Spring 2012

CAPTIVE HEART is a February ebook in Samhain’s new Retro Romance line. I traveled through Scandinavia to do research for the book. There are museums displaying one thousand-year-old beautifully crafted items from the Vikings’ daily lives. I love their fantastical intertwined designs  decorating nearly everything. Their artists  embellished every available surface. There is also a museum at Roskilde, Denmark with five Viking ships that were recovered from the harbor in 1962. In approximately 1070, the ships were sunk to protect the city from invasion. Preserved by the icy waters of the North Sea, they are displayed in a stark modern building by the shore. Standing beside them, I felt an eerie sensation, as though the ships were haunted by the brave men who’d sailed them.            

In CAPTIVE HEART, Celiese d’Loganville lives in a shadow. Though she is the beloved handmaiden of a Viking lord’s daughter, it matters little. She is a slave in a gilded cage who tells no one of the violent Viking raid that haunts her memories. Or the daily nightmare her life has become. When her mistress refuses to wed a man rumored to be horribly disfigured, Celiese seizes her one chance for freedom. Maybe even love. No one needs to know the face behind the veil is an imposter.

Mylan has no need of a wife who’d pity him. But the enchanting and perplexing young woman presented to him boldly ignores his scars even as her eyes betray a nameless fear. Rousing within him a need to soothe her with a gentleness she didn’t expect…and seduce her with tender persuasion. When treachery parts them at dawn, Celiese must fight for her life, for her dream of home and family…and to regain Mylan’s shattered trust and love. Filled with romance and adventure, CAPTIVE HEART is a lush romance, the type that made the historical genre so popular.

FIERCE LOVE will be a May release from Samhain Publishing. The inspiration for the story came when a dear family friend married a bullfighter’s daughter. A bullfighter’s daughter! It was a beautiful wedding, and I met the matador, but my story is a wholly imaginative one. Many famous men have a succession of wives and clusters of children with each one. My heroine, Magdalena Aragon, was born after her parents divorced, and she’s never met her father. When he summons her to Spain, she goes intent upon telling him what a failure he was as a father. When she finds him seriously ill, nothing she’d meant to say is appropriate.

Her half brother, Santos, tells her fascinating stories about their kin. Her father’s protégé, a Gypsy, Rafael Mondragon, coldly views Maggie as a rival for her father’s time, until he discovers she shares his passion for flamenco. This is a couple that dances their way to love. The real danger lurks outside the bullring, and the exciting love story escapes tragedy by mere seconds. Maggie regards bullfighting as animal abuse and there are no detailed bullfights in the book. There is a tangled family with all the resulting drama, and a love story you’re unlikely to forget. I’m working on Santos’ story now because the powerful Aragon family has so many intriguing stories to follow.

Spring 2011

WHERE DREAMS BEGIN is my June 2011 release from Samhain Publishing. Catherine Brooks is a young widow who seeks to rebuild her life by volunteering at Lost Angel, a center for homeless and runaway teenagers in Hollywood, California. A former high school English teacher, she’s looking for valuable experience that will ease her return to the classroom in the fall.

Luke Starns is the center’s director. He lost his teenage daughter to suicide, his marriage collapsed soon afterward, and he’s fighting to hold together what remains of his life. He’s a psychologist and resigned from a prestigious university position to create a safe haven at Lost Angel. He believes Catherine is too sympathetic to be an effective volunteer. She doubts he has the heart to do his job well.

WHERE DREAMS BEGIN opens with a murder. A pimp  who’s preyed upon pretty runaways is murdered by a woman dressed in red who strolls away in platform heels. Luke says, “Good riddance”. Certain nothing is as it seems, Catherine believes there’s far more to the mystery. When two more pimps die, police detectives suspect the murderer in the red dress might be a teenager from Lost Angel. Luke adamantly denies it, but Catherine can’t help but wonder. Both Catherine and Luke need each other’s love to heal their broken hearts, but with danger circling ever closer, the real challenge may be to survive.

I hope everyone loves the book and will consider posting a review on Amazon.com.

I downloaded the free Kindle for Mac program and have begun reading ebooks. You don’t have to buy a Kindle, or other ebook reader to enjoy ebooks. The free Kindle for Mac and free Kindle for PC make it possible to easily buy and enjoy ebooks. The large print on the computer screen is so easy to read, which is another bonus!

Fall 2010

Darcy MacLeod is a landscape designer in a quaint beach town, and part owner of the popular nursery and gift shop, Defy the World Tomatoes. When Griffin Moore, a renown concert pianist, moves into town and hires Darcy to landscape his new home, she finds the handsome man not only irresistible, but darkly dangerous as well. Griffin is a man as passionate as his music, and as he draws Darcy into his extravagant world, she must fight not to lose her own.

DEFY THE WORLD TOMATOES, will be released in ebook format from Samhain Publishing, Ltd. in November.