Mick is willing to go along with this bet because the reward will help support his large family of siblings, and he’d like to get to know Winnie better. He’s pure Cockney from Cornwall, but he’s not a big enough fool to turn down a big break. Still, he’s more into flirting and trying to talk his teacher into risqué behavior than practicing his homework. While the two fall in love, she manages to transform her pupil into the suave, handsome Michael, Viscount Bartonreed—a stranger Winnie doesn’t like nearly as well as the happy-go-lucky commoner.
True love lies ahead, but only after they complete this ruse (which eventually gives Winnie morality pangs) and learn the truth behind both the wager and Mick’s background.
64
The Raven Prince
ELIZABETH HOYT
HISTORICAL / 2006
“The combination of a horse galloping far too fast, a muddy lane with a curve, and a lady pedestrian is never a good one. Even in the best of circumstances, the odds of a positive outcome are depressingly low. But add a dog—a very big dog—and, Anna Wren reflected, disaster becomes inescapable.”
You might call it a true-to-life fairy tale—a retelling of Beauty and the Beast. This one is a fan favorite—and we’re definitely fans!
The Raven Prince is the first in Hoyt’s Princes trilogy.
The Raven Prince was Hoyt’s debut historical.
Anna Wren, a widow, finds herself in financial straits, forcing her to seek employment. Edward de Raaf, the Earl of Swartingham, needs a secretary—someone who can put up with him (not an easy task). They settle into an uneasy alliance.
But Edward has needs … you know, needs. And Anna has needs of the same variety. Still, it’s unthinkable that they could even admit such a thing to one another, let alone assuage their needs together. So Edward decides to visit a brothel, and Anna conceives a plan that will satisfy them both.
But Edward is also intent on forming a betrothal with someone who isn’t Anna, and it’ll take some doing to convince him that love really can conquer all.
65
River of Fire
MARY JO PUTNEY
HISTORICAL / 1996
“The situation was even worse than he’d feared.”
Deeply emotional, this one will stay with you long after you read the last page.
Putney is not afraid to tackle tough subject matters. She’s written about alcoholism, domestic violence, and other social ills but always leaves her readers with a feeling that hope can triumph.
River of Fire is the sixth title in Putney’s The Fallen Angels series.
Kenneth Wilding returns home from fighting the Napoleonic Wars and discovers that his estate is ruined and his sister dowry-less. In order to repair his fortunes, he accepts a paid commission to uncover a murderer. Doing so requires that he get a job as a secretary to an artist (Sir Anthony Seaton), which he is able to do because of his knowledge of art. When he was younger, Kenneth had been interested in artistic pursuits, but his father, Viscount Kimball, dismissed such hobbies as unsuitable.
While in Sir Anthony’s employ, Kenneth realizes he has never lost his own desire to paint—and discovers a desire to possess the artist’s daughter.
Rebecca Seaton is something of an outcast in society—at seventeen, she foolishly eloped, and in their eyes is “ruined.” She now spends her time painting, despite the fact that society does not believe that women can create true art. She and Kenneth come to care for each other, but can their love survive Kenneth’s unmasking?
66
The Rogue Hunter
LYNSAY SANDS
PARANORMAL / 2008
“Warm summer air swam over Tanya as she stepped out into the night.”
Sands knows the meaning of escapism, and she delivers! This one is lighthearted and fun.
The Rogue Hunter is the tenth in Sands’s hugely popular Argeneau series.
Garret Mortimer has spent 800 years as a bachelor. (And you thought your last boyfriend was commitment shy.) He’s a rogue hunter who keeps vampires from behaving badly, which is a task made both easier and harder by the fact that he, too, is a vampire. Right now, he’s been sent to stop a vampire who has been committing a bunch of no-nos.
Samantha Willan is a lawyer of the workaholic type, and she needs a break. Some fun in the sun with her sisters is just the ticket. Still smarting from her last romantic entanglement, she’s not about to put her heart on the line again. But that neighbor sure is sexy….
Can their attraction really be true love? Forever is a long time to a vampire.
Top Five Sexy Cars
These babies will make you (and him!) drool.
Anything Porsche
Bentley Continental
Alfa Romeo Competizione
Aston Martin Vanquish (or the Virage. Either way.)
Corvette Stingray
67
The Runaway McBride
ELIZABETH THORNTON
HISTORICAL / 2009
“It was February, the coldest, most miserable February in Scottish memory.”
An historical with a paranormal touch—what’s not to love? At turns charming, passionate, and poignant, this book shows why Thornton’s a master.
Thornton fell in love with the genre by reading Georgette Heyer (who can blame her?). She’s also a Harry Potter fan. (So are we!)
Widower James Burnett isn’t sure he appreciates his grandmother’s gift—the gift of clairvoyance. On her deathbed, she tells James that his bride is in danger. James doesn’t have a bride. He does have memories of Faith McBride—the one he calls Faithless. And if she’s the one in danger, James isn’t sure he cares.
Until the visions start.
Faith McBride waited for James. Waited and waited, and then she learned that he married someone else. So she can be forgiven her cynicism about love. Instead of looking for love, she’s looking into her mother’s death—but someone doesn’t want her to.
James can save her from the murderer, but can Faith trust him with her heart again?
68
Saving Grace
JULIE GARWOOD
HISTORICAL / 1994
“‘Holy Bishop Hallwick, will you explain to us the hierarchy in heaven and on earth? Who is the most esteemed in God’s eyes?’ the student asked.”
Fans clamor for Garwood’s medieval Scottish romances, and for good reason! Saving Grace has realistic characters, a fine sense of humor, a well-drawn (but not overdrawn) romantic setting—and a tender love story.
More than 35 million copies of Garwood’s books are in print.
Happily widowed at sixteen, wealthy and beautiful Lady Johanna vows never to marry again—but King John (you may remember that he was a very bad man) intends to force her to marry the man he has chosen. Johanna’s foster brother talks his friend Gabriel MacBain, a Scottish warrior, into marrying her instead, knowing that John can’t have anyone good planned for her.
Gabriel is suspicious of all things English, including Johanna, and she has to learn to understand the new culture she’s thrust into—and how to stand up to Gabriel and his clan.
Just when they seem ready to love one another, court scheming threatens to tear them apart.
69
A Season of Angels
DEBBIE MACOMBER
CONTEMPORARY / 1993
“The manger was empty. Leah Lundberg walked past the nativity scene Providence Hospital put out every year, stopped, and stared. The north wind cut through her like a boning knife as Leah studied the ramshackle stable, her heart heavy, her life more so.”
Macomber’s heartwarming tale is sweet, sentimental, and hopeful.
Macomber was one of the first romance authors who published Christian romances that did not have to fit a standard, predictable formula and that included a variety of real-life problems and issues. Breaking the rules certainly paid off for Macomber and her readers!
In 2009, Macomber published a cookbook, a children’s book, an inspirational nonfiction title, and a handful of nov
els!
A Season of Angels is the first in Macomber’s Angelic Intervention series. Shirley, Goodness, and Mercy are each given a prayer to answer. Shirley must find young Timmy Potter a father, despite the fact that his mother Jody never wants to risk her heart again. Goodness must help Monica Fischer find a home of her own and a husband to love, although Monica has just about given up hope. Mercy has to help Leah Lundberg, who wants a child with her husband Andrew.
But answering prayers isn’t as simple as granting a wish.
70
Seductive as Flame
SUSAN JOHNSON
HISTORICAL / 2011
“The Duke and Duchess of Groveland were entertaining at their hunting lodge in the West Riding.”
Did someone turn up the heat in here?
Seductive as Flame is the most recent title in Johnson’s Bruton Street Bookstore series.
Johnson is known as a writer who writes hot. And she doesn’t disappoint with this title.
Alec Monro, Earl of Daigliesh, can have any woman he wants—and any woman would want him to want her. Wealthy, gorgeous, seductive—he’s every woman’s fantasy.
Enchanting and beautiful Zelda MacKenzie has an adventurous side. It’s 1894, and she’s just returned from a trip to the rain forest. But adventurous or not, she has no interest in rakes—and Alec is a married man. Her lack of interest in him makes her a challenge Alec is most delighted to take on….
But what he doesn’t realize is that he’ll fall in love.
You’ll wonder how they’ll ever reach their happily ever after right up to the end.
71
Sense and Sensibility
JANE AUSTEN
CONTEMPORARY AT THE TIME, NOW HISTORICAL / 1811
“The family of Dashwood had long been settled in Sussex. Their estate was large, and their residence was at Norland Park, in the centre of their property, where, for many generations, they had lived in so respectable a manner as to engage the general good opinion of their surrounding acquaintance.”
Sense and Sensibility was the first published work by the world’s most seminal and beloved romantic fiction author, Jane Austen. Without this novel, which sparked Austen’s success, the romance world would be much different today. Austen first began writing Sense and Sensibility in 1795 when she was nineteen years old. The first draft of the novel was written in the form of letters, and called Elinor and Marianne. In 1811, the book, complete with a new title and new narrative form, was finally published—though Austen published it under the simple pseudonym of “A Lady.”
After Sense and Sensibility was accepted by the Military Library publishing house in London, Jane Austen had to pay out of her own pocket to have it published. The cost of publication was more than a third of Austen’s annual household income.
In 1995, a major Hollywood adaptation of Sense and Sensibility, written by Emma Thompson and directed by Ang Lee, was made. The film starred Thompson, Kate Winslet, Hugh Grant, and Alan Rickman, and won Thompson the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay.
Elinor, Marianne, and Margaret Dashwood’s lives are upturned when their father dies and their estate goes to their half-brother John, Mr. Dashwood’s son from his first marriage. John and his wife Fanny move in and reduce the Dashwood women to the status of unwelcome guests.
Then Fanny’s brother, Edward Ferrars, comes to town and develops feelings for Elinor, a connection that Fanny fervently objects to. When Fanny suggests to Mrs. Dashwood that Elinor is just after her brother’s money, Mrs. Dashwood moves her family to the smaller, less luxurious Barton Cottage in Devonshire. It is there that they meet Colonel Brandon, a quiet man who falls in love with Marianne. But Marianne considers Colonel Brandon, at thirty-five, to be too old for her.
One day, while out for a walk in the rain, Marianne slips and hurts her ankle, only to be rescued by the handsome, desirable John Willoughby. She falls head over heels for him and the two begin spending a lot of time together, despite the fact that Willoughby has not yet proposed marriage. Then, out of the blue, Willoughby tells Marianne that he is leaving for business in London and won’t be back. When the two finally meet again, Marianne is devastated to learn that he is engaged to someone else.
Meanwhile, Elinor still has feelings for Edward Ferrars, but learns that he’s been secretly engaged to a vulgar woman named Lucy Steele for four years.
The Dashwood women are distraught and lovelorn, but they soon realize that things may not always be what they seem.
72
Seven Tears for Apollo
PHYLLIS A. WHITNEY
ROMANTIC SUSPENSE / 1963
“The museum’s statue of Apollo was a copy. The original held a place of honor in Olympia in the faraway Peloponnese. On his pedestal, the god stood unclothed in the full magnificence of male youth.”
Whitney is a true grandmaster of the genre—and was awarded Grand Master status by the Mystery Writers of America. Seven Tears for Apollo is Whitney at her suspenseful best.
Whitney’s writing career spanned more than eighty years.
Dorcas Brandt suspects her husband Gino had some unsavory dealings in the art world, and after his death, her suspicions are confirmed when she is threatened by people who think she knows more than she does.
She and her young daughter escape to the Greek island of Rhodes, where she hopes they will be safe—but danger follows them, placing both Dorcas and her daughter in grave peril. Yet those around her fail to see the threats, leading Dorcas to wonder if she is slowly losing her mind.
Dorcas turns to Johnny Orion, a teacher who is traveling in Rhodes, for help, and as their relationship deepens, he comes to see that the threats to her are real. But ultimately, Dorcas must learn to stand up for herself to confront that evil that dogs her.
73
Shadow Dance
JULIE GARWOOD
CONTEMPORARY / 2006
“The wedding was no small affair. There were seven bridesmaids, seven groomsmen, three ushers, two altar boys, three lectors, and enough firepower inside the church to wipe out half the congregation. All but two of the groomsmen were armed.”
The way Garwood handles the taming of the bad boy by the unlikely heroine makes this one a must-read!
Garwood has also written a young adult novel called A Girl Named Summer.
Garwood is known for her historicals, but don’t miss her contemporaries—especially her stories of the Buchanans, like this one!
Eager readers of Garwood’s contemporaries waited for Noah Clayborne to get his story, and Garwood delivered!
Jordan Buchanan’s brother Dylan is getting married to her best friend, Kate MacKenna, but an unlikely wedding crasher in the form of a medieval history professor spoils the affair, leaving a warning about an ancient clash between the two families.
Jordan doesn’t know what to think, but when an encounter with family friend Noah Clayborne prompts her to do something spontaneous, she sets out to discover what the professor was talking about—only to find herself threatened. When she’s set up as a murderer, she calls in Noah and her brother Nick for backup. Dusty research was never so perilous—or so sexy!
74
Shattered Silk
BARBARA MICHAELS
ROMANTIC SUSPENSE / 1986
“They refused to let her drive them to the airport.”
A modern gothic with a heroine who learns to take back her life. Our kind of story!
Michaels writes mystery capers under the pen name Elizabeth Peters.
After her decade-long marriage crumbles, Karen Nevitt moves to Georgetown to live temporarily with her beloved aunt while she figures out what to do next. Karen’s focused on rebuilding her life, not looking for love—especially not in the form of Mark, the college boyfriend she left behind. He warned her not to marry the man, and now she thinks he’s going to say, “I told you so.”
It would be easier to avoid him if his sister Cheryl didn’t need a friend—and if Karen didn’t need a friend, too. Karen tak
es a job in an antiques shop and becomes interested in vintage clothing. With Cheryl’s encouragement and her aunt’s backing, Karen starts to plan to open her own shop.
But something’s not right in Georgetown—and Karen’s in danger. Unraveling why brings Mark back into her life, but this time as her equal. Karen finally learns to stand up for herself—and solves a decades-old murder.
75
The Sheik
E. M. HULL
CONTEMPORARY AT THE TIME, NOW HISTORICAL / 1919
“‘Are you coming in to watch the dancing, Lady Conway?’ ‘I most decidedly am not. I thoroughly disapprove of the expedition of which this dance is the inauguration. I consider that even by contemplating such a tour alone into the desert with no chaperon or attendant of her own sex, with only native camel drivers and servants, Diana Mayo is behaving with a recklessness and impropriety that is calculated to cast a slur not only on her own reputation but also on the prestige of her country. I blush to think of it.’”
The forerunner of all bodice-rippers, The Sheik is a product of its age. Reading it is an eye-opener—you’ll find out where so many of those romance tropes come from (including the seductive desert sheik!). This book was enormously influential on the romance genre.
Rudolph Valentino starred in the movie based on the book.
The 100 Best Romance Novels Page 8
