Can a Flame from the Past be Rekindled?Long ago, Sophie Lawrance chose prudence over passion, rejecting a rebellious young rogue for the sake of her family-no matter the ache it left in her heart. But after a specter from her father's past resurfaces, threatening to destroy all she holds dear, the desperate beauty knows there is only one man whose shadowy skills can save her.Or Is It Too Dangerous to Play with Fire?Cameron Daggett is a man of many secrets . . . and many sins. He's never forgotten the pain of losing Sophie. But now, with a chance to win her back, Cameron sets aside his anger and agrees to help Sophie save her father's honor. Together they embark on a perilous masquerade, leading them to a remote country estate near the sea. There, they must battle a cunning adversary-and their own burning desires. Will they be consumed by the flames? Or can they prove that true love conquers all?Review"Cara Elliott is an author to watch in the historical romance genre. ...TOO WICKED TO WED is a wickedly romantic read and comes highly recommended. I will be singing Ms. Elliott's praises for some time to come."(Romance Junkies 2011)"A really good romantic read filled with a good deal of mystery and danger as well. Cara Elliott knows how to write!" (Romance Reviews 2011)Praise for To Surrender to a Rogue:"...an astoundingly fresh, sexy historical. ...Witty dialogue...vivid settings...fast-paced and very believable" (wewriteromance.com Zara B. 2010)"Elliott's ability to merge adventure, romance and an intriguing historical backdrop will captivate her readers and earn their accolades." (Historical Romance Reviews, www.rtbookreviews.com Kathe Robin 2010) About the AuthorCara Elliott started writing Western novels at the age of five. Later she changed her genre to Regency romance after reading Pride and Prejudice. She graduated from Yale University, and she now lives and works in New York City.You can learn more at: CaraElliott.comTwitter, @CaraElliottFacebook, http://www.facebook.com/cara.elliott1 Views: 68
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.Chapter 1A HOUSE CRACKED AND TORNThe moor was grey, battlefield grey. It had been five years since the last fey was seen, but out here Jane could almost imagine the Great War still raged on. Grey mist drifted through the blackened trees, recalling the smoke from the crematory kilns. That was a constant smell in the last months of the war.Jane smoothed her old pea coat, shook the nerves and fatigue from her gloved fingers. She’d been up since dawn, rattling through the frostbitten February morning on smoky iron train and lurching motorcar, until now she stood alone on the moor, looking up at an ink black manor house that disappeared into the grey sky.The manor had been darkly beautiful once, full of odd minarets, fanciful gargoyles, and carved birds and beasts.A chill ran down her spine as she studied the design of the house. You didn’t have to be an architecture student to recognize who had drawn up the plans for it. It was clear in the imprint of every tower and flying buttress, clear in the intricate blue glass windows, clear in the way the gargoyles seemed to ready their wings to swoop down on you.The fey had designed this.The frothy structures were still perfect on the south end of the building, on the carriage house. On the north the house had war damage. It had been bombed, and now only the skeleton remained, the scraggly black structure sharp and jagged, mocking its former grace and charm.Just like me, Jane thought. Just like me.The iron mask on her face was cold in the chill air. She wrapped her veil more tightly around her face, tucked the ends into the worn wool coat. Helen’s best, but her sister would have better soon enough. Jane leapfrogged the bits of metal and broken stone to reach the front door, her T-strap leather shoes slipping on bits of mud, the chunky heels skidding on wet moss. She reached straight up to knock, quick, quick, before she could change her mind—and stopped.The doorknocker was not a pineapple or a brass hoop, but a woman’s face. Worse—a grotesque mockery of a woman, with pouched eyes, drooping nose, and gaping mouth. The knocker was her necklace, fitted close under her chin like a collar. An ugly symbol of welcome. Was this, too, part of the fey design?Jane closed her eyes.She had no more options. She’d worn out her welcome at her current teaching position—or, rather, her face had worn out her welcome for her. Her sister? Getting married and moving out. There had been more jobs for women, once, even women with her face. But then the war ended and the surviving men came slowly home. Wounded, weary men, grim and soul-scarred. One by one they convalesced and tried to reinsert themselves into a semblance of their former lives. One such would be teaching English at the Norwood Charity School for Girls instead of Jane.Jane stuffed her hands into the coat’s patch pockets (smart with large tortoiseshell buttons; her sister certainly had taste), touched the clipping she knew by heart.Governess needed, country house, delicate situation. Preference given to applicant with intimate knowledge of the child’s difficulties. Girl born during the Great War.Delicate and difficulties had drawn Jane’s attention, but it was the phrase Girl born during the Great War that had let Jane piece the situation together. A couple letters later, she’d been sure she was right.And that’s why she was here, wasn’t she? It wasn’t just because she had no other options.It was because she could help this girl.Jane glared at the hideous doorknocker, grabbed it, and banged it on the door. She’d made it this far, and she wasn’t going to be scared off by ornamental hardware.The door opened on a very short, very old person standing there in a butler’s livery. The suit suggested a man, but the long grey braid and dainty chin—no, Jane was sure it was a woman. The butler’s face was seamed, her back, rounded. But for all that, she had the air of a scrappy bodyguard, and Jane wouldn’t have been surprised if that lump in her suit coat was a blackjack or iron pipe, hidden just out of sight.The butler’s bright eyes flicked to Jane’s veil, glimmered with interested that Jane could not parse. She tapped her fingers on her bristly chin, grinned with sharp teeth. “An’ ye be human, enter,” the butler said formally, and so Jane crossed the iron threshold and entered the manor.It was darker inside than out. The round foyer had six exits. The front door and the wide stairs opposite made up two. The other four were archways hung with heavy velvet curtains in dark colors: garnet and sapphire on the left, forest green and mahogany on the right. Worn tapestries hung on the stone walls between the curtains, dampening the thin blue of a fey-lit chandelier. Fey technology had mostly disappeared from the city as the lights and bluepacks winked out one by one and could not be replaced. It was back to candles and horses—though some who were both wealthy and brave were trying the new gaslights and steam-cars. Some who were merely brave were attempting to retrofit the bluepack motorcars with large devices that burned oil and let off a terrible smell—like the car that had brought her from the station. The housekeeper must have husbanded the chandelier lights carefully to make it last so long, when all fey trade had vanished.“I’ll take your coat. That way for the artist,” said the little butler, and she gestured at the first doorway on the left, the garnet-red curtains.“No, I’ve come for the governess position,” said Jane, but the butler was already retreating through the sapphire curtains with Jane’s coat and pasteboard suitcase, grey braid swinging. In that padded room her words died the second they fell from her lips.Her steps made no noise as she walked over to draw back the curtain. It was not a hallway, but a small chamber, papered in the same deep garnet and lit with one flickering candle.On the walls were rows of masks.Jane stared. The masks were as grotesque as the doorknocker. Each was uniquely hideous, and yet there was a certain similarity in the way the glistening skin fell in bags and folds. Clearly they were all made by the same artist, but what sort of man would create these monstrosities—and who would buy them? They would fit a person, but surely no one would wear them, even for a whimsy like that masked cocktail party Helen had attended. In the flickering oil light they looked hyper-real, alive. Like something fey from the old days, before trade had given way to war. She lifted her veil to see more clearly, reached up to touch one sagging cheek.“Do you like my collection?”Jane jumped back, wrapping her veil close.A man stood in the curtained entrance. The garnet folds swung around him as he stepped inside, stared down at her. He was very close and very tall in that narrow room, and his eyes were in shadow.“Do people actually buy these?” she said, and was aghast at having blurted out something so rude.But he didn’t look offended. “You’d be surprised,” he said, still studying her. He was not handsome, not as Helen would describe it—not soft and small-nosed, no ruddy cheeks and chin. He was all angles, the bones of his cheek and jaw plainly visible, and his hair leaped skyward as if it would not stay flat.Jane tugged on the corner of the veil. She knew how much the gauze did and didn’t cover. The folds of the white veil obscured the details of her iron half-mask, but they didn’t hide that it existed. She caught them all looking, men, women, children. They stared into her veil, fascinated, appalled, trying not to get caught.But he was staring into her eyes.Jane marshaled her thoughts. “I’m here from the city,” she said. “I need a job.” She had not planned to state it so baldly, but he and his leering masks threw her from her stride, and now the words were confused. They stumbled from her tongue, and she felt awkward and stupidly young, though she had been making her own living for nearly five years.She especially felt foolish when he nodded and said, “I know. I bargained with old Peter to pick you up. Only reliable chap in town, when it comes to venturing out to Silver Birch.”“Oh,” she said. Her driver. Of course. “Yes, thank you.”“I would’ve sent the motorcar, but we’re down to the last full-size bluepack, and after that...” He shrugged.“No horses?”“They don’t take to this house very well. The forest makes them skittish.” He crossed his arms, his sleeve brushing her bare elbow. She had put on her best dress—a patterned navy one with short ruffled sleeves, though she had regretted it frequently in the cold and again now. Almost spring was the worst—the last cold and wet of winter when you were dying for bare arms and sunshine. “Tell me about yourself.”“I’ve been working as a teacher,” she said, “and before that I was a governess. My strength is literature and composition, but I’ve taught all subjects. I speak three languages and I know how to help your—”“I know,” he said. “I saw your curriculum vitae before. I wrote you about it. I want to know about you.”Her ruined cheek burned, hot under the iron. It was both at the implication that she’d said something foolish, and at the idea that he wanted to know her. The embarrassment was quickly consumed by anger, always close at hand since that day during the war. “What more do you need to know? You received my letters of recommendation.”He scratched his chin, studying her closely. “In five years you’ve had four positions. Each one praised your knowledge, punctuality,... Views: 68
Defiant in the Desert Only scandal will do Sara Williams's hand in marriage was bought to cover a debt. But she's determined never to marry anyone! Diplomat Suleiman Abd al-Aziz must deliver Sara to her desert destiny. But with Sara set on escaping her marriage by seducing him, his iron will is sorely tested! The Sheikh's Undoing Life in the fast lane! Independent Prince Tariq Kadar al Hakam counts on no one. So when a car accident leaves this dynamic sheikh reliant on his sensible PA, Isobel Mulholland, he's furious! But with Isobel at his beck and call, could her enchanting touch, in fact, be Tariq's undoing…?** Views: 68
A young boy growing up in the Oregon wilderness dreams of becoming a logger Little Joe has been sawing trees since he was 5 years old. A child of the Oregon hills, he spends his days scampering through the forest around his family's cabin. Ever since he was old enough to hold an ax, he's wanted to be a logger like his daddy. He wants to wear boots with nails on them, saw down the mightiest trees in the forest, and holler "Timber!" as they come crashing to the ground. Little Joe has logging in his blood. Finally, Little Joe is old enough for his 1st visit to a logging camp. He sees the great machines taking down trees and loading them onto trucks, and he wants to be a logger more than ever. But as he grows up, he will find there are better ways to show his love for the forest than cutting it down. Views: 68
Silas has to do everything in his power to protect Christa. But trying to keep her safe might be easier for him than facing the fact that he’s developing feelings for her. Views: 68
The second boxed set, Cherry Ames Boxed Set, Books 5-8, contains four early Cherry classics: Flight Nurse, Veterans' Nurse, Private Duty Nurse, and Visiting Nurse.Cherry Ames, Flight NurseIn Flight Nurse, the United States is still fighting World War II. Cherry Ames is still an Army Nurse, this time aloft—as a flight nurse. Cherry is reunited with her corpsman Bunce—the two of them are in sole charge of ferrying severely wounded men out of the battlefield and to the nearest Army hospital. Much to Pilot Wade Cooper's chagrin, he has been taken off bomber duty to fly the wounded to safety—until Cherry makes him see otherwise. Off duty, the nurses "adopt" 6-year-old Muriel Grainger, who has known nothing but war in her short life, and whose mother has been killed by the Germans. Her father is often out on mysterious errands that cause some to label him a "spy." Cherry makes it her risky business to find out if this... Views: 68
Veronica, a hippopotamus who wants to stand out from the herd and be famous, travels to the big city where she indeed does stand out. Causing traffic jams, blocking sidewalks, and devouring a pushcart vendor's vegetables in one big gulp, Veronia is arrested and jailed. How she discovers that there is no place like home is told with warm humor and sublimely mirthful illustrations that are great fun to share with a young child. Views: 68
On Earth, Amanda Powell is as good as dead. With her father in way too deep with a ruthless cartel, it is only a matter of time until his enemies come after her. If she wants to stay alive, she has only one choice. She must offer her body in return for passage off the planet.Soon enough, she has agreed to become the temporary property of two Ventori mercenaries. For two years, she will belong to these stern, handsome aliens, and during that time they will have the right to do with her as they please. They will take her as hard and often as they like, in the most shameful of ways, and any protest will merely earn her a painful, humiliating spanking.Even as she is being trained for their use, however, the battle-hardened warriors find that Amanda appeals to them in a way they did not expect, and some deep and primal part of them demands that they claim her as their mate. But when the intensity of their need for her threatens their ability to lead their men, will Amanda’s presence prove catastrophic for everyone involved?Publisher’s Note: Trained for Their Use includes spankings and sexual scenes. If such material offends you, please don’t buy this book. Views: 68
When school teacher Lily Barton flies to Rome at Christmas to see her brother, the last thing she expects is to be kidnapped by the demanding and sinfully attractive Count Scarletti! Captivated by his glare, will she defy his demands?Dmitri Scarletti's sister has run off with Lily's brother and until he finds them, he's holding Lily hostage. But soon Lily's fiery nature incites a white-hot heat that even the Count can't resist. He has one night beneath the mistletoe to fulfill his every desire, for in the morning he'll be forced to let her go... Won't he? Views: 68
