Essie Spreckelmeyer cannot make herself into the ideal woman her hometown and her mother expect her to be; when Essie reaches her thirtieth birthday, she makes a list of all the eligible men in town and decides to pursue Hamilton Crook.

Valancy Stirling, 29, lives with her overbearing mother and meddlesome aunt and worries that she will never find love and marriage. She finds the only consolation for her loneliness in the "forbidden" books of John Foster and her daydreams of the Blue Castle. But when a letter arrives from Dr. Trent she finally dares to do and say exactly what she wants to with surprising and wonderful results.

James, Lord Kirkland, owns a shipping fleet, half a London gaming house, and is a ruthlessly effective spymaster. Laurel Herbert gave James her heart as an innocent young girl, until she saw him perform an act of shocking violence. That night she left the husband who is far more than the fashionable lord he seems, and he let her go without a word of protest. Now, ten years later, a chance encounter turns passionate, with consequences that cannot be...

Lyric Bolton doesn't ask for much--just friendship and acceptance from her rural Missouri community. But her family is regarded with suspicion and fear because of her mother's sickness--a sickness of the mind that grows worse by the day. Lyric is resigned to a life of isolation and doesn't see any way out...but that's before Ian Cawley bolts into her life on a runaway stallion. As she opens her heart to Ian, Lyric dares to imagine a different life....

Embracing her singleness after suffering through four seasons in London, buxom beauty Joan Benet, who longs for excitement, decides to become the kept woman of a rakish earl or similarly exciting scoundrel and sets her sights on her brother's best friend, Tristan, Lord Burke.

Alice Chesterfield is a woman pursued. Having survived an attack that left her scarred and her father dead, she is never free from the fear and memories of the man who is responsible. Texas seems to be an answer to Alice's prayers, and when she has the opportunity to relocate to a ranch near Dallas, a new man captures Alice's attention. Robert Barnett is unlike any man Alice has ever known: He doesn't seem to mind the scar she bears, nor does he worry...

In 1779, when genteel Virginia spinster Roxanna Rowan arrives at the Kentucky fort commanded by Colonel Cassius McLinn, she finds that her officer father has died. Penniless and destitute, Roxanna is forced to take her father's place as scrivener. Before long, it's clear that the colonel himself is attracted to her. But she soon realizes the colonel has grave secrets of his own--some of which have to do with her father's sudden death. Can she ever...

Addy Lockwood's mother died when she was little, so Addy traveled with her father's Wild West Show and became an amazingly skillful trick rider, likened by some to the famous Annie Oakley. When her father died, she continued to work with the show, having nowhere else to go. Now Addy has discovered that "Uncle" Jason, the show's manager, has driven the show into debt, and he's absconded with what little money was left. Devastated, Addy decides to try...

Lady Calpurnia Hartwell has always followed the rules, rules that have left her unmarried--and more than a little unsatisfied. And so she's vowed to break the rules and live the life of pleasure she's been missing.

Boston antiques dealer Abby Randolph, betrayed by an old friend, dumped by her lover, and grieving the death of her mom, makes the surprising discovery that an old chamber pot she inherited from her mother once belonged to poet Elizabeth Barrett Browning and is worth nearly one hundred thousand dollars--a fact that brings a lot of people from her past calling.