Brookfield’s death. He learns the journalist was closing in on the head of a child prostitution racket when he was killed. And now his precious daughters may not be so safe, after all...

Here Will I Remain (New Hope, #1)


Gretchen Craig - 2016
    "Take some water," one of them said. Catherine shoved the cup aside, afraid she'd be sick. The floor rocked. The air smelled of the sea. She clambered to her feet, staggering, and fought the panic threatening to overwhelm her. He'd put her aboard a ship. Unlike the other women aboard ship, Catherine de Villeroy had assumed Fate intended her to live an aristocratic life of ease and luxury. Instead she is transported to a fetid jungle to be tied to a secretive stranger who reeks of pigs. Catherine's shipmate Marie Claude has had few expectations in life, and even they have been disappointed. When her only options become prostitution or starvation, Fate decrees she will become the wife of a stranger in a strange land. Even if her new husband is a cruel man, how can life not be better in this rough paradise of alligators and wild orchids? Agnes expected a life spent in her father's bookstore, perhaps married to a gentle, scholarly man. Betrayed and ruined, Agnes retreats into herself and hardly notices when she is transported to Louisiana. Married to a stranger who desires only an amenable bed partner, Agnes strives to stay present in her new life and to explore what more Fate allows a ruined woman.

THE DRIFTER'S CHRISTMAS


Cia Leah - 2014
    He never had a place to call home. While camping out one night, hoping to find the next town, he had a feeling he was being watched. He ignored his instincts and went to sleep to wake up in the morning with a splitting headache from being hit on the head, and his horse, food, and saddlebags stolen. Following the footsteps left behind by the thieves, he found it led to a cabin and to a patchwork family in dire need of help. Sadie Carman lost her pa and took in two boys and a little girl that needed her to care for them. The boys were a trial, but she loved them like her own children. When Stryker Steele showed up at her door and told her that someone stole his horse and belongings, she was worried the boys had something to do with it. She agreed to let him stay until he could figure out what to do, but she never figured that he would give them a Christmas like they never had and forgive the boys for what they did. She worried Stryker would leave and she wished he'd stay forever.

The House at Ladywell


Nicola Slade - 2017
    Unknown to Freya, these women, over centuries, fought with whatever weapons came to hand – deception, endurance, even murder – to preserve their home and family.Freya falls in love with the house, but her inheritance includes an enigmatic letter telling her to ‘restore the balance’ of the Lady’s Well. Besides this, the house seems to be haunted by the scent of flowers.In the past, the Lady’s Well was a place of healing, and Freya soon feels safe and at home, but she has demons of her own to conquer before she can accept the happiness that beckons.

Lone Eagle


Alfred Dennis - 2008
    William and his sister Virginia are found by a passing army patrol but Phillip is missing. Eighteen years later at the Fort Laramie Treaty Council a close family friend sees a warrior identical in looks to William. Follow the Lane's west as a courageous family seeks the missing twin, Phillip.

Doctor Rose and the Outlaw


R.O. Lane - 2020
    She sets up her medical practice there. One night she's called out to help a gang of outlaws that have been shot to pieces while trying to rustle cattle. One of the outlaws is a young man that she develops feelings for, but he's in and out of her life for months on end. The outlaw attempts to change his life and go straight. It's a challenge that Rose encourages. It's the tale of two people who grow to care deeply for each other, and when Rose is kidnapped, the outlaw, now her husband, rides out to save her. Another novel of the Old West from the pen of R. O. Lane.

Brides Of Grasshopper Creek


Faith-Ann Smith - 2016
    She and her new husband Bradley have been planning this trip for as long as they have been planning their lives together it seems, and now that they've left Independence, Missouri on the wagon train west, it appears that all of their dreams are coming true. Within just a few short weeks of leaving, however, the harsh realities of life on the wagon train strike Hannah hard and she is forced to realize that the adventure she envisioned with Bradley is not at all what it seemed. Will Hannah overcome hardship when her adventure out west takes a tragic turn for the worse? Book 2: Mail Order Bride Caroline: The Lord guides Caroline to an ad in the newspaper from a gold miner in Bannack who is searching for a lovely woman to become his bride. Soon, she joins the wagon train and anxiously makes the journey out west to start her new life. When she arrives, however, she discovers that the man she chose may not be the man she thought he was. She must decide where her loyalties lie—and if she can find it in herself to look beyond Bailey’s past and accept him for the man he is today. Book 3: Mail Order Bride Louisa: After the death of her sweetheart, Louisa feels that there is nothing left in life for her, and wonders what she could possibly do to fill the years that lie ahead. When her sister suggests for Louisa to become a mail order bride for one of the men in the frontier, Louisa is appalled, but with the prospect of her sister and brother leaving on the wagon train with their cousins, Louisa knows that she must make the decision to either be left alone without any relatives and only her painful memories, or to enter marriage with a man she doesn't know. Book 4: Mail Order Bride Emily: Emily has never quite fit in with the rest of the high society young women who are supposed to be her peers. Raised in privilege—and expected to live up to the part now that she is old enough to marry—Emily cares more about her dream of becoming a teacher than the idea of hosting fancy tea parties and being courted by potential suitors. Feeling that she cannot continue being told what to do any longer, Emily makes the bold decision to go out west so that she can start a school and teach the children of the Frontier. In order to fulfill her dream, however, she must become a mail order bride. Book 5: Mail Order Bride Charlotte: After the death of their parents, Charlotte and her brother Victor only have each other left in the world. Well past marrying age at thirty years old, Charlotte has nearly resigned herself to spending her life taking care of Victor when she suddenly discovers that he has been planning for them to move away from Philadelphia and seek out their futures in the Frontier town of Bannack. Though Victor refuses to admit it, Charlotte knows that having a single sister following him around is limiting to him, so she decides to take responsibility for herself and find a man who is looking for a wife. Book 6: Mail Order Bride Betsy: Betsy always knew that love would find her eventually, and until then, she would be happy watching the young men who lived in her mother's boarding house court their sweethearts on the front porch.

Their First Noelle


Leah Atwood - 2013
    Orphaned at the age of ten, she has been shuffled around and on her own most of her life. She moved west in anticipation of meeting the man who had stolen her heart, only to be crushed when she finds out she was not wanted.This Christmas, will a meddling mother's scheme bring love to those who are hurting? Find out in this short, holiday story of thirty pages.Other titles available from Leah Atwood:Unlikely Substitute (Mail-Order Husbands)The Not Quite Mail-Order BrideThe Mail Order Bride's Quilt

Betting on a Lady's Heart (His Majesty's Hounds Book 14)


Arietta Richmond - 2018
     Gervaise Belmont, Viscount Woodridge, has sworn to no longer gamble – but giving it up is proving far harder than he had expected. He despairs of achieving his aims, especially as the reputation he created, two years earlier, persists, destroying his opportunities for change. Until a chance meeting with a young lady gives him a reason to hope. Miss Clarisse Weston is disconsolate. Her father has, after many, many years, married again – and her relationship with her stepmother is strained, to say the least. When she is encouraged to look for a husband, she feels trapped. Whilst her father has introduced her to a charming Earl, she finds herself uncertain – especially as the Viscount she met by accident wishes to court her too. But all is not as it seems, and a tangle of lies, deceptions and betrayals soon traps Clarisse. Is the Earl all that he seems? Is the Viscount truly a rake and a gambler beyond redemption? Is her stepmother as concerned for Clarisse’s wellbeing as she professes to be? And can Clarisse find her way through the web of deceit, to be with the man she loves, or will greed and manipulation steal her chance at happiness forever?

Disturbance in the Wake


S.A. Ison - 2020
    Ten-year-old Hiroki Tanaka grew up in a fishing village on an island just off the coast of Honshu, Japan. While he helps his father fishing, a large earthquake hits his island. Hiroki falls from the boat as the waters become choppy and he is pulled under water. He is desperate to get back to his father. When he surfaces, his father and the boat are gone. When Hiroki swims to shore, he realizes that he has been swept back in time to an era of violence and the samurai. Amy Ohara is celebrating her twenty-first birthday by going on a cruise, off the coast of Honshu, Japan. She had grown up in Tokyo and is well acquainted with Japan's rich traditions and ancient history. Betrayed by the man she had been dating, Amy is now awaiting transport as human cargo. As her life swings in the balance, Amy has a choice, dive into the black waters and perhaps drown or be taken by the human traffickers. When the yacht blows up, Amy feel lucky to be alive and swims for shore. Yet she has arrived at the shore of distant past. Amy has been washed back in time nearly 700 years, 300 years before Europeans stepped foot in Asia. With her red hair and green eyes, she stands out.

The Retreat: A Romantic Suspense (Triquetra Series Book 3)


L.C. Kincaide - 2019
     Casey Barrow and a group of co-workers were looking forward to a few days of rest and camaraderie at a Catskill Mountains retreat away from their demanding careers. Reunited with a man she turned down years ago when working in Chicago, she hopes to make up for lost time during this getaway. However, rather than unwinding, the group becomes stranded in the dreary mountain mansion. By morning, four people have disappeared without a trace. Someone carrying a grudge has lured them there and cut off every means of escape. Running out of time, the captives face a new danger at every turn to liberate themselves. With the men injured from their efforts, Casey realizes it is up to her to find help before the killer returns to finish the rest of them off one by one. ** If you haven't read the first two books in the series and plan to, be warned of Major Spoilers in the Epilogue.**