An Unlikely Governess


Karen Ranney - 2005
    Surely, no future could be as dark as the past she wishes to leave behind. And she admits a fascination with the young duke's adult cousin, Devlen Gordon, a seductive rogue who excites her from the first charged moment they meet. But she dares not trust him - even after he spirits them to isolation and safety when the life of her young charge is threatened.Devlen is charming, mysterious, powerful - and Beatrice cannot refuse him. He is opening new worlds for her, filling her life with passion ... and peril. But what are Devlen's secrets? Is he her lover or her enemy? Will following her heart be foolishness or a path to lasting happiness?

The Earl's Lady Geologist


Alissa Baxter - 2021
    When circumstances force her to travel to Town for the Season, Cassy infiltrates the hallowed portals of the Geological Society from which she has been banned. She is horrified when she comes face to face with her nemesis, the infuriating Earl of Rothbury.Lord Rothbury is a gentleman-geologist with a turbulent romantic past. After a youthful disappointment he vows never to fall in love again, and makes the decision, instead, to seek out a convenient wife when he returns to England from his geological travels abroad. Brought together by their close family ties, Cassy and Rothbury collaborate on a geological paper and discover a powerful attraction. Marriage, however, is the one subject they cannot agree upon. But when Cassy’s life is threatened, the two realise that love matters more than their objections.

On Luna Time


Amber Crawley - 2019
    When she receives a strange letter from her mother three weeks before her 18th birthday, Vanessa knows it’s the only shot she has at finding her real family. The letter instructs her to jump off the Swan Pier into the ocean at midnight under the next full moon. With the steadfast hope that her mother would be waiting for her, Vanessa jumps, only to find that she’s come up for air seventy years in the past. Journals written by women who took the same time-altering jump help Vanessa realize that the mystery of her mother’s life spans generations and is far more complex than she could have ever dreamed. While living in 1949, Vanessa develops feelings for a boy despite the warnings from previous travelers not to fall in love. As she begins to unravel her mother’s web of secrets, Vanessa discovers that the truth is anything but easy, and the answers are not influenced by past, but have the power to alter her future forever.

Bottled


Carol Riggs - 2016
    For a thousand years, she fulfills the wishes of greedy masters--building their palaces, lining their pockets with gold, and granting them every earthly pleasure. All that sustains her is the hope of finding Karim, the boy she fell in love with as a human. When at last she finds a note from her beloved, she confirms he has access to the elixir of life and that he still searches for her. But someone else also hunts her. Faruq--the man who plots to use her powers to murder and seize the life forces of others--is just one step behind her. With the help of a kind master named Nathan, Adeelah continues to search for Karim while trying to evade Faruq. To complicate matters, she begins to experience growing fatigue and pain after conjuring, and finds herself struggling against an undeniable attraction to Nathan. As Faruq closes in, Adeelah must decide just how much she'll risk to protect Nathan and be with Karim forever. How much power does she really have to change her future, and what is she willing to sacrifice for an eternity of love? If she makes the wrong choice, the deaths of many will be on her hands.

Til Death We Do Part


Bruno Beaches - 2021
    Through decades of quiet dedication and single-minded devotion he has achieved the successes one strives for in life, both with his family and career. Close to retirement and to sitting back and enjoying the fruits of a successful career and marriage, a malicious spurious complaint at work should have no material consequences on his life, but it starts a domino effect, and before long he finds himself shockingly dismissed, divorced, without a home, and with a criminal record. This story explores a convoluted tragic journey of divorce, rich with emotion, loss, betrayal, revenge and confusion. Along the way it explores the dynamics of what makes a relationship weak and vulnerable, or strong and resolute. It’s not a miserable story, but one of resilience, hope, and true love. It is told with an immense depth of feeling, insight, humour and faith, and there are many truly surprising twists and turns as the story unfolds.

The Duke Goes Down


Sophie Jordan - 2021
    Facing ruin, Perry must use his charm and good looks to win an heiress—all the while, ignoring his fascination with the one interfering and alluring chit who is intent on sabotaging his efforts. The Lady Vicar... Everyone knows Imogen Bates, the virtuous daughter of the senile vicar. She can write a sermon in a day and spot a rogue in a second, so she sees right through Perry's seductive façade. But Imogen's plan to protect the heiresses of her beloved Shropshire from the erstwhile Duke of Penning, the bane of her existence since childhood, soon turns into something altogether unacceptable for the proper lady... who suddenly finds herself longing to keep his heated glances and tempting kisses all to herself.

The Necklace


Claire McMillan - 2017
    During a chilly meeting over cocktails, the family reads the will that makes Nell the executor of the estate and leaves her one item: a fantastically valuable, beautiful necklace from India. While the rest of the family jewels have been stored in a bank vault, Nell finds this priceless, forgotten heirloom in a Crown Royal whiskey bag stashed in the back of a dresser. As predatory Quincy's circle, Nell and art experts begin to question the necklace’s shadowy provenance, Nell turns to the only person she thinks she can trust—the attractive and ambitious estate lawyer who definitely is not part of the old money crowd.Ambrose Quincy brought the necklace home from India in the 1920s as a dramatic gift for May, the woman he intended to marry. However, upon his return he discovers that May has married his brother Ethan, the “good” Quincy, devoted to helping their father with the family coal empire. As a gesture of friendship, Ambrose gives May the necklace anyway—reigniting their passion and beginning a tense love triangle. When Ethan confronts the two lovers, the encounter ends tragically, entombing a secret in the past that Nell must uncover if she is ever to claim her true Quincy birthright.Alternating between the past and present, The Necklace is the elegant and compelling story of a star-crossed romance, long-simmering family resentments, and a young woman whose inheritance is much more than a legendary necklace.

The Hidden King


E.G. Radcliff - 2019
    Hidden power. Hidden destiny. On the shores of a rusty sea, in the streets of a starving city, a young man named Áed scraps to build a life for himself and the makeshift family he loves. Scarred by a trauma he cannot remember, and haunted by the brutal damage it left behind, he has no idea of the courage his future will demand. When tragedy strikes, a desperate Áed risks a treacherous, life-changing journey in his last chance to save the only family he has left - but an ancient legacy smoldering within him is about to turn deadly. Neither he - nor a kingdom - will ever be the same.SPFBO SemiFinalist 2020BBNYA SemiFinalist 2021BlueInk Notable BookInternational Review of Books Gold Seal Book

Wilde in Love


Eloisa James - 2017
    Arriving home from years abroad, he has no idea of his own celebrity until his boat is met by mobs of screaming ladies. Alaric escapes to his father’s castle, but just as he grasps that he’s not only famous but notorious, he encounters the very private, very witty, Miss Willa Ffynche.Willa presents the façade of a serene young lady to the world. Her love of books and bawdy jokes is purely for the delight of her intimate friends. She wants nothing to do with a man whose private life is splashed over every newspaper.Alaric has never met a woman he wanted for his own . . . until he meets Willa. He’s never lost a battle.But a spirited woman like Willa isn’t going to make it easy. . . .

Falling Into Bed with a Duke


Lorraine Heath - 2015
    But thanks to the Nightingale Club, she can at least enjoy one night of pleasure. At that notorious establishment, ladies don masks before choosing a lover. The sinfully handsome Duke of Ashebury is more than willing to satisfy the secretive lady's desires—and draws Minerva into an exquisite, increasingly intimate affair.A man of remarkable talents, Ashe soon deduces that his bedmate is the unconventional Miss Dodger. Intrigued by her wit and daring, he sets out to woo her in earnest. Yet Minerva refuses to trust him. How to court a woman he has already thoroughly seduced? And how to prove that the passion unleashed in darkness is only the beginning of a lifetime's pleasure?

About a Rogue


Caroline Linden - 2020
    James, notorious rake. Defiantly she helps Cathy elope with her true love, and takes her sister’s place at the altar.It’s not even the match that was made…Perched on the lowest branch of his family tree, Max has relied on charm and cunning to survive. But an unexpected stroke of luck gives him an outside chance at a dukedom—and which Tate sister he weds hardly seems to matter. But could it be the perfect match? Married or not, Bianca is determined to protect her family’s prosperous ceramics business, even when Max shows an affinity for it—not to mention a dangerous ability to intrigue and tempt Bianca herself. And when Max realizes how beautiful and intelligent and desirable Bianca is, he’ll have to prove he’s no rogue, but the passionately devoted husband she craves…

Twice As Wicked


Elizabeth Bright - 2017
    But how to expose a seducer without falling prey herself? As she gets closer to Nathaniel, she finds she is in serious danger of following in her sister’s much-too-tempted footsteps. The man is nothing like the heartless rake she expected...and his kisses are truly divine. Could she be wrong about him? When a mysterious and gorgeous woman confronts Nathaniel at a fancy ball, he suspects she has murder on her mind—his own. But the more he tries to determine who the deceptively innocent beauty is—and what she’s up to—the deeper he falls under her alluring spell. Nathaniel fears he’s in imminent danger of losing his life...or worse, his heart.

Bethlehem


Karen Kelly - 2019
    But what she finds is not what she expected: tragedy haunts the hallways, whispering of heartache and a past she never knew existed.Inspired by the true titans of the steel-boom era, Bethlehem is a story of temptation and regret, a story of secrets and the cost of keeping them, a story of forgiveness. It is the story of two complex women—thrown together in the name of family—who, in coming to understand each other, come finally to understand themselves.

Beyond the Horizon


Ella Carey - 2019
    The plane crashed and skidded. She heard the wail of sirens. The last thing she remembered was pulling her body across the tarmac an inch at a time—before her world went black.Sweetwater, Texas, 1943. Eva has always wanted to fly away. She jumps at the chance to train with the Women’s Airforce Service Pilots and help the war effort, even if the days are exhausting, the southern nights sweltering. When she’s in the air, it’s all worthwhile: her heart soars, as close to infinity as you can get. And since she met handsome Jack, she has someone to fly back to. But on one dangerous night, everything goes wrong. When she awakes, her body is broken and her memory is gone…Los Angeles, 1977. Eva seems like a normal married woman with a family to be proud of. When she woke up after that terrible night—a blank in her memory—Jack was smiling down at her. But so many decades later, Eva is still searching for answers about the night that changed her life forever. Why have letters to her fellow pilots gone unanswered for thirty years? What really happened on her last flight?Ever since that catastrophic crash, Eva has lived with the worst fear imaginable: did she do something terrible enough to make her friends cut her off? Increasingly overcome by frightening flashbacks, where she is fighting to escape from a tiny cockpit filled with smoke as her plane falls to the ground, she desperately tries to uncover the truth. But are some secrets best left buried in the past? From bestselling author Ella Carey comes a sweeping story, inspired by true events, about the brave, forgotten female pilots who helped America win the war. A story you will never forget, and one that will always stay in your heart.This book was first published in 2019.

Endless Blue Seas


Annie Dyer - 2019
    The first time I saw Anya I was shirtless and holding an axe.It was June, the weather balmy and Anya was beautiful, but that didn’t matter because I was drowning in my own grief.Anya wasn’t meant to be my saviour.I wasn’t meant to be hers.A perfect summer, an idyllic island, a stream of stolen nights.All bandaids on an open wound.If we were going to live again, she deserved more than the fractured shards of the broken creature I’d become.She deserved love.Endless Blue Seas is a standalone summer romance, guaranteed to melt your heart and other items.