Now that the world is falling apart, bootlegging is a flourishing business, and she's queen of that castle. Then her infant nephew is kidnapped. Her niece, Laura, and Laura's philandering movie star husband, are devastated. The police have few leads, and speculation and rumors abound in the media circus that follows the celebrity abduction. Only one reporter, Erich Muller, seems to care enough about the child's welfare and the parents' feelings to report the case responsibly. Over the course of the investigation, Erich Muller and Laura fall in love, but their relationship is doomed to failure since he suspects her beloved aunt Virginia is behind the kidnapping. Laura, jaded when it comes to men, sides with Virginia.But Virginia has figured out the truth, and she can't tell anyone for fear of losing her niece's affections and having the police ransack her life. So she pursues her own investigation, shaking down, threatening, and killing one petty crook after another during her search.Little Todd's absence shapes everyone's lives. When he is finally found, the discovery will bring disaster for some and revelation for others.

    However, Beth's hopes of a quiet life are dashed when Richard, dissatisfied with his meagre inheritance and desperate for promotion, decides to force her into a marriage for his military gain. And he will stop at nothing to get his way.Beth is coerced into a reconciliation with her noble cousins in order to marry well and escape her brutal brother. She is then thrown into the glittering social whirl of Georgian high society and struggles to conform. The effeminate but witty socialite Sir Anthony Peters offers to ease her passage into society and she is soon besieged by suitors eager to get their hands on her considerable dowry. Beth, however, wants love and passion for herself, and to break free from the artificial life she is growing to hate. She finds herself plunged into a world where nothing is as it seems and everyone hides behind a mask. Can she trust the people professing to care for her?The first in the series about the fascinating lives of beautiful Beth Cunningham, her family and friends during the tempestuous days leading up to the Jacobite Rebellion of 1745, which attempted to overthrow the Hanoverian King George II and restore the Stuarts to the British throne. Join the rebellion of one woman and her fight for survival in... The Jacobite Chronicles.

    She’d confess her situation to her friends—if it wasn’t for those dreadful words of warning in his goodbye note: “I’ll tell them what you did.”Instead, she does her best to keep up appearances, even as months pass and she can barely put food on the table—much less replace a light bulb. While she looks for a job, she lives in fear that someone will see her stuffing toilet paper into her handbag or pinching basil from a neighbor’s window box.Soon, blindsided by catastrophe, surprised by romance, and stunned by the kindness of a stranger, Tabitha realizes she can’t keep her secrets forever. Sooner or later, someone is bound to figure out that her life is far from perfect.

    Though she has big plans for her new home, none of them involves falling in love — least of all with Fabien Coste, the handsome but arrogant owner of the nearby château. As romance blossoms in the beautiful Provençal countryside, disturbing events at the farmhouse hint at a dark mystery — a destructive, centuries-old attachment between the ladies of Bellefontaine and the ducs de Coste. As Amy struggles to unravel the mystery, she begins to wonder if it may not just be her heart at risk, but her life too.

    When he’s coaxed out of his self-imposed exile to attend the amusements of the Frost Fair, his life is irrevocably changed by his fateful meeting with Lady Katherine Adamson.With her tight brown ringlets and silly white-ruffled gowns, Lady Katherine Adamson has found her dance card empty for two Seasons. After her father’s passing, Katherine learned the unreliability of men, and is determined to depend on no one, except herself. Until she meets Jasper…In a desperate bid to avoid a match arranged by her family, Katherine makes the Duke of Bainbridge a shocking proposition—one that he accepts.Only, as Katherine begins to love Jasper, she finds the arrangement agreed upon is not enough. And Jasper is left to decide if protecting his heart is more important than fighting for Katherine’s love.

    Her boyfriend Jack fits all of her criteria for a husband—good-looking, well-connected, wealthy, and eating out of her hand. But when she is forced to spend the summer of 1929 with Luke McGee, the bane of her childhood existence, Katie comes face-to-face with a choice. Will she follow her well-laid plans to marry Jack? Or will she fall for the man she swore to despise forever?

    It is then, at the young and vulnerable age of seventeen, when Lady Anna Maria Berezowska loses both of her parents and must leave the only home she has ever known. With Empress Catherine's Russian armies streaming in to take their spoils, Anna is quickly thrust into a world of love and hate, loyalty and deceit, patriotism and treason, life and death. Even kind Aunt Stella, Anna's new guardian who soon comes to personify Poland's courage and spirit, can't protect Anna from the uncertain future of the country. Anna, a child no longer, turns to love and comfort in the form of Jan, a brave patriot and architect of democracy, unaware that her beautiful and enigmatic cousin Zofia has already set her sights on the handsome young fighter. Thus Anna walks unwittingly into Zofia's jealous wrath and darkly sinister intentions. Forced to survive several tragic events, many of them orchestrated by the crafty Zofia, a strengthened Anna begins to learn to place herself in the way of destiny--for love and for country. Heeding the proud spirit of her late father, Anna becomes a major player in the fight against the countries who come to partition her beloved Poland. PUSH NOT THE RIVER is based on the true eighteenth century diary of Anna Maria Berezowska, a Polish countess who lived through the rise and fall of the historic Third of May Constitution. Vivid, romantic, and thrillingly paced, it paints the emotional and unforgettable story of the metamorphosis of a nation--and of a proud and resilient young woman.

    A woman straps a pistol to her ankle, walks to her lover’s home, and shoots him. Her motive? After an affair of four months, he jilted her for another woman.How would an attorney defend the woman in light of her outright confession? Would an all-male jury view her actions with repulsion or pity?The climate of California in the early twentieth century when women couldn’t vote and men held the real power, where immense wealth rested alongside poverty, held a paradox of contradictions.The bare bones of this true California court case sparked the idea for the fictional story of Alma Bentley, attorney Malachi Rivers, and Emma Knight, the woman who helps him investigate the case.When jaded lawyer Malachi Rivers engages newspaper editor Emma Knight to aid him in the case of Alma Bentley, he has no idea they'll eventually unmask a vile web of family deceit, wickedness, and treachery. Constantly putting herself in harm's way, the feckless Emma uncovers dark secrets that lie behind the wealthy facade of the Joseph Machado clan.With her strong opinions, Emma tests Malachi's patience even while he's strongly attracted to her. She disagrees with every aspect of his trial strategy, but he defends his client the only way he can – by insisting that a woman, a naturally frail creature, is incapable of committing such a heinous crime.Emma wants to experience true passion and detests the false notion that women are inferior to men in any way. Even while she confronts Malachi at every turn, she falls ridiculously in love with him.Readers of historical fiction and mystery/suspense, as well as historical romance, will enjoy the elements at play in this slice of life, fictionalized story of California.

    A plan that should have brought the lovers together and had them married within a month. It was a simple matter of masquerading as the duke’s gardener, compromising the lady, and then having the duke rush them off to Gretna Green.Alas, he underestimates the duke’s intelligence and the tangled situation on the estate—never had he imagined that compromising a lady could be so difficult.His endeavours lead to a comedy of errors, charades, and knotty love affairs. Yet he forges ahead in spite of pesky house guests, a flea bitten mattress, his lovesick best friend, and a blackmailer.Just when things seem to be going well, someone is murdered (very inconvenient), and he happens to be one of the suspects (extremely inconvenient).His simple plan for winning the wager suddenly becomes … a tad complicated.

    He is in possession of a large diamond, given to him in India, which he vows he will give to the woman he loves – when he finds her, that is. Jemima Brown, sixteen, good-hearted and hard-working, comes to work for him as a general maidservant. When Mr Cavell stands up for her against the unwanted attentions of some tradesmen working in his house, she sees at once that here is a man of high morals and integrity. But it is Caroline Simpson, daughter of Henry’s house-painter, who catches his eye. She may be socially his inferior, but she is good-looking, flirtatious and knows how to use her charms. She manipulates Henry into marrying her, and only the loyal Jemima knows he’s been tricked. How can Jemima fight her growing feelings for her master, maintain her morals and stay in Mr Cavell’s employment, despite her mistress’s increasingly erratic behaviour?

    Until he tangled with a haughty young Chinese woman as accustomed to ruling her world as he was his.

    Sure, she loves fostering shelter dogs, but she never imagined herself as a mother. Anxious to be an aunt, her sister starts pressuring her to be someone she’s not. Her new friend wants her to stay fun and unencumbered. When Hope’s ex says he wants back in her life, she feels like it might be what’s best for her baby. Pulling away from her sister, Hope spends more time with her new friend and risks letting her ex break her heart all over again.

    But what if they want only to be loved--without an enormous price tag attached? When one daughter pursues a desirable marriage, she secures for herself a comfortable and glamorous life. But among the duties of privilege, will she also find the happily-ever-after she seeks? Her sister rejects the trappings of wealth, choosing instead to build a new life on the still-untamed frontier. Will she find happiness in independence or discover that she's left her heart behind in New York's glittering society? Set in the opulent world of the Gilded Age, each woman discovers that being an heiress just might cost her everything--including the chance for true love.

    Now trapped in a marriage of the worst kind, her life is an endless cycle of pain and fear. That is until Lord Helsing shows her another way to live... Lord Mason Helsing walked away from the one woman he’d always cared for, but upon returning to London, he finds Charlotte is in a loveless and cruel marriage. Should he throw away the principles by which he lives and follow a different path than he ought? But divorce for Charlotte means ruination. And Mason is relied upon to marry well and continue his family. Can they overcome the strictures of society and live the life they’ve always wanted? Or will they bow to pressure and do as society deems appropriate? ~A Captain's Order~ Lady Eloise Bartholomew's trip to Australia on the shirttails of her adventurous brother ends in tragedy when he dies from a fever. But with the conventions of English society suspended on the high seas, she finds passion and excitement in the arms of a rugged ship's captain-only to be dumped back into the ton, still burning from the fire ignited in her and the loss of the only man she could ever loved. More at home on his ship than dallying with the ton, Gabriel Lyons, now the Duke of Dale, intended never to set foot in London again. But when an elder brother dies, and the woman who claimed his heart over his love for the ocean brings him home, he knows he has to face the secrets of his past. He can only pray their love will survive the scandal that sent him away, the lies he has told her, and the duel he must fight for his honor and her hand. ~A Marriage Made in Mayfair~ Miss Suzanna March wished for one thing: the elusive, rakish charmer, Lord Danning. But after a frightful first season such dreams are impossible. That is until she returns to London, a new woman, and one who will not let the ton's dislike of her stand in her way of gaining what she wants: revenge on the Lord who gave her the cut direct… Lord Danning, unbeknown to his peers, is in financial strife and desperate to marry an heiress. Such luck would have it Miss Suzanna March fits all his credentials and seduction in his plan of action. Yes, the woman who returned from Paris is stronger, defiant, and a little argumentative, but it does not stop Lord Danning finding himself in awe and protective of her. But will Suzanna fall for such pretty words from a charmer? Or will Lord Danning prove to Suzanna and himself that she is more than his ticket out of debtor's prison...?

    She knows she cannot stay, but she doesn't want to leave her sister behind. Her only hope is to accept an arranged marriage and pray this man, sure to be homely and elderly, will adopt her sister. The striking Thomas Johnson is anything but homely or elderly. He has come to the orphanage expecting to wed a plain, obedient woman who will be as silent as a shadow in his home. The beautiful, intelligent, and independent Maurine is a complete surprise. Maurine realizes he could have had his pick of women, so why did he come to an orphanage? Their first night together on the return trip to his home, she comes to understand he doesn't want her as a wife, but as a governess to his children. Within days, she is falling in love with a man who refuses to get close to her, a man who is hiding something about the death of his first wife. This is a tale of two sisters: Maurine, who yearns to be loved by the man who took her as his bride, and Rebecca who finds love in the arms of the son of a wealthy Cherokee plantation owner. Billow Creek Bride is a careful blend of laughter and tears, sorrows and joys as these two women discover strength within themselves to meet the challenges of life and love in the 1830's, and the event that would change history known as 'The Trail of Tears.'