Morris’s house twice a week, soaking up every moment with the reclusive ex-soldier she secretly loves. Blake Morris knows he’s scarred both inside and out and is no good for the beautiful young woman who cleans his house to pay for college. But when Erin walks in on Blake touching himself and moaning her name, all bets are off.

    On his eighteenth birthday, the old crone returns to find the same ignorant boy in the body of a beautiful young man. In a night shrouded in mystery, his parents King Alaric and Queen Adele died and Leopold himself disappeared. For years, villagers are frozen in fear of a mysterious and terrifying creature that haunts the town at night.Armand Babineaux, once the wealthiest merchant in the village of Fontainbleu, must secure his daughter Jolie to the unpleasant but enormously wealthy Quentin Garamonde, or condemn her to a life of servitude and poverty. His eldest daughter, Mireille, has already married well, but Jolie will be left all alone in the world if he does nothing to safeguard her future. Once the task is done, he must travel to Port Lucerne to recover his last ship or face the same fate in his old age. On his return trip, he is caught in a winter storm and finds himself far from the beaten path, at the foot of Villeneuve Castle.Armand seeks shelter in the castle, and once inside, he is forced to confront the reality of what happened to the royal family so many years ago. The next morning, when he picks a beautiful rose for Jolie, he is brought face to face with the creature of local legend and must make a decision that will change all of their lives forever.

    And it is true; the center of the Beast's palace, the glittering glasshouse that brings Beauty both comfort and delight in her strange new environment, is filled with leafless brown rosebushes. But deep within this enchanted world, new life, at once subtle and strong, is about to awaken.Twenty years ago, Robin McKinley dazzled readers with the power of her novel Beauty. Now this extraordinarily gifted novelist returns to the story of Beauty and the Beast with a fresh perspective, ingenuity, and mature insight. With Rose Daughter, she presents her finest and most deeply felt work--a compelling, richly imagined, and haunting exploration of the transformative power of love.

    He hides in Silverstone Manor, using rumors that paint him as a horrible, murdering monster to keep visitors at bay. Yet he can't shake the feeling that the rumors might be true. He tells himself it's better this way. If his memories ever resurface, at least he will be the only one hurt by them. The woman on his doorstep, however, simply refuses to fear him. That's not only an oddity, it's a threat to his secret - and his heart. Vivian Suttley has seen the face of evil more than once in her young life. She's on the run from the latest, a cruel man determined to force her to marry him. Whatever the whispers about the reclusive Ashworth, surely it's nothing compared to the bleak, violent future she leaves behind. Ashworth saved her once before, and he's her last hope for refuge. Yet she wonders if she's truly safer at Silverstone - or if she has just made the biggest mistake of her life. Warning: This book contains a lot of sexual tension and a several sexual scenes, have a fan ready!

    Prince Everard’s father spent the boy's youth forging the prince into a warrior. Upon the king’s death, however, Everard realizes he’s lost himself somewhere along the way, and in his pain, makes a decision that brings a dark curse upon both him and the great Fortress that has so long guarded the people of Destin. The prince's sin doesn’t simply affect those of his citadel, however. Isa, the daughter of a local merchant, has suffered the prince’s hasty temper before, and it changed her life forever. When Everard’s final outburst cuts off his people’s source of protection with the curse, he demands that she, a crippled commoner, come to help him break it. All the while, Destin’s northern enemy crouches at the foot of the Fortress’s mountain, waiting for the right moment to capture the stronghold that has stood for a thousand years. With the freedom of Destin at stake, can both Everard and Isa find ways to move beyond their brokenness and hatred for one another, not only to break the curse, but to find love as well? Or will they and their beloved kingdom remain under darkness forever?

    Yet she has been condemned to the gallows for killing a man. The only one who can save her is a lord so infamous that some say he is the son of the Devil himself...And the BeastErik Trevayne is called the Demon Lord of Hawksbridge Castle, but few know of the curse he lives under. Or the terrifying changes slowly gnawing away at his humanity. When he weds her, all he wants of Kristine is a son. But when he beds her, a wild hope is born—that love that can tame even the most monstrous of beasts...

    Devilishly handsome, Rhys was in high demand by the women of the ton and his cruel perceptions of external beauty left many broken-hearted and bitter. After a near-fatal accident disfigures his face, he isolates himself in Falmouth castle and many presume him dead. Danielle Carmichael held no expectations to make a suitable match and happily accepted her fate as a spinster. She resides in the country with her aging relatives with the spires of Falmouth Castle piquing her curiosity. Despite her better judgment, she explores the castle one evening and meets the hostile stranger who therein resides, becoming drawn to his cloaked features and icy rebuttals. Determined to befriend the dark and mysterious stranger, she returns day after day only to be met by his callous disregard.Can her determination to befriend him eventually thaw the coldness of his heart?Set in Regency England, this is a heart-warming story of one girl's perseverance and one man's acceptance of change and fate.

    It's the place they lovingly call home. When a powerful property development company stoops to barely legal tactics to force them to sell, Lila's outrage spurs her straight to the source to fight the injustice. A serious accident left Hunter Jamison's body scarred. A bitter split from his latest lover has left the former playboy without faith in the female sex. Yet, confronted with Lila's fiery beauty, he finds himself offering her a deal: If she'll be his mistress for three months, he'll allow her father to keep the shop. A simple agreement? Hardly. It's a battle of wills that flares into much more than either of them bargained for-a consuming passion that could heal Hunter's soul-deep scars-or inflict new ones. Warning: This title contains blackmail, vehicular sex, angry sex, light bondage and graphic language.

    But she carries secrets of her own, and the scars of her haunted past.Handed off from one monster to another, she has no choice but to do her best to survive and protect her sisters.Even if it costs her everything.A Beauty and the Beast retelling you won’t want to miss, where nothing is what it seems and time is running out.

    . . .When seventeen-year-old Sophia Petheram’s beloved father dies, she receives an unexpected letter. An invitation—on fine ivory paper, in bold black handwriting—from the mysterious Monsieur Bernard de Cressac, her godfather. With no money and fewer options, Sophie accepts, leaving her humble childhood home for the astonishingly lavish Wyndriven Abbey, in the heart of Mississippi.Sophie has always longed for a comfortable life, and she finds herself both attracted to and shocked by the charm and easy manners of her overgenerous guardian. But as she begins to piece together the mystery of his past, it’s as if, thread by thread, a silken net is tightening around her. And as she gathers stories and catches whispers of his former wives—all with hair as red as her own—in the forgotten corners of the abbey, Sophie knows she’s trapped in the passion and danger of de Cressac’s intoxicating world.Glowing strands of romance, mystery, and suspense are woven into this breathtaking debut—a thrilling retelling of the “Bluebeard” fairy tale.

     During a chance summer shower, an English country parson takes refuge in a country house. The house seems deserted, yet the table is laid with a sumptuous banquet such as the parson has not seen since before war rationing. Unnerved by the uncanny house, he flees, but stops to pluck a single perfect rose from the garden for his daughter - only for the master of the house to appear, breathing fire with rage. Literally. At first, the parson can't stand this dragon-man. But slowly, he begins to feel the injustice of the curse that holds the dragon captive. What can break this vengeful curse?

    The housekeeper is unnerving. The castle-like house—with its massive chimney, mullioned windows, and ironwork gate with wrought-iron roses—gives her chills. And Lee himself is disfigured by a rare, genetic disease. In the long hours of work that follow, deep in the wintry woods, Alix discovers that beneath Lee's exterior lies a remarkable man, a man she could come to love. The problem lies in convincing Lee.

    Dora’s only goal for the London Season this year is to stay quiet and avoid upsetting her cousin’s chances at a husband… but when the Lord Sorcier of England learns of her condition, she finds herself drawn ever more deeply into the tumultuous concerns of magicians and faeries.Lord Elias Wilder is handsome, strange, and utterly uncouth—but gossip says that he regularly performs three impossible things before breakfast, and he is willing to help Dora restore her missing half. If Dora’s reputation can survive both her ongoing curse and her sudden connection with the least-liked man in all of high society, then she may yet reclaim her normal place in the world… but the longer Dora spends with Elias Wilder, the more she begins to suspect that one may indeed fall in love, even with only half a soul.

    Though the Beast cannot take Amarantha's virginity unless she begs him to, he can and does take her in every other way. From the moment they are alone together, the Beast relentlessly strips Amarantha of all her resistance. If Amarantha can resist her cloaked and terrifying husband, she gains his entire fortune and will be allowed to return to her family and a normal life. But the Beast seduces her at every turn, exposing, binding, tormenting, and pleasuring Amarantha until she no longer knows her own deepest desires. Increasingly desperate to break the curse that chains his humanity, the Beast drives Amarantha past every boundary. But her desire for a normal life may jeopardize the love that will save them both. Publisher's Note: This book contains explicit sexual content, graphic language, and situations that some readers may find objectionable: Anal play, BDSM theme and elements, dubious consent.

    But after the death of her mother, seventeen-year-old Raven Weathersby gives up her dream of becoming a fashion designer, barely surviving life in the South Carolina lowlands. To make ends meet, Raven works after school as a seamstress creating stunning works of fashion that often rival the great names of the day. Instead of making things easier on the high school senior, her stepdad's drinking leads to a run in with the highly reclusive heir to the Maddox family fortune, Gideon Maddox. But Raven's stepdad's drying out and in no condition to attend the meeting with Maddox. So Raven volunteers to take his place and offers to repay the debt in order to keep the only father she's ever known out of jail, or worse. Gideon Maddox agrees, outlining an outrageous demand: Raven must live in his home for a year while she designs for Maddox Industries' clothing line, signing over her creative rights. Her handsome young captor is arrogant and infuriating to the nth degree, and Raven can't imagine working for him, let alone sharing the same space for more than five minutes. But nothing is ever as it seems. Is Gideon Maddox the monster the world believes him to be? And can he stand to let the young seamstress see him as he really is?