All of the stories listed below will be on sale, starting today through January 5, 2023. Fill up your eReaders!!!! All books will be $0.99. These books are historical romantic suspense and Regencies, as well as two contemporary tales. Moreover, most are available to read on Kindle Unlimited. MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!! [For Jane Austen Fan Fiction titles, see Friday’s post, December 23, 2022.]
Lady Joy and the Earl: A Regency Christmas Romance
Award-Winning Finalist in the Fiction: Novella category of the 2019 International Book Awards
They have loved each other since childhood, but life has not been kind to either of them. James Highcliffe’s arranged marriage had been everything but loving, and Lady Joy’s late husband believed a woman’s spirit was meant to be broken. Therefore, convincing Lady Jocelyn Lathrop to abandon her freedom and consider marriage to him after twenty plus years apart may be more than the Earl of Hough can manage. Only the spirit of Christmas can bring these two together when secrets mean to keep them apart.
Kindle (Available to read on Kindle Unlimited)
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Letters from Home: A Regency Christmas Romance
Second Place in Short Historical Category ~ 2019 International Digital Awards
She is the woman whose letters to another man kept Simon alive during the war. He is the English officer her late husband claimed to be incomparable. In her, his heart whispers of finally being “home.” In him, she discovers a man who truly stirs her soul. Unfortunately for both, the lady fears no longer being invisible to the world and assuming a place at his side. Can Major Lord Simon Lanford claim Mrs. Faith Lamont as his wife or will his rise to the earldom and his family’s expectations keep them apart?
“This was both a heart-breaking and heart-warming second chance love story, made all the more satisfying by the Christmas setting.” – Calico Hearts Review
Kindle (Available to read on Kindle Unlimited)
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Courting Lord Whitmire: A Regency May-December Romance
At the bend of the path, an unexpected meeting.
She is all May. He is December.
But loves knows not time.
Colonel Lord Andrew Whitmire has returned to England after spending fifteen years in service to his country. In truth, he would prefer to be anywhere but home. Before he departed England, his late wife, from an arranged marriage, had cuckolded him in a scandal that had set Society’s tongues wagging. His daughter, Matilda, who was reared by his father, enjoys calling him “Father” in the most annoying ways. Unfortunately, his future is the viscountcy, and Andrew knows his duty to both the title and his child. He imagines himself the last of his line until he encounters Miss Verity Coopersmith, the niece of his dearest friend, the man who had saved Andrew’s life at Waterloo. Miss Coopersmith sets Whitmire’s world spinning out of control. She is truly everything he did not know he required in his life. However, she is twenty-two years his junior, young enough to be his daughter, but all he can think is she is absolute perfection.
Kindle (Available to Read on Kindle Unlimited)
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Last Woman Standing: A Regency Holiday Tale
JACKSON SHAW, the Marquess of Rivens, never considered the “gypsy blessing” presented to his family during the time of Henry VIII truly a blessing. He viewed it more as a curse. According to the “blessing,” in his thirtieth year, at the Christmas ball hosted by his family, he was to choose a wife among the women attending. The catch was he possessed no choice in the matter. His wife was to be the one who proved herself to be his perfect match, according to the gypsy’s provisions: a woman who would bring prosperity to his land by her love of nature and her generous heart. In his opinion, none of the women vying for his hand appeared to care for anything but themselves.
EVELYN HAWTHORNE comes to River’s End to serve as the companion to the Marchioness of Rivens, his lordship’s grandmother. However, Lady Rivens has more than companionship in mind when she employs the girl, whose late father was a renown horticulturalist. The marchioness means to gather Gerald Hawthorne’s rare specimens to prevent those with less scrupulous ideas from purchasing Hawthorne’s conservatory, and, thereby, stealing away what little choice her grandson has in naming a wife, for all the potential brides must present the Rivenses with a rare flower to demonstrate the lady’s love of nature. Little does the marchioness know Hawthorne’s daughter might not only know something of nature, but be the person to fulfill the gypsy’s blessing.
Kindle (Available to Read on Kindle Unlimited)
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The Courtship of Lord Blackhurst
What happens when a lady falls in love, not with her betrothed, but rather with his cousin?
Miss Priscilla Keenan has been promised to the Marquess of Blackhurst since her birth. The problem is: She has never laid eyes upon the man. So, when Blackhurst sends his cousin to York to assist Priscilla in readying Blackhurst’s home estate for the marquess’s return from his service in India, it is only natural for Priscilla to ask Mr. Alden something of the marquess’s disposition. Yet, those conversations lead Cilla onto a different path, one where she presents her heart to the wrong gentleman. How can she and Alden find happiness together when the world means to keep them apart? Inspired by Henry Wadsworth Longfellow’s “The Courtship of Miles Standish,” this tale wants for nothing, especially not a happy ending, which it has, but that ending is not what the reader anticipates.
(Available to Read on Kindle Unlimited)
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Lord Radcliffe’s Best Friend
Hendrake Barrymore, Lord Radcliffe, is a typical male, a bit daff when it comes to the ways of women, especially the ways of one particular woman, Miss Adelaide Shaw, his childhood companion, a girl who plays a part in every pleasant memory Drake holds.
Yet, since he failed to deliver Addy’s first kiss on her fifteenth birthday, his former “friend” has struck him from her life just at a time when Radcliffe has come to the conclusion Adelaide is the one woman who best suits him.
This tale is more than a familiar story of friends to lovers for it presents the old maxim an unusual twist.
(Available to Read on Kindle Unlimited)
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The Jewel Thief and the Earl
Grandison Franklyn, 8th Earl Harlow, has earned the moniker “Grandison, the Great” for a variety of reasons: his well-honed attitude of superiority; his appearance; and a string of mistresses, most notably Lady Jenest, who created a “great” row when he cut her loose.
Miss Colleen Everley is the daughter of England’s most notorious thief, a man called “Brook’s Crook.” Colleen has been taught many of her father’s skills, along with an eye for the value of each item in a room. Unfortunately, the lady does not possess Thomas Everley’s daring.
Harlow and Miss Everley must combine forces to return Queen Charlotte’s sapphire necklace before Her Majesty learns it is missing. Toss in a healthy sprinkling of quirky characters and missteps in the investigation, and the reader will find a delightful tale that goes beyond the “Cinderella” effect and opposites attract.
(Available to Read on Kindle Unlimited)
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His Christmas Violet
Sir Frederick Nolan has stayed true to his late wife through all their years of marriage, but now he is widower and has waited the proper mourning period, he sees no reason he should not finally know the happiness of having Lady Violet Graham at his side. He meant to marry Violet when he was fresh from his university years and she was but a young lady; however, the realization she was perfect for him had come too late, and Violet had already accepted the proposal of Lord Graham.
Lady Violet Graham had never strayed from the love she held for Sir Frederick, but she had proven herself a good wife to her late husband, serving dutifully as Lord Giles Graham’s chatelaine and presenting him three sons. Now, her widow’s pension and the use of the dower house will provide her the only freedom she has ever known as a woman. She cannot think to become another man’s “property,” even when that man is the only one she has every loved. Enough is enough of not having a voice in her own future.
They have loved each other since they were children, but how does Sir Frederick convince Lady Violet to marry him, when she is most determined never again to permit any man dominion over her person?
Kindle
(Available to Read on Kindle Unlimited)
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Second Chances: The Courtship Wars (Contemporary Romance, Psychology, Sexology, Reality TV, Downs Syndrome, Eccentric Hermits)
Rushing through the concourse to make her way to the conference stage, GILLIAN CORNELL comes face-to-face with the one man she finds most contemptible, but suddenly her world tilts. His gaze tells stories she wants desperately to hear. As he undresses her with his eyes, Gillian finds all she can do is stumble through her opening remarks. The all-too-attractive cad challenges both her sensibility and her reputation as a competent sexologist.
DR. LUCIAN DAMRON never allows any woman to capture his interest for long. He uses them to boost his career and for his pleasure. Yet, Lucian cannot resist Gillian’s stubborn independence, her startling intelligence, and her surprising sensuality. Sinfully handsome, Lucian hides a badly wounded heart and a life of personal rejection.
Thrown together as the medical staff on “Second Chances,” a new reality TV show designed to reunite previously married couples, Lucian and Gillian soon pique the interest of the American viewing public, who tune in each week, fascinated by the passionate electricity coursing between them. Thus begins an all-consuming courtship war, plagued by potential relationship-ending secrets and misunderstandings and played out scandalously on a national stage.
(Also available to read on Kindle Unlimited)
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One Minute Past Christmas: Tale of an Appalachian Christmas Miracle [short story, Appalachia, holidays, Christmas, family relationships, legends]
One Minute Past Christmas is the story of a Greenbrier County, West Virginia, family in which a grandfather and his granddaughter share a special ability — they call it a “gift”– that enables them to briefly witness each year a miraculous gathering in the sky. What they see begins at precisely one minute past Christmas and fills them with as much relief as it does wonder. But they worry the “gift” — which they cannot reveal to anyone else — will die with them because it has been passed to no other relative for forty-four years.
(Also available to read on Kindle Unlimited)
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Every Woman Dreams... 