FICTION · ROMANCE
Mary Burton
Also known as: Mary Burton
Mary Burton’s southern family has always enjoyed tall tales and a good yarns. Early on, she realized that Story had tremendous power to inspire strong responses such fear, laughter, love and even sorrow. It didn’t matter if the tale was found in the pages of a book, spoken in hushed tones around a Girl Scout campfire, or spouted at an old fashioned southern family reunion. This appreciation of story motivated she to earn an English degree from Virginia’s Hollins University, she gradued in 1983. After decade of working in marketing and sales, she was the marketing director for a one-hundred-person civil engineering firm, when she became convinced she could write and sell one of the many stories buzzing around her brain. She has worked as a freelance writer and written (or ghostwritten) dozens of articles for publications including The RWR, Virginia Review, and Innsbrook Today. She is also the author of The Insider’s Guide to Direct Marketing (1995 by Zwieg White Associates), a marketing manual geared toward architectural/engineering firms. Mary has been writing historical romance novels for several years. Fingers crossed, she left the marketing profession and devoted all her spare time to writing a novel. Soon after, she sold her fist book, a Harlequin Historical novel, A Bride for McCain in January 1999, and saw it published the following year in March. Her second book, The Colorado Bride, was a June 2001, Harlequin Historical novel. In 2005, The Unexpected Wife was a finalist in the Romance Writers of America’s RITA contest and Wise Moves was 2006 nominee for Romantic Times’ Critics Choice Award. Mary is based in Richmond, Virginia, where she lives with her husband and two children. She enjoys yoga, cooking, hiking and the occasional triathlon.
I LAY WITHOUT moving in the low, narrow crawl space under the front porch of our home near West Point.
— from HIDE AND SEEK
Most acclaimed
Dead Ringer
Brandon Ringer has a dead man's face. His grandfather, silver-screen heartthrob James Ringer, died tragically at twenty-one, and Brandon looks exactly like him. But that's where the resemblance ends. Brandon is unknown, unemployed, and up to his ears in back taxes after inheriting his grandparents' Hollywood mansion. He refuses to sell it-it's his last connection to his grandmother-so to raise the cash he needs, he joins a celebrity look-alike escort agency. Percy Charles is chronically ill, isolated, and lonely. His only company is his meddlesome caregiver and his collection of James Ringer memorabilia. When he finds "Jim Ringer" on Hollywood Doubles' website, he books an appointment, hoping to meet someone who shares his passion for his idol. Brandon? Not that person. But despite their differences, they connect, and Percy's fanboy love for James shows Brandon a side of his grandfather he never knew. Soon they want time together off the clock, but Percy is losing his battle for independence, and Brandon feels trapped in James's long shadow. Their struggle to love each other is the stuff of classic Hollywood. Too bad Brandon knows how those stories end.
The Perfect Wife
"A missing woman receives a second chance at life, thanks to her billionaire husband--but the consequences are deadly in this gripping psychological thriller from the New York Times bestselling author of The Girl Before. Abbie awakens in a daze with no memory of who she is or how she landed in this unsettling condition. The man by her side claims to be her husband. He's an icon of the tech world, the founder of a lucrative robotics company. He tells Abbie that she is a gifted artist, an avid surfer, a loving mother to their young son, and the perfect wife. He says she had a terrible accident five years ago, and that, through a huge technological breakthrough, she has been brought back from the abyss. She is a miracle of science. But as Abbie pieces together memories of her marriage, she begins questioning her husband's motives--and his version of events. Can she trust him when he says he wants them to be together forever? And what really happened to Abbie half a decade ago?"--
Heart of the Storm
Dana Thunder Eagle is a beautiful woman with a fierce heart and powerful gift. But after the murder of her husband and mother, she ran away from the Rosebud reservation, hoping to leave the past behind her forever. Now, two years later, the killer is still on the loose.And only Dana has the mystical power to stop him.After six months of daily torture at the hands of South American rebels, Chase knows his latest mission may be his hardest: to whip Dana into fighting shape in just five weeks. Even more challenging will be to ignore his cinnamon-eyed student's graceful beauty. United in a life-or-death mission, Chase and Dana must learn to lean on each other if there is any chance of stopping a madman who seeks to destroy a people's history...and future.