Book picks similar to
Love Is Never Past Tense... by Janna Yeshanova


romance
russia
historical-fiction
historical-romance

The Tiger's Wife


Téa Obreht - 2011
    By the time she and her lifelong friend Zóra begin to inoculate the children there, she feels age-old superstitions and secrets gathering everywhere around her. Secrets her outwardly cheerful hosts have chosen not to tell her. Secrets involving the strange family digging for something in the surrounding vineyards. Secrets hidden in the landscape itself.But Natalia is also confronting a private, hurtful mystery of her own: the inexplicable circumstances surrounding her beloved grandfather’s recent death. After telling her grandmother that he was on his way to meet Natalia, he instead set off for a ramshackle settlement none of their family had ever heard of and died there alone. A famed physician, her grandfather must have known that he was too ill to travel. Why he left home becomes a riddle Natalia is compelled to unravel. Grief struck and searching for clues to her grandfather’s final state of mind, she turns to the stories he told her when she was a child. On their weeklytrips to the zoo he would read to her from a worn copy of Rudyard Kipling’s The Jungle Book, which he carried with him everywhere; later, he told her stories of his own encounters over many years with “the deathless man,” a vagabond who claimed to be immortal and appeared never to age. But the most extraordinary story of all is the one her grandfather never told her, the one Natalia must discover for herself. One winter during the Second World War, his childhood village was snowbound, cut off even from the encroaching German invaders but haunted by another, fierce presence: a tiger who comes ever closer under cover of darkness. “These stories,” Natalia comes to understand, “run like secret rivers through all the other stories” of her grandfather’s life. And it is ultimately within these rich, luminous narratives that she will find the answer she is looking for.

Dirty Thoughts


Megan Erickson - 2015
    Cal Payton has gruff and grumbly down to an art...all the better for keeping people away. And it usually works. Until Jenna MacMillan-his biggest mistake---walks into Payton and Sons mechanic shop all grown up, looking like sunshine, and inspiring more than a few dirty thoughts. Jenna was sure she was long over the boy she'd once loved with reckless abandon, but one look at the steel-eyed Cal Payton has her falling apart all over again. Ten years may have passed, but the pull is stronger than ever... and this Cal is all man. Cal may have no intention of letting Jenna in, but she's always been his light, and it's getting harder to stay all alone in the dark. When a surprise from the past changes everything, Cal and Jenna must decide if their connection should be left alone or if it's exactly what they need for the future of their dreams.

The Taste of Ginger


Mansi Shah - 2021
    All she did was fall in love with a white Christian carnivore instead of a conventional Indian boy. Years later, with her parents not speaking to her and her controversial relationship in tatters, all Preeti has left is her career at a prestigious Los Angeles law firm.But when Preeti receives word of a terrible accident in the city where she was born, she returns to India, where she’ll have to face her estranged parents…and the complicated past they left behind. Surrounded by the sights and sounds of her heritage, Preeti catches a startling glimpse of her family’s battles with class, tradition, and sacrifice. Torn between two beautifully flawed cultures, Preeti must now untangle what home truly means to her.

Sweetness in the Belly


Camilla Gibb - 2005
    After her hippie British parents are murdered, Lilly is raised at a Sufi shrine in Morocco. As a young woman she goes on pilgrimage to Harar, Ethiopia, where she teaches Qur'an to children and falls in love with an idealistic doctor. But even swathed in a traditional headscarf, Lilly can't escape being marked as a foreigner. Forced to flee Ethiopia for England, she must once again confront the riddle of who she is and where she belongs.

Kissed by Magic


Erica Ridley - 2013
    He risks an ancient curse to retrieve treasure hidden within icebound Castle Cavanaugh, only to become trapped inside. Not with the gold he so desperately needs, but with medieval Princess Marigold who's been cooling her heels since...well, medieval times. The lonely princess refuses to acknowledge the blossoming attraction between them. Not just because she deserves a better future than a penniless rogue. But because at midnight, he'll vanish like all her other would-be heroes. And the evergreen in the parlor will have one more figurine hanging from its boughs... A previous edition was published as Let It Snow.

Tell Me You're Mine


J.S. Scott - 2020
    S. Scott's new British Billionaires series....I am the type of woman who always plays it safe. In my professional life as a public relations "fixer", and in my personal life, especially when it comes to the opposite sex. Really, who needs the wild highs and the I-want-to-die-because-he-left-me lows of a relationship? At least, that's what I thought...until I met him. Damian No-Last-Name-Given is sexy as sin, and I'd developed some kind of weird, instant attraction to him the moment he settled his chiseled body next to mine on a flight from London to Los Angeles. His sexy British accent did crazy things to my previously dormant female hormones, which had eventually led me to do the most impulsive thing I'd ever done in my entire life. I kissed him while everyone else in business class was sleeping. Or had he kissed me? All I knew was that we were both very willing participants, and that panty-melting embrace had rocked my entire world while it was happening. Unfortunately, that moment of spontaneity would haunt me once I found out Mr. British Hottie's true identity. He'd held his last name back for a reason. Oh no, I couldn't make some once-in-a-lifetime misstep with an ordinary businessman. When I screwed up, it had to be one for the record books, and it had to happen with one of the most powerful men in the world. And, oh yeah, he also absolutely had to be the biggest man-whore on the planet. Once I knew the truth, I could have easily convinced myself that the kiss wasn't all that earthshattering - if Damian Lancaster hadn't boldly swaggered into my office the very next day to apologize, and to make me a business offer I couldn’t possibly refuse.... Goodbye sanity; hello madness.

The Paris Secret


Karen Swan - 2016
    As an expert in her field, she must trace the history of each painting and discover who has concealed them for so long.Thrown in amongst the glamorous Vermeil family as they move between Paris and Antibes, Flora begins to discover that things aren't all that they seem, while back at home her own family is recoiling from a seismic shock. The terse and brooding Xavier Vermeil seems intent on forcing Flora out of his family's affairs - but just what is he hiding?

Rough Gentleman


Maggie Carpenter - 2019
    But when his guest attempts to steal from him, Malcolm does not hesitate to bare her bottom and chastise her sternly and shamefully.As he seeks to tame the wayward girl he has taken in, Malcolm cannot help noticing her body's helpless response to his strict correction, and soon she is quivering with need as he shows her how intensely pleasurable it can be to surrender herself completely to his bold, skillful dominance. But his reluctant ward has a secret, one that could put both their lives at great risk...Publisher's Note: Rough Gentleman includes sexual scenes and spankings. If such material offends you, please don't buy this book.

The Russia House


John le Carré - 1989
    Navigating readers through the shadow worlds of international espionage with critical knowledge culled from his years in British Intelligence, le Carré tracks the dark and devastating trail of a document that could profoundly alter the course of world events. In Moscow, a sheaf of military secrets changes hands. If it arrives at its destination, and if its import is understood, the consequences could be cataclysmic. Along the way it has an explosive impact on the lives of three people: a Soviet physicist burdened with secrets; a beautiful young Russian woman to whom the papers are entrusted; and Barley Blair, a bewildered English publisher pressed into service by British Intelligence to ferret out the document's source. A magnificent story of love, betrayal, and courage, The Russia House catches history in the act. For as the Iron Curtain begins to rust and crumble, Blair is left to sound a battle cry that may fall on deaf ears.

The Villa in Italy


Elizabeth Edmondson - 2006
    Delia, an opera singer robbed of her voice by illness; George, an idealistic scientist who cannot face what his skills have created; Marjorie, desperately poor and unable to dislodge her writer’s block; and Lucius, ostensibly in control but whose personal life is in chaos. All are summoned to the Villa Dante, home of the late Beatrice Malaspina. But who was she?While they wait to find out, the villa begins to work its seductive magic. With its faded frescoes, overgrown garden and magnificent mediaeval tower, it is unlike anywhere they have been before. Slowly, four characters who have gone to great lengths to hide their troubles find that change – and even hope – is possible after all. But the mysterious Beatrice has a devastating secret to reveal that will affect them all…A beautiful evocation of Italy in the aftermath of World War Two, the personal consequences of living through such a time, and a celebration of humankind’s ability to heal and learn to love again, this most absorbing novel will win Elizabeth Edmondson a host of new fans.

The Fourth Sunrise


H.T. Night - 2012
    The Fourth Sunrise is such a book. It is a celebration of how love transcends time, a story that makes us believe in true love all over again.When the team bus breaks down in Delta, Colorado, minor league baseball player Joel Murphy sets eyes for the first time on Christine, a waitress. Instantly smitten, he will spend the rest of the night getting to know her...and falling helplessly in love. In fact, he's certain she's the one. But when morning comes, Joel must leave quicker than planned and, tragically, never gets to say goodbye. And when he returns after a grueling season on the road, he discovers that Christine has moved on...and has married someone else.That was thirty years ago...Now in the present day, as Joel Murphy waits at a coffee shop in Delta to meet Christine for the fourth time in his life, and an intriguing young woman joins him to wait for her date, too. As the hour grows late, Joel begins to tell his new friend about Christine, who he has seen only three times over a period of decades. There is one important secret that he has kept from Christine, one that could tear them apart forever. As the hour grows even later, Joel's heart needs a voice and he begins to spill all the secrets of his enduring and lifelong love for Christine.

Montana Dawn


Caroline Fyffe - 2010
    Instead, he stays and delivers a beautiful baby girl. Unable to leave the pretty young widow and her little son and newborn unprotected in the Montana wilderness, he brings them along on his family’s cattle drive, to the absolute delight of the other friendly cowboys. Luke, third son of Montana’s wealthy McCutcheon family, is different from his brothers. As the offspring of a Cheyenne warrior, he carries a chip on his shoulder for all to see. His flashing eyes and handsome face make Faith feel she’s stepped into some long-ago tale where men cherish their women--and keep them safe. If only she could trust him! Faith is on the run, and although she’s pampered and protected by Luke and his family, she just can’t risk the consequences of sharing the details of her past--one that’s hunting to take her back to the nightmare she’s just escaped. Happy-ever-afters are for fairytales, she reminds herself sternly as her heart feels the warm pull of his. Still, she can’t help but dream of a loving family, a home to call her own, a beautiful and bright…Montana Dawn

The Surviving Trace


Calia Read - 2018
    The shy man I met years ago in college. The person I’m supposed to spend the rest of my life with. This is the life I’ve always wanted until finding a picture of four men changes everything…Etienne says he’s my husband and the year is 1912. He can’t stand the sight of me, but I don’t know why. Oh, and he’s one of the men from the picture. I’ve done the impossible and have become trapped in time and I know Etienne is my key to going home.The more time I spend with Etienne, the further I fall for him, until I’m questioning which time I belong in and if the life I left behind is the one I truly desire. All I know for certain is I need to survive time. I need to survive love. And I need to make it out on the other side alive.Contemporary Romance/Time Travel

9 Letters


Blake Austin - 2016
    After his wife's tragic death, he lost everything that mattered in the world. Now, his life is filled with hard days, harder nights, and a steady stream of alcohol and the wrong kind of women. Nothing helps.Until the letters arrive on Luke's doorstep.Nine envelopes. Nine messages. Nine chances to find his way back.Rae Goode is looking for the real thing. After fighting her way out of a string of bad relationships, she's ready for something different--something true.She meets Luke while piecing her life together, and right away she can tell that he's different. Drawn together by fate and the desire to heal, Rae and Luke discover new ways to mend their broken hearts--one letter at a time. Discover Blake Austin's debut novel of loss, redemption, and ever-enduring love.

The Marquess of Cakes


Heather Hiestand - 2013
    Yet she is unaware that with each morsel—and flash of ankle—she is seducing the handsome marquess frequenting her father’s tea shop. Unmarried at twenty-six, Alys’s first love is the family business. But thoughts of the gentleman’s touch are driving her to distraction…With his weakness for sugar, the Marquess of Hatbrook can imagine no more desirable woman than one scented with cake and spice. Mistaking Alys for a mere waitress, he has no doubt she would make a most delicious mistress. And when he finds himself in need of an heir, he plans to make her his convenient bride. Yet as they satisfy their craving for one another, business and pleasure suddenly collide. Will Hatbrook’s passion for sweets—and for Alys—be his heart’s undoing?85,000 words