Of opulent mansions that serve as summer cottages for the rich and famous. Home of railroad magnates and banking tycoons--dashing young men and the women who aspire to marry them.But it's not the place for lady novelists. Especially not those who pen disreputable dime novels. This poses a problem for Lilly Westbrook, because that's exactly what she does.No one in Lilly's social set knows she pens fiction under the nom de plume Fannie Cole. Not her family or the wealthy young man about to propose to her. And especially not Jackson Grail, the long-lost beau who just bought her publishing company...and who stirs her heart more than she cares to admit.But Lilly must put aside her feelings and follow the path that will maintain her family's social stature and provide the financial security that everyone is depending on.Now Lilly faces a double dilemma. Can she continue to protect her secret identity? And will she have the courage to choose the man who will risk it all just to win her heart?

     It is the year of Our Lord 1307, and by papal decree, Templar Knight Arucard of Villiers is a hunted man. One of a handful of mariners to escape the Inquisition and Philip the Fair’s treachery, Arucard sets sail for England, where good King Edward II has outlawed torture. While the Crown is more than happy to offer exile and create a new Order to accommodate the famed warriors of the Crusades, such assistance comes with a price. But is the cost one Arucard is willing to pay? The world in which Isolde de Tyreswelle exists defines her as chattel. Nothing more than a means to an end, she is a puppet in her unscrupulous father’s dastardly play and is thrown into the courtly arena. To further her family’s political aspirations, she is betrothed to a man she has never met and, with her husband, must fight to survive the intrigues and betrayals of her new life. With good reason, she fears men. Can Isolde learn to trust Arucard before they are destroyed by their enemies?

    Julia strikes out on her own to gain independence, traveling to the Midwest to marry an aging shopkeeper and care for his mother. Julia finds her new home rough and uncivilized after the sophistication of a big city, while closely held secrets threaten to ruin Julia’s one chance at love. Jake Shelling was sixteen and grew up quick when his parents died from influenza on the South Dakota prairie. Left with a half-cleared farm and two young sisters, he spent little time on his own needs . .till now. At thirty-five, he figured it was high time to have some sons and a mail order bride would suit him just fine. No expectations of love, just a helpmate from sturdy stock, ready for farm life. Will fate and chance play a trick on Julia and Jake?

    He's all too familiar with her kind--shallow women more devoted to fashion than true beauty. Yet, except for her well-tailored clothing, this seamstress is not at all what he expected. Hannah Richards is confounded by the man who runs the livery. The unsmiling fellow riles her with his arrogant assumptions and gruff manner while at the same time stirring her heart with unexpected acts of kindness. Which side of Jericho Tucker reflects the real man? When Hannah decides to help Jericho's sister catch a beau--leading to uproarious consequences for the whole town--will Jericho and Hannah find a way to bridge the gap between them?

    They seek a new life together, but society, her family, and nature itself, wage war against them. Their forbidden love is a sure formula for disaster.

    She's a widow who needs protection. A marriage of convenience is the means of keeping her safe in a town populated by gold miners, dance hall girls, and scurrilous men, until her gold mine is producing and she can return east. But soon after Jenny MacDonald marries Jason Colby, she finds herself falling in love with a man whose dark past is quickly catching up with him, the very man who might have killed her husband.

     As Cricket lay in the soft comfort of her bed, continuing to let her mind nest on thoughts of how truly wonderfully attractive Texas Ranger Thibodaux was, she giggled, thinking that looking at him was more refreshing than swimming naked on a summer Sunday afternoon. He was a tall drink of water—far taller than most of the other men in town—and his shoulders were as broad as the state of Texas itself. Sky-blue eyes, bronze skin, square jaw, and dark hair—and that smile! In truth, Cricket had only seen Heathro Thibodaux smile three or four times, but each incidence was something she’d never forget. His smile was bright and white, and the gold tooth he owned on the upper-right incisor of his smile only embellished the richness of it. That one tooth. Cricket’s smile faded as she thought of it. Oh, no doubt the flash only added to the splendor of his smile. Yet it also served as a reminder to anyone who had ever read or heard of what had happened in Texas one year before. No doubt it was a powerful remembrance to Heathro Thibodaux himself—a visual indication of true barbarity, pain, and loss. In that moment, Cricket wondered—when Heathro looked in the mirror each morning and saw that tooth, did he think of eight dead girls buried in the bottom of a bleak and barren canyon? Did he think of the eight dead girls that he, for no fault of his own, had been unable to save?

    But when he spies the marks on her back and hears about her stepfather’s advances, Clayton knows he must spirit Vanessa away to safety. As they make their way west, it becomes apparent that there’s something special between Vanessa and Clayton— far more significant than mere friendship or his sense of duty. Unfortunately, also heading west are Vanessa’s brother Miles and her stepfather Price Venture. Price wants Vanessa back for obvious reasons; Miles wants to earn his stepfather’s respect. Eventually, unexpected confrontations reach a harrowing conclusion. As their family begins to heal, their journey and trials they've faced helps them realize their future is in God's guiding hands.Same author as Shelley Shepard Gray.

    As she secretly tends to the stranger's injury, Kaylee feels a powerful attraction to this handsome, mysterious man --- one that opens her eyes to an entirely new destiny ...A FORBIDDEN DESIREAlone and weakened in the land of his enemy, Blue Hawk is determined to return to his village. Every moment he stays with Kaylee, the risk of discovery grows --- but so does his desire for his lovely rescuer. She is his only hope of getting back to his people alive, and when she offers to come with him, he can't refuse ...A DIVIDED LANDKaylee and Blue Hawk's shared passion soon sparks into an all-consuming love. But in a land divided by hatred and fear, it will take all of their courage to protect the future they cherish ...

    When she met travelling gambler Cole Wallace, she thought her fantasies had come true. But Cole's daydreams didn't include Eliza Beaudry. He was a man used to taking what he wanted, so he took what Eliza offered—and neither of them thought about what might happen later.Penniless and pregnant, Eliza found a savior in Cole's shy brother, Aaron, who fell for her instantly. He surely wasn't the man of her dreams, but could her dreams change?

    In the process of saving the daughter of an immigrant from raiding Blackfoot Indians, Josiah decides to take the white woman as his wife. Hardened by the wilderness and his own past, the trapper wrestles against change and the gentle ways of a woman who threatens to tame his heart.Through circumstances beyond her control, Emma Perkins suddenly finds herself the wife of a wild and leathery mountain man. His rough and tumble temperament go against her upbringing, and Emma struggles to keep her faith and survive in a land where the animals, and the people, are mountain wild.This historical romance can be found at the author's website as a free read. All scripture references are from the KJV (King James Version).Word count: 235,534*** Includes a bonus "Behind the Scenes" look at each chapter ***About the AuthorJudith Bronte has been writing inspirational romance since 1998. Her novels can be found at her website, where she publishes a newly written chapter for her online work in progress on the 15th of every month. With over a million words of free romantic fiction on the Internet, she's read monthly by thousands of returning readers.Love stories have long been Judith's passion. She loves to capture the dynamics of a romantic relationship, and the challenge of bringing two people together from different backgrounds and finding a way to make that relationship work. Her style often follows the characters even after they marry, so readers get to see how their relationship works after the I-do's. There's always lots of dialogue, as Judith loves to bring the drama home to the reader, through the characters, themselves.

    But after the war, he returned to the rambling Whitehall cattle ranch a changed man, the promise of lasting love replaced by a cold, hard distance. And Lacy yearned to reignite the unquenched passion they'd once shared.Unwittingly compromised into marriage, Cole refused to let Lacy get too close—but still, she longed to learn the secrets the handsome Texan harbored in his heart. Tormented, she wouldn't let him shoulder the burden alone, and soon the pursuit of an endless love burned bright enough to set their world ablaze….

    That is until a single slap to a man’s face starts a barroom brawl that lands her in the last place she expected to be.Town Marshal Morgan Avery wants nothing more than to wash away the trail-dust and sleep for a week, preferably with a soft, willing woman by his side. Instead, he gets Abigail Thornton – all one hundred pounds of her thrust at him seconds before a fist connects with his face. Breaking up the fight takes more effort than he wants to admit and when the last man falls he finds Abigail still standing and not looking the least bit contrite.Throwing her into the town jail for the night would salve his wounded pride and then he will let her go. Or that was the plan. When morning comes he finds himself oddly reluctant to do so. Miss Thornton is hiding something and he aims to find out what, even if he has to bed her to do so. But will one night in her bed be enough?

    A Duke of the Holy Roman Empire, his cunning overshadowed only by his ambition. A young Priestess of the Old Religion, together with a charismatic outlaw, sparking a rebellion from deep within the forests... and an ex-Hospitaller caught between them all.At the end of the thirteenth century, five hundred orphans and second sons are rounded up from villages in the Alpine countryside and sold to the Hospitaller Knights of St John. Trained to serve as Soldiers of Christ, they fight in eastern lands they know nothing about, for a cause they do not understand.Thomas Schwyzer, released from his vows by the Grandmaster of the Hospitallers, returns to the land of his birth a stranger. Once a leader of men, and captain of the Order's most famous war galley, he now settles into the simple life of a ferryman. He believes this new role to be God's reward for years of faithful service fighting the Infidel in Outremer.Seraina, considered a witch by most, a healer by some, is a young woman with a purpose. A Priestess of the Old Religion, and the last Druid disciple of the Helvetii Celts, she has been gifted by the Great Weave to see what others cannot. Her people need her guidance and protection now more than ever. For Duke Leopold of Habsburg, in his efforts to control the St. Gotthard Pass, builds a great Austrian fortress in Altdorf. Once finished, the Habsburg occupation will be complete, but the atrocities visited upon her people will have just begun.

    Now, at nineteen, she’s finally returning home to North Texas after spending the remainder of her childhood with a tribe of Kwahadi Comanche. What she finds is a deserted home coated with dust and the passage of time, the chilling discovery of her own gravesite, and the presence of a man she thought never to see again.Matt Ryan is pushed by a restless wind to the broken-down remains of the Hart ranch. Recently recovered from an imprisonment that nearly ended his life, the drive for truth and fairness has all but abandoned him. For ten years he faithfully served the U.S. Army and the Texas Rangers, seeking justice for the brutal murder of a little girl, only to find closure and healing beyond his grasp. Returning to the place where it all began, he’s stunned to encounter a woman with the same blue eyes as the child he can’t put out of his mind.A sensuous historical western romance set in 1877 Texas.2003 CAPA WINNER The Romance Studio ~ Best New Author Traditional2004 Holt Medallion FINALIST ~ Best First Book2004 Texas Gold FINALIST ~ Historical Category“…McCaffrey’s mastery of setting and historic details gives this western gritty realism.” ~ RT Book Reviews“…a heart wrenchingly emotional story…” ~ Coffeetime Romance“The main characters were well matched and the secondary characters were just as good. Don’t miss this incredible read in what is sure to be a great series to follow.” ~ The Romance Studio“Handsome, rugged heroes, strong heroines and a super storyline make The Wren a keeper.” ~ The Best Reviews“…well written…captivated me from the first line to the poignant last.” ~ NovelspotDon’t miss all the books in the series~The Wren: Book 1The Dove: Book 2The Sparrow: Book 3The Blackbird: Book 4The Shiny Penny: Short Story 4.1 (available free exclusively to Kristy’s newsletter subscribers)Song Of The Wren: Novella 4.2 (available free exclusively to Kristy’s newsletter subscribers)The Bluebird: Book 5Echo of the Plains: Novella 5.5