More comfortable in breeches than ball gowns, Anne sees the freedoms she once enjoyed slowly taken from her in the name of fashioning her into an eligible young lady. When her parents try to force her into marriage, Anne makes a desperate attempt to salvage her last vestige of independence. If she is to marry, she will do so on her own terms.Anne strikes a deal: if she cannot secure a man for herself, she will agree to marry the husband her parents approved. She soon finds herself in the last place she would ever choose—that stifling parade of etiquette, the London Season. Anne’s plan is in motion. Now all she needs is a man willing to masquerade as her fiancé.

    . . but what comes after?Darbury, England, 1814Amelia Barrett, heiress to an ancestral estate nestled in the English moors, defies family expectations and promises to raise her dying friend’s infant baby. She'll risk everything to keep her word—even to the point of proposing to the child’s father, Graham, a sea captain she’s never met.Tragedy strikes when the child vanishes with little more than a sketchy ransom note hinting to her whereabouts. Fear for the child’s safety drives Amelia and Graham to test the boundaries of their love for this infant.Amelia’s detailed plans would normally see her through any trial, but now, desperate and shaken, she examines her soul and must face her one weakness: pride.Graham’s strength and self-control have served him well and earned him much respect, but chasing perfection has kept him a prisoner of his own discipline.Both must learn to accept God’s sovereignty and relinquish control so they can grasp the future He has for planned for them.

    So when Lady Kellen offers to help her find an eligible suitor, Louisa eagerly accepts and makes a list of what she wants in a husband. The man selected is barrister Paul Sheldon. He may be a complete stranger, but he has one thing in his favor: he is unaware of her fortune. What Louisa did not anticipate was his curious behavior—or being so attracted to him.When Paul catches wind of the matchmaking organization his mother and her friends are establishing, he pities the fellow who will be caught in their scheme—until he realizes he is to be their first victim. Horrified, Paul determines to thwart his mother’s plans by whatever means necessary. After meeting his intended, however, his increasing desire to be near her threatens to disrupt his convictions. Louisa is everything he could want in a wife, and when an unexpected adventure sets in motion the very plan he had determined to halt, he almost wishes his mother’s plot could succeed. But Paul harbors a secret and a past that make it impossible for him to give Louisa the life she deserves.

    To keep her vow, she attends a notorious matchmaking party intent on securing the perfect marital match: a union of convenience to someone who could never affect her heart. She discovers a man who exceeds all her hopes in the handsome and obliging rake Mr. Northam.There’s only one problem. His meddling cousin, Lord Williams, won’t leave Margaret alone. Condescending and high-handed, Lord Williams lectures and insults her. When she refuses to give heed to his counsel, he single-handedly ruins Margaret’s chances for making a good match—to his cousin or anyone else. With no reason to remain at the party, Margaret returns home to discover her father has promised her hand in marriage—to Lord Williams.Under no condition will Margaret consent to marrying such an odious man. Yet as Lord Williams inserts himself into her everyday life, interrupting her family games and following her on morning walks, winning the good opinion of her siblings and proving himself intelligent and even kind, Margaret is forced to realize that Lord Williams is exactly the type of man she’d hoped to marry before she’d learned how much love hurt. When paths diverge and her time with Lord Williams ends, Margaret is faced with her ultimate choice: keep the promises that protect her or break free of them for one more chance at love. Either way, she fears her heart will lose.

    Meet Me under the Kissing Boughby Josi S. KilpackDeborah Winfrey hasn’t had the heart to host a holiday party since her husband’s death. But this Christmas, it’s time to move forward. The festivities bring renewed life to her home, and the attentions of two very different men promise a chance at new love.Healing Hearts for the Holidaysby Anneka R. WalkerJulia Hunt is strictly forbidden from associating with the family in the nearby manor—including the handsome younger son, Esmond, who quickly steals her heart. With Christmas around the corner, an old bundle of hidden love letters may be the key to her own happily ever after. A Christmas Correspondenceby Sarah L. McConkieIn this novella inspired by the timeless tale, A Christmas Carol, John Charleston finds himself on an unexpected journey in the company of the insufferable Lady Caroline Morleigh. But the magic of the season has a way of softening even the hardest of hearts.

    Its coaching inn, The Bell, is its lifeblood--along with the coach lines that stop there daily, bringing news, mail, travelers, and much-needed trade.Jane Bell lives on the edge of the inn property. She had been a genteel lady until she married the charming innkeeper who promised she would never have to work in his family's inn. But when he dies under mysterious circumstances, Jane finds herself The Bell's owner, and worse, she has three months to pay a large loan or lose the place.Feeling reluctant and ill-equipped, Jane is tempted to abandon her husband's legacy and return to her former life of ease. However, she soon realizes there is more at stake than her comfort. But who can she trust to help her? Her resentful mother-in-law? Her husband's brother, who wanted the inn for himself? Or the handsome newcomer with secret plans of his own . . . ?With pressure mounting from the bank, Jane struggles to win over naysayers and turn the place around. Can Jane bring new life to the inn, and to her heart as well?

    His mother prefers entertaining men in her bedroom, while her husband sits downstairs, unable or unwilling to respond to his wife’s inappropriate behaviour. From that day on Tom vows that no woman will hurt him the way his mother hurt his father. For the next seventeen years Tom works hard to become one of the most notorious rakes London society has ever seen, successfully keeping all the women of his acquaintance at a distance. In 1810 twenty-four year old Isabelle Crawford had been brought up hearing stories of how much in love her dead parents were and had expected to find similar happiness when she came out in society. Reality was different to what she had imagined though, instead of love, she found fortune hunters and as a result left London to set up home in Bath. Her two elder brothers had supported her decision, although they would have rather seen their sister married instead of choosing what was seen by the ton as an eccentric decision, a young woman living a single life in Bath with a cousin as chaperone. A potential marriage between Tom's sister and Isabelle’s brother throws the couple together and sets in motion a chain of events that will see Tom fighting for his life and Isabelle being kidnapped by the very man that Tom had found in his mother’s bedchamber all those years ago.

    So when he asks her to marry a rival laird to aid the clans in finding peace, she has little choice but to agree to his request. The only problem: she’s desperately in love with another man. To free herself from the burden of unrequited love before entering into a marriage of convenience, Isobel devises a plan to journey to the healing well that has helped so many others, certain that if she can drink from its spring, she will be healed from her lovesickness for Kieran and prepared to marry the rival laird. But her chief will never willingly let her go, so she must sneak out in the dead of night and cross through dangerous lands alone. After watching a rival clan kill his father in an ambush, Kieran Buchanan’s only ambition in life is to see them pay for what they did. Biding his time until he can accomplish his goal, Kieran dedicates his life to helping his uncle’s clan train and defend themselves. He’s sworn fealty to his uncle, so when the man asks him to track down Isobel and bring her home, he complies. With the man she loves close on her tail, Isobel must hurry to the spring if she has any hope of callusing her heart against him. But what can she do when he catches up to her on enemy territory?

    To prevent scandal - and protect Lady Amelia Jacoby from her parents' ire - he must propose. John's ability to trust vanished when his former love married his twin brother. Yet he offers Amelia everything she could want - except affection. Amelia sees John's true nature shine through when he cares for his horses. But the brooding aristocrat seems determined to keep her at arm's length. Little by little Amelia will turn Hollyoak Farm into a home, but can she turn a marriage of convenience into a joyful union? The Master Matchmakers: Wedding bells will ring when downstairs servants play Cupid for upstairs aristocracy

    Stranded on the road with an unconscious young woman, he is forced to propose marriage to protect his identity, as well as his dangerous mission.Trapped by not only the duty to her country but her limited options, Miss Elizabeth Cantrell and her illegitimate son are whisked away to Middlecrest Abbey by none other than the elder brother of her son’s absent father. She is met by Torrington’s beautiful grown daughters, a vicious murderer, and an urgent hunt for the missing intelligence that could turn the war with France. Afraid of what Lord Torrington might do if he learns of her son’s true identity, Elizabeth must remain one step ahead of her fragile heart, her uncertain future, and the relentless mystery person bent on her new family’s ruin.

    Ben Fortescue. If her new neighbor hadn’t startled her, she would never have broken her ankle, leaving her bored and frustrated at home in the country while her sister enjoys the London Season alone. Although, it was rather gallant of him to carry her home.For his part, Ben feels terrible about the role he played in Miss Rebecca Jennings’s accident. In the days that follow their first disastrous meeting, he finds himself inexorably drawn to the surprising young woman—first out of guilt and then out of a stirring affection. But Ben hides a secret: he has not been completely forthright about his identity or about the dark secrets of his past that would make it impossible for romance to blossom with Miss Jennings. Despite his love for her, he knows he must let her go. With her ankle finally healed but her heart now broken, Rebecca is left with little choice but to throw herself into the Season. With eligible men circling this late addition to the Marriage Mart, it seems that Rebecca will have no shortage of suitors. If only her heart were free to give.

    But by night, she writes very different kinds of stories—the Penny Dreadfuls that are all the rage among the working-class men. Under the pseudonym Mr. King, Elizabeth has written about dashing heroes fighting supernatural threats and dangerous outlaws romancing helpless women. They contain all the adventure and mystery that her real life lacks.   Fletcher Walker began life as a street urchin, but is now the most successful author in the Penny Dreadful market, that is until Mr. King started taking all of his readers--and his profits. No one knows who King is, including Fletcher’s fellow members of the Dread Penny Society, a fraternity of authors dedicated to secretly fighting for the rights of the less-fortunate.   Determined to find the elusive Mr. King, Fletcher approaches Miss Black. As a fellow-author, she is well-known among the high-class writers; perhaps she could be persuaded to make some inquiries as to Mr. King’s whereabouts? Elizabeth agrees to help Fletcher, if only to insure her secret identity is never discovered.    For the first time, Elizabeth experiences the thrill of a cat-and-mouse adventure reminiscent of one of her own novels as she tries to throw Fletcher off her scent. But the more time they spend together, the more she loses her heart. Its upper-class against working-class, author against author where readers, reputations, and romance are all on the line.

    And though taken in as an orphaned child by the vicar and his wife, her unsurpassed beauty makes it impossible for her to remain in the vicar’s household—with two daughters of their own about to enter Society, the vicar and his wife see Grace as nothing but competition. Thankfully, Grace’s estranged Aunt Bell has agreed to take her in to her home in London. But Grace soon learns her situation has just gotten much worse.It takes only a moment’s acquaintance for Grace to ascertain that her aunt has married a detestable rake. And Aunt Bell, recognizing the danger of having her lovely niece too near her husband, gives Grace an ultimatum: the young woman has two weeks to find a man to marry, after which she will be turned out. With no experience in the art of attracting a husband, Grace quickly realizes that a worthy suitor might not be so easy to ensnare.

    Guilt-ridden, Rupert buries his regret by helping the London detectives of Bow Street take down criminals. But when Rupert ferrets out a ring of smugglers and is marked for death, the prince regent banishes him to a remote corner of England to live among the locals and be known only by his title of captain. Thus, Rupert will remain safe until the villains are arrested and brought to court, where he will offer testimony critical to their conviction. On the first day of Rupert s exile to the wilds of Devon, he meets Alexandra Dancy, a beautiful country miss whose complex character and extraordinary courage stir in him a degree of affection and admiration he has not yet felt for any lady. As fate or Providence would have it, Alexandra and her family, whose property backs his on the other side of a canal, have been hired to provide Rupert s meals and to care for his house and stables. When Rupert s friendship and warm attentions awaken Alexandra s heart, she suffers the torment of loving a man she believes is of a higher social class than he pretends, and therefore beyond her reach. The impoverished Dancys hide their own aristocratic origins to protect a dark secret known to only one man Cecil Bedford, a blackguard of the first order, who wields a cruel power over Alexandra and her family. Can Rupert save her from Bedford s clutches and topple the seemingly insurmountable barriers to winning her love and her hand?

    Despite her beauty, her sharp tongue soon earns her a reputation as a dragon. Convincing her parents to let her retreat to their Scottish estate, a home for abandoned young women, Margaux feels she can do something meaningful with her life. At their wits' end, her parents believe a few months in seclusion will teach her to appreciate her privileged existence, and accept the next gentleman of worth who offers for her. Margaux has no plans to yield. But neither she nor her parents bargain for the proximity of the gorgeous, blue-eyed Scotsman on the neighbouring estate. Gavin Craig, content with his life as a country doctor, is unexpectedly thrust into the world of aristocratic society after the accidental deaths of his brother and nephews. With all the duties his new title entails, and his adoption of three orphans, Gavin desperately needs a wife. She should preferably be a lady, trained since birth to manage a noble house, servants and family. His former disdain for a marriage of convenience has been rapidly overcome by the colossal task of learning to run a large Scottish barony. One lovely candidate is right next door … except that she's inexplicably determined to be a spinster…