Book picks similar to
Paint The Wind by Cathy Cash Spellman


romance
historical-fiction
historical-romance
historical

The Musician's Daughter


Susanne Dunlap - 2008
    Or so fifteen-year-old Theresa Maria is convinced when her musician father turns up dead on Christmas Eve, his valuable violin missing, and the only clue to his death a strange gold pendant around his neck. Then her father’s mentor, the acclaimed composer Franz Joseph Haydn, helps her through a difficult time by making her his copyist and giving her insight in to her father’s secret life. It’s there that Theresa begins to uncover a trail of blackmail and extortion, even as she discovers honor—and the possibility of a first, tentative love. Thrumming with the weeping strains of violins, as well as danger and deception, this is an engrossing tale of murder, romance, and music that readers will find hard to forget.

The Endearment


LaVyrle Spencer - 1982
    to become Karl Lindstrom's mail-order bride in the beautiful, treacherous Minnesota wilderness.Karl forgave Anna for her deceptions--but there was still one shameful, burning secret that she had to hide from him, knowing its revelation would destroy the love that had become her very life!

Shadow of the Moon


M.M. Kaye - 1956
    SHADOW OF THE MOON is the story of Winter de Ballesteros, a beautiful English heiress come home to her beloved India. It is also the tale of Captain Alex Randall, her protector, who aches to possess her. Forged in the fires of a war that threatens to topple an empire, their tale is the saga of a desperate and unforgettable love that consumes all in its thrall. Filled with the mystery of moonlit palace gardens and the whisperings of passion and intrigue, M. M. Kaye evokes an era at once of its time, yet timeless."Another splendid tale of India." (Wall Street Journal)

Evergreen


Belva Plain - 1978
    Determined to make something of herself, Anna moves into a cramped New York slum and finds a job in a sweatshop. When two very different men fall in love with her, Anna is destined to be forever torn in love and loyalty.

The Sheriffs of Savage Wells


Sarah M. Eden - 2016
    A force to be reckoned with. The stuff of legend.So is she... May the best sheriff win. Paisley Bell knows the eccentric people of Savage Wells. From the absentminded shopkeeper who always thinks she's been robbed to the young man who has returned shell-shocked from the war, Paisley has compassion for them all. When the sheriff up and leaves town, Paisley steps up and assumes the responsibility, partly because she loves the work, but also because she needs the income to take care of her sick father. So when the town council decides that the position of sheriff should really go to a man, Paisley finds herself fighting to prove that she's the perfect candidate for the job, even though she wears a skirt.Cade O'Brien is heartily sick of shooting people. In his many years as a lawman, Cade has seen his share of blood and violence. So when he answers an advertisement for a sheriff job in the sleepy town of Savage Wells, he believes he's found the peace and quiet he's always desired. But when he discovers that his biggest competition for the job is a woman, he begins to question his decisions.Tension between the two begins to sizzle when both Cade and Paisley realize the attraction they have for each other, but when Paisley's former beau shows up in town, along with a band of bank robbers, the blossoming relationship between the two sheriffs is tested. They will have to work together to thwart the bank robbers and keep the town safe.

Charlotte


J.S. Anthony - 2020
    She was to wait for Ellis Gray and the wagon train he was leading. Charlotte understood that her father was paying Ellis Gray to see her to Fort Randall where she would meet her uncle and go to live out in the desert with a new husband. That she didn’t want a new husband didn’t matter. They were going to hang you, her father said. She knew this was true.Charlotte joined the wagon train at the back where they meant for her to stay. She made molasses bread in her tin oven at night and passed it out to the small hands that reached for it. She befriended Ada, the wild-haired barefoot girl too young for the burdens placed on her, and Fiona, whose husband Charlotte knew just by looking at his hard face.Then members of the tribes appeared along the ridge, a line of them sitting astride their horses, wrapped in blankets, looking old and sad. Charlotte’s fate was sealed when Ellis rode out to meet them.Because one of them was neither old or sad.

Montana Rose


Mary Connealy - 2009
    Her free-spending husband expects nothing less. But now he has died, leaving her unprotected, heavily in debt, and pregnant. As any single woman doesn't remain so for long in Divide, Montana, Cassie wonders if marrying one of the local cowboys might be her only choice. After seeing her choices, she then wonders if joining her husband might be even better.Red Dawson has always had a soft spot in his heart for Cassie, even though most of the townspeople see her only as a silk-clad china doll. When she's left a widow, only one thing keeps him from immediately sweeping her off her feet—she's a nonbeliever.As the other cowboys lay claim to Cassie, the most powerful rancher in the area steps forward to demand what he thinks rightly belongs to him... and the property that goes with her. Red struggles with figuring out what to do, but decides he can't allow Cassie to suffer a fate worse than death and marries her himself.Will Red win over this seemingly fragile and spoiled china doll's heart... and survive her unique brand of ranch help in the meantime? Will Cassie find true love with her cowboy—and his God—when she exchanges smooth silk for coarse calico?

The Valiant


Lesley Livingston - 2017
    Captive. Gladiator.Fallon is the daughter of a proud Celtic king, the sister of the legendary warrior Sorcha, and the sworn enemy of Julius Caesar.When Fallon was a child, Caesar’s armies invaded her homeland, and her beloved sister was killed in battle.Now, on the eve of her seventeenth birthday, Fallon is eager to follow in her sister’s footsteps and earn her place in the fearsome Cantii war band. She never gets the chance.Fallon is captured and sold to an elite training school for female gladiators—owned by none other than Julius Caesar. In a cruel twist of fate, the man who destroyed Fallon’s family might be her only hope of survival.Now Fallon must overcome vicious rivalries and deadly fights—in and out of the arena. And perhaps the most dangerous threat of all: her forbidden yet irresistible feelings for Cai, a young Roman soldier.

Vengeance Road


Erin Bowman - 2015
    What she finds are untrustworthy strangers, endless dust and heat, and a surprising band of allies, among them a young Apache girl and a pair of stubborn brothers who refuse to quit riding in her shadow. But as Kate gets closer to the secrets about her family, a startling truth becomes clear: some men will stop at nothing to get their hands on gold, and Kate’s quest for revenge may prove fatal.

Fortune's Rocks


Anita Shreve - 1999
    On a beach in New Hampshire at the turn of the last century, a young woman is drawn into a rocky, disastrous passage to adulthood. Olympia Biddeford is the only child of a prominent Boston couple--a precocious and well-educated daughter, alive with ideas and flush with the first stirrings of maturity. Her summer at the family's vacation home in Fortune's Rocks is transformed by the arrival of a doctor, a friend of her father's, whose new book about mill-town laborers has caused a sensation. Olympia is captivated by his thinking, his stature, and his drive to do right--even as she is overwhelmed for the first time by irresistible sexual desire. She and the doctor--a married man, a father, and nearly three times her age--come together in an unthinkable, torturous, hopelessly passionate affair. Throwing aside propriety and self-preservation, Olympia plunges forward with cataclysmic results that are the price of straying in an unforgiving era. Olympia is cast out of the world she knows, and Fortune's Rocks is the story of her determination to reinvent her broken life--and claim the one thing she finds she cannot live without. A meditation on the erotic life of women, an exploration of class prejudices, and most of all a portrayal of the thoughts and actions of an unforgettable young woman, Fortune's Rocks is a masterpiece of narrative drama, beautifully written by one of the most accomplished novelists of our time.

Morning Glory


Carolyn Brown - 2007
    But oil has brought change to Healdton, Oklahoma, and she doesn't like it one bit. She might not have the means to stop history in the making, but that doesn't mean she has to rent rooms in her boarding house to oil well riff-raff. Needless to say, her temper flares when she discovers that while she was out shopping, her help rented a room to Briar Nelson, a roustabout for Rose Oil.Briar just wants a place to sleep and eat and if the lovely, crazy woman has a problem with that, she can take it up with a lawyer. He signed the contract for three months and paid the rent in advance and nothing is going to make him leave. Besides, he already has two women in his life and doesn't need another.Can a woman who was jilted ten years ago fight the past and fall in love with the very kind of man she vowed to have nothing to do with? Changes more personal than the discovery of oil take place in the Morning Glory Inn as Clara and Briar fight the past and fear the future.

The Doctor's Lady


Jody Hedlund - 2011
    Dr. Eli Ernest is back from Oregon Country only long enough to raise awareness of missions to the natives before heading out West once more. But then Priscilla and Eli both receive news from the mission board: No longer will they send unmarried men and women into the field. Left scrambling for options, the two realize the other might be the answer to their needs. Priscilla and Eli agree to a partnership, a marriage in name only that will allow them to follow God's leading into the mission field. But as they journey west, this decision will be tested by the hardships of the trip and by the unexpected turnings of their hearts.

Uneasy Fortunes


Mandi Ellsworth - 2012
    But when time can’t heal a wound, love steps in to make it right. Based on a true story of the post–Civil War South, this gentle rustic romance will pull you in from the first page and leave you with a renewed hope in the power of real love.

Snowfall


K.M. Peyton - 1994
    M. Peyton presents an engaging cast of characters who choose not to be bound by the conventions of their time. As the small group of friends become intricately bound to and dependent on each other, they confront British class divisions, dangerous adventures, and the challenge of their hidden lives—and secret loves.

Rebel Queen


Michelle Moran - 2015
    India is fractured and divided into kingdoms, each independent and wary of one another, seemingly no match for the might of the English. But when they arrive in the Kingdom of Jhansi, the British army is met with a surprising challenge.Instead of surrendering, Queen Lakshmi raises two armies - one male and one female - and rides into battle, determined to protect her country and her people. Although her soldiers may not appear at first to be formidable against superior British weaponry and training, Lakshmi refuses to back down from the empire that is determined to take away the land she loves.Told from the unexpected perspective of Sita - Queen Lakshmi's most favored companion and most trusted soldier in the all-female army - Rebel Queen shines a light on a time and place rarely explored in historical fiction. In the tradition of her best-selling novel, Nefertiti ,and through her strong, independent heroines fighting to make their ways in a male-dominated world, Michelle Moran brings nineteenth-century India to rich, vibrant life.