When this rake is finally reformed, it’s to the great satisfaction of everyone (including the reader).
44
Lord of the Night
SUSAN WIGGS
HISTORICAL / 1994
“Sandro Cavalli’s day took a turn for the worse when he walked into the airy, sunlit studio and encountered a naked woman.”
Known for her contemporary romances and women’s fiction, Wiggs also writes a compelling historical. This is her best.
Wiggs has won the RITA award three times, including one for Lord of the Night.
Wiggs finished her first novel when she was eight years old. Talk about precocious!
Set in sixteenth-century Venice, this novel follows the relationship between Sandro Cavalli (Lord of the Night) and the beautiful Laura Bandello.
Sandro is a nobleman who, as head of the sixteenth-century Venetian version of the police, brings criminals to justice. Laura is a commoner, training as a painter with the famed Titian with dreams of being admitted to the Academy (all male, of course).
When an important man is killed and Laura is assaulted, the two are thrown together—but they are separated not only by age (Sandro is nearly twice her age) but by social class. Yet in facing dangers together, they not only unravel the mystery but also find their common ground.
45
Love’s Tender Fury
JENNIFER WILDE
HISTORICAL / 1976
“Pale, shaken, the girl descended the stairs clutching her pathetically battered bag and trying not to sob.”
This book never sits still and even contemporary readers will appreciate Marietta’s Unsinkable Mollie Brown attitude.
Love’s Tender Fury was the first romance that romance writer Linda Francis Lee read after a friend gave it to her as comfort when her high school boyfriend invited someone else to the prom.
Jennifer Wilde was the pen name for Tom E. Huff, who died in 1990. Tom Huff also wrote category romance novels as Beatrice Parker, Edwina Marlow, and Katherine St. Clair before finding fame in the historical romance category.
Huff earned a Career Achievement Award from Romantic Times.
Marietta Danver was not exactly living a charmed life. Her employer raped her, a jealous mistress accused her of theft, and the feisty redhead found herself shipped to the Colonies to become a bond-servant for fourteen years to the highest bidder while she stood on the block.
Derek Hawke becomes her master in more ways than one, but sells her when he catches her helping two slaves escape his property. In her escape from the bondservant life, she makes her way to New Orleans, where she takes up with a man and together they run a gambling house. But Jeff tragically dies before he marries her, leaving Marietta penniless enough to be forced into marrying a rich German sadist who owns most of Natchez.
All the while, she pines for Derek and the chance to rekindle that spark they had.
It’s only a matter of time before Marietta’s German husband turns against her when she again pitches in to help someone—her sister-in-law this time—flee his evil grip. It’s up to Derek to charge in and save her and their love, which continues across swashbuckling adventures in Love Me, Marietta and When Love Commands. The story continues to enjoy good reviews from modern-day readers who identify with the hero and heroine more sympathetically than with other classic pairings from the bodice-ripper days.
46
Lucky’s Lady
TAMI HOAG
ROMANTIC SUSPENSE / 1991
“‘You want to do what, chère?’ Serena Sheridan took a deep breath and tried again. ‘I need to hire a guide to take me to the swamp.’”
Hoag’s later novels are more suspense than romance, and her earlier novels are more romance than suspense; Lucky’s Lady is a perfectly balanced blend of both—page turning, sexy, romantic.
Hoag’s first thriller, Night Sins, was made into a miniseries.
Hoag competes in the equestrian sport of dressage.
Serena Sheridan returns to Louisiana to find her missing grandfather and enlists the help of Etienne Doucet (Lucky), who can guide her through the swamps and backwoods of the area. Serena’s missing grandfather is just the beginning of her problems, though; her sister wants to sell their family home to an oil company, and Serena fears this will create an ecological disaster. Drama ensues and Serena’s life is threatened.
Lucky is a madly attractive, rough-and-ready Cajun and Serena can’t help falling into bed with him any more than she can help falling in love with him. But he has reasons for not wanting to settle down.
Hoag’s evocative setting makes you feel like you’re right there in the swamps with them.
47
Mackenzie’s Mountain
LINDA HOWARD
CONTEMPORARY / 1989
“He needed a woman. Bad.”
Mackenzie’s Mountain is classic romance.
This is the first in the Mackenzie family series.
Linda Howard wrote for her own personal enjoyment for twenty-one years before deciding to submit a manuscript for publication.
Mary Elizabeth Potter is a spinster school teacher. Vietnam vet Wolf Mackenzie is a half-breed (the epitome of a romance hero!) who belongs in neither of the worlds he’s part of. Mary goes toe-to-toe with him over sending his son to school, and the two of them develop an unlikely relationship. They are opposites in all ways (she wears her heart on her sleeve, he is deeply reserved; she is innocent, he is experienced) yet their attraction seems believable—and it crackles on the page.
While everyone else sees him as a dangerous criminal (he did not commit the crime), she is able to see the true person he is. When a string of crimes occurs in the small town where they live, Wolf is the main suspect. Will the true criminal be found, will Wolf be able to make peace with the townspeople who are so deeply suspicious of him, and can Mary and Wolf find their way to a happily ever after?
48
Married by Morning
LISA KLEYPAS
HISTORICAL / 2010
“Anyone who had ever read a novel knew that governesses were supposed to be meek and downtrodden. They were also supposed to be quiet, subservient, and obedient, not to mention deferential to the master of the house. Leo, Lord Ramsay, wondered in exasperation why they couldn’t have gotten one of those.”
A delightful take on the classic romance theme of lord-of-the-manor-marries-the-governess.
Married by Morning hit #3 on the New York Times bestseller list.
Married by Morning is the fourth book in the Hathaways series.
Catherine Marks is the former governess of and now companion (the paid kind of companion) to the Hathaway sisters. Leo Hathaway (Lord Ramsay), the sisters’ older brother, learns that to keep the family home he must immediately marry and produce an heir.
Cat and Leo have never gotten along, but their arguments hide a mutual attraction that blazes into full force the first time they kiss. So Leo proposes that Cat become his wife. A perfectly sensible solution.
But Cat and Leo both have pasts that keep them from being able to give themselves fully. Leo is tortured by the death of his former love, and his feelings of culpability in the death of one of his sisters; Cat comes from a horrific home, barely escaping being forced into prostitution by her evil aunt. Though Cat and Leo try to keep the past in the past, it doesn’t want to stay there. Can they deal with their demons to get to their happily ever after?
49
Mistress
AMANDA QUICK
HISTORICAL / 1995
“‘Your latest mistress is creating a sensation back in London, Masters. Society finds her vastly entertaining.’ Charles Trescott, seated before the fireplace, downed a swallow of brandy and eyed his host with a sly expression.”
Amanda Quick, Jane Ann Krentz’s pseudonym for her historical genre books, gives us a heroine who doesn’t make virgin synonymous with naïve.
Iphiginia (pronounced Eff en jeh NEE uh) was the daughter of Agamemnon and Clytemnestra in G
reek mythology, with a name that means “born to strength.”
Financially independent, twenty-seven-year-old Iphiginia Bright has a brilliant plan and her Aunt Zoe’s best interests at heart: In order to find the blackguard blackmailing this sweet woman, Iphiginia decides to pose as Marcus Cloud, the Earl of Masters’s, mistress. After all, he’s dead, so what’s to trip up this disguise that will lead her to uncover the villain’s identity?
Well, the earl himself, for starters, who strolls into a ballroom as alive as any well-dressed noble in the room. Intrigued at what this newcomer, now infamously known as Lady Starlight, is trying to pull off, he backs her mistress story. After all, one of his friends is also being blackmailed, so he has something to gain from getting to the bottom of the mystery as well. He’s bulletproof to emotional danger, thanks to his five guiding principles:
Never remarry.
Never discuss the past.
Never explain his actions to others.
Never retreat from an objective or alter a decision.
Never get involved with virgins or other men’s wives.
Of course, you can’t call off the hormones when a smart, beautiful woman declares herself a handsome, rich man’s paramour, despite what isn’t happening between the sheets. Marcus’s seduction attempts lend the sexy to this story, which ends up as much about how he learns to let go of his rigid rules for living as it does catching a blackmailer.
And in a refreshing twist to the usual Regency novel to that date, the two are deceiving society, not each other.
50
Montana Sky
NORA ROBERTS
CONTEMPORARY / 1996
“Being dead didn’t make Jack Mercy less of a son of a bitch. One week of dead didn’t offset sixty-eight years of being mean. Plenty of people gathered by his grave would be happy to say so.”
One of Roberts’s nonseries titles, Montana Sky showcases her at her storytelling best, as she juggles the demands of telling three romances—not to mention working in a suspenseful subplot and capturing the setting with vivid accuracy—all without dropping a ball.
Nora Roberts is definitely the MVP of our favorite genre! When the Romance Writers of America Hall of Fame was established, Roberts was the first author to be inducted.
According to Publishers Weekly, Roberts writes eight hours a day. Every. Single. Day.
She’s written more than 200 romance novels, and she shows no signs of stopping! She passed the 100-novel mark with Montana Sky.
Montana Sky was made into a Lifetime movie.
When rancher Jack Mercy dies, he leaves his valuable ranch (worth millions) to his three daughters (all by different mothers) with one caveat—the three, who are basically strangers to one another, must live together on the ranch for a year or else lose it entirely.
Willa, Tess, and Lily are thrown together and must learn to get along. Willa, the bossy type, is the only one of them who knows anything about running a ranch. Hard-headed Ben is the only possible match for her.
Tess likes the idea of inheriting money but not of living with her sisters. A Hollywood type, she succumbs to the charms of the cowboy Nate.
Lily, a quiet woman suffering from her abusive marriage and subsequent divorce, is glad to have a place to go to. Adam, the calmest of the men in their lives, is the balm Lily needs to heal.
As each woman learns to get along with her sisters and overcome the obstacles in her love relationship, the stakes are upped when someone starts committing gruesome atrocities on the ranch. Who would commit such heinous acts—and why?
51
More than a Mistress
MARY BALOGH
HISTORICAL / 2000
“The two gentlemen who were in their shirt sleeves despite the brisk chill of a spring morning were about to blow each other’s brains out. Or attempt to do so, at least.”
Balogh comes into her own with this novel, a charming Regency with a twist. The standard plot device is for the aristocrat’s wife to feel threatened by his mistress and for him to give up his mistress and declare his love for his wife. Here, the aristocrat falls in love with his mistress. Unthinkable!
More than a Mistress is one of two connected books (the other being No Man’s Mistress), with a prequel called The Secret Mistress rounding out the Mistress series. It was Balogh’s hardcover debut.
Jocelyn Dudley, the incorrigible Duke of Tresham, is shot during (yet another) duel. Jane Ingleby, who was trying to prevent it, rushes to his aid. Though Jocelyn finds her bold and impudent, he is deeply attracted to her and sets her up as his mistress.
Jane accepts the arrangement in order to keep a secret, telling herself it’s just business. She is not, actually, a commoner, but in fact Lady Sara Illingsworth—and she believes she has killed a man.
The two are, naturally, stubborn, headstrong, and unwilling to admit that their mutual attraction has deepened into something more lasting. Jane doesn’t dare reveal her secret, not even to Jocelyn. And Jocelyn, a confirmed bachelor, would never make the foolish mistake of falling in love with his mistress—would he?
52
Naked in Death
J. D. ROBB
FUTURISTIC / 2004
“She woke in the dark. Through the slats on the window shades, the first murky hint of dawn slipped, slanting shadowy bars over the bed. It was like waking in a cell.”
Here Robb (the pen name of Nora Roberts) shows she can deliver fast-paced suspense with emotional resonance—all the while building a world of the future.
Naked in Death is the first in Robb’s hugely popular In Death series. The other novels follow Dallas through other cases.
Set in a slightly future New York City, Naked in Death follows Lt. Eve Dallas as she tracks a murderer. A senator’s granddaughter is killed with an old-fashioned gun, and Dallas is plunged into a violent case that brings her into contact with the wealthy and dangerous Roarke, a prime suspect.
Though Dallas wants to believe that the attractive and oh-so-sexy Roarke is what she believes he is (a man skating the edge between legal and illegal, but not a murderer), the evidence doesn’t seem to back her up.
Robb creates a stunningly believable future world while delivering a page-turning mystery—and oh my, is that romance hot.
53
Natural Born Charmer
SUSAN ELIZABETH PHILLIPS
CONTEMPORARY / 2007
“It wasn’t every day a guy saw a headless beaver marching down the side of a road, not even in Dean Robillard’s larger-than-life world. ‘Son of a….’ Dean slammed on the brakes of his brand-new Aston Martin Vanquish and pulled over in front of her.”
The witty, smart-alecky dialogue and ego smackdowns between everyone in this story keep you laughing and turning pages.
This book, number seven and the last in the author’s Chicago Stars series, has a strong male bent that attracted a few Y-chromosome fans, too.
Phillips met her husband on a blind date, and now they have two grown sons.
Dean Robillard has it made in the shade as an NFL quarterback hotshot millionaire with an underwear advertising contract on the side that means his physique is plastered billboard-size across America. His problem? He’s not sure this is the life for him, so he sets off on a Colorado backwoods trek for some alone time to think deep thoughts.
Unfortunately, he runs into Blue Bailey in this back of beyond, a spunky gal on a mission to murder her ex, if she could only get out of the advertising beaver suit she donned in one of her desperate schemes to earn money. He gives her a lift, and the two end up together for weeks that include returning to his Tennessee farm, where his contrite, former groupie mother shows up trying to make amends for giving her son a lousy childhood, and the rock star father he never knew drops in when Dean’s eleven-year-old stepsister runs away—to Dean’s house.
The group manages to work out the kinks from their dysfunctional childhoods, and share a big group hug. Along the way, they also save the small town from extinction by outwitt
ing the crabby old crone who is trying to choke off its livelihood. The characters are over the top, but never cartoonish in this fun story. And while down on her luck from a financial standpoint and freewheeling by nature, you never mistake Blue as either weak or unintelligent.
Top Five Romantic Scents
Men find these smells sexy!
Cinnamon and vanilla (or just make cookies!)
Lavender
Sandalwood
Citrus—orange, grapefruit (we’re serious!)
Baby powder
54
North and South
ELIZABETH GASKELL
CONTEMPORARY AT THE TIME, NOW HISTORICAL / 1855
“‘Edith!’ said Margaret, gently, ‘Edith!’But, as Margaret half suspected, Edith had fallen asleep. She lay curled up on the sofa in the back drawing room in Harley Street, looking very lovely in her white muslin and blue ribbons. If Titania had ever been dressed in white muslin and blue ribbons, and had fallen asleep on a crimson damask sofa in a back drawing room, Edith might have been taken for her. Margaret was struck afresh by her cousin’s beauty.”
Gaskell, a pioneer in using fiction to point out social problems, tells her story through the evolution of a romantic relationship between the two main characters. A seminal novel.
North and South was turned into a television serial in 2004.
Charlotte Brontë was a friend of Gaskell’s.
This is considered the second of Elizabeth Gaskell’s novels to take place in the industrial city; the first was Mary Barton, published in 1848.
The 100 Best Romance Novels Page 6