Best seller romance

Rachel Lesley was only eighteen, while Jake Courtenay was over twenty years her senior, a rich, sophisticated man of the world with one wrecked marriage behind him - but she knew from the very first that she loved him. Jake in his turn could not deny the attraction she held for him - but marriage? Nevertheless marriage was what he found himself agreeing to - but only in name for the time being; they must, he declared, first get to know one another better. Rachel agreed, albeit reluctantly - and then found that the biggest problem facing her was the shadowy presence of Denise, Jake's ex-wife.

Even as Janna pleaded with Rian for mercy, she realized it was futile. Rian hadn't forgotten anything that had passed between them seven years earlier. Not forgotten--and not forgiven. Why had he come back? What did he intend? Rian laughed sardonically. "You always knew I'd be back, and you know why as well. Hang on to your courage, sweet witch. You're going to need every last ounce of it by the time I've done with you!"

Tamsyn fought down the surge of emotion. Grant Chapman was rich, powerful and dangerous. They said he took his pleasures where he pleased. Tamsyn felt almost as if she were destined to hate this man. But why did he affect her so deeply? Right from their first meeting she'd been unreasonably afraid of him. Was it really only the spell of the South Sea island? Tamsyn checked her thoughts abruptly. She was here temporarily to do a job. And besides there was John. Surely it wasn't possible to be engaged to one man and desire another. Or was she just fooling herself

Stranded in Madeira, Samantha found herself under the protection -- and, far more annoyingly, under the thumb-- of the lordly Joao Goncalves Zarco, the local lord of all he surveyed. The situation came to a head when he announced that she must marry him. One half of her wanted to agree; the other half realized it was madness. What answer would Samantha give?

Rich girl Andrea Connelly was holidaying at an Austrian ski-resort when she met Baron Axel von Mahlstrom - an attractive man, certainly, but Andrea was under no illusions about the type of man he was. A fortune-hunter, pure and simple - and he was not getting the chance of laying his hands on her money! In fact, Andrea worked out what she thought would be an effective way of teaching him a lesson, by changing identities with her dull, far from rich cousin Janet and then watching Axel go into action. But unfortunately he turned the tables on her in an unexpected and decidedly disturbing manner…

Juliet and Janice are identical twins; Juliet is a photographer, while Janice is a model, whose work has included some racy lingerie photos. She meets Tony, an Italian racing driver from a rich family and gets pregnant, but dies giving birth to his son, after Tony himself is killed in a car race in Australia. To get full custody of baby Anthony, Juliet pretends to be Janice and moves to Italy when Carlo, Tony's older brother convinces Juliet Tony's son should be brought up in his father's homeland. Though Carlo is attracted to Juliet, thinking she's Janice, of the loose morals (due to racy lingerie photos), he treats her badly, but Juliet gives back as good as she gets - eventually all is revealed for the HEA !!!

No one must suspect she was heartbroken. Jo had loved Blair most of her life and his sudden engagement to someone else shattered her. "Find a man of your own, " Marsh McConnell challenged. He had stood by Jo throughout the engagement party, but she could not follow his advice. The memory of her lost love was too recent. Marsh's invitation to accompany his young niece and nephew to his Outback cattle station came as a relief. Restored by the wild beauty of the country and Marsh's abrasive, overpowering personality, Jo was surprised to find herself jealous -- of the woman who'd already staked a claim on Marsh!

Samantha's experience with men as the daughter of tycoon Reuben Gentry had been disillusioning. But she'd gone willingly to Chris Andrews's home miles from anywhere on an island in the St. Lawrence, expecting her father to join her there. Suddenly she realized she was subtly, but surely, being held prisoner there. Were Chris's calls to her father about ransom? Was he really Chris Andrews? Samantha knew she had to escape. But the thought of never seeing Chris--or whoever he was--again, filled her with desolation...

Carne expected her to just meekly agree "What about me? Don't I have any say in the matter?" Lesley's eyes flashed indignantly. After all, Came had ignored his wife and child for three years. Why should he be interested in them now? Lesley only knew that if Came gained custody of Jeremy and took him back to Ravensdale, the Radleys would turn the boy against her. She couldn't let that happen. But Came was ruthlessly determined ... and he held all the cards. She had deserted Came, not the other way around. What possible defense did she have against him?

The heroine has spent most of her life on a small tropical island with her father, the areas doctor. She is also a doctor. NATO personnel come to the island to survey it as a new airstrip and fuel depot. She and the Islanders strongly object as it will destroy their way of life and eliminate their livelihood based on fishing and growing coconuts. However she is strongly attracted to the Major in charge of the surveying unit.

Everyone in the office thought Zachary Benedict was the most attractive man for miles around - but to Jenny he was simply the most conceited man she had met for a long time, and she had no intention of adding herself to his long list of conquests. In any case, after the way Max had let her down she didn't want to get involved with any man again. But Zachary, for reasons of his own, pursued her relentlessly, and gradually Jenny found herself weakening. She still couldn't believe, however, that Zachary saw her as anything but another scalp on his belt - and then Max turned up again, to complicate things still further ...

All her life Kris Laurensen had been trapped in the silken prison of her family’s immense wealth. Decisions were made for her by her stepmother and her dynamic guardian, Jared Chayse — including the decision that she should marry Jared! Kris was shocked. The match would cement a financial empire but what about her feelings for Jared, feelings that veered crazily between attraction and resentment? Returning to Sydney from finishing school in Europe, Kris had been eager to taste her freedom, to experience life. Instead, she was being forced to contemplate marriage to a man who might never love her.

It was time to live for herself Brooke had held the family together ever since her mother's death, putting off her own dreams for the sake of her father, younger brother and sister. So when her sister, staying at a chateau in France to upgrade her French before university, developed a crush on the chateau's owner and decided to stay, it was only natural that Brooke should rush to the rescue. And it was also only natural that Brooke, naive and inexperienced with men, after meeting the handsome worldly Jourdain Marchais, should fall in love with him herself!

When Erica went to work in Venice she had never dreamed that she would end up by falling in love with the attractive, immensely rich Conte Filippo Rosetti. And Filippo's close friend Claudia Medina, it soon appeared, was going to see to it that it remained only a dream!

Jacquie, recklessly defying her parents, had left home. Now she was stranded in Tombstone, Arizona, without a car or money. Choya Barnett was unmoved by her feminine wiles; Jacquie had no other choice than to let him settle her accounts. But could she repay him in the way he demanded? Could she sacrifice her self-respect and her innocence? "You'll pay me one way or another," Choya taunted. "After years of calling the tune, you finally have to pay the fiddler." Jacquie didn't realize that she would pay with her heart!

HE WAS A MAN WHO TOOK WHAT HE WANTED... Brooke knew that either she or her sister, Louise, would have to marry money to avoid selling the family estate. But not for anything would she marry Paul Corelli, the human dynamo who had fought his way out of the gutters of Naples to become a millionaire. It was unfortunate that Brooke felt that way, because Corelli had already made up his mind that he wanted her. And he absolutely refused to take no for an answer!

The terms of her father’s will were outrageous and Tracey was not going to tolerate having a stranger as her guardian dictating the conditions of her life for the next two years, even if that stranger was ‘family’. "If you defy me, girl, there'll be trouble." Tracey shrugged off Ryan's warning indignantly. As far as she was concerned the Alexanders could keep their precious money, and their guardianship. She was her own mistress, and she planned to stay that way! But Ryan wasn't about to let Tracey rule her own life. She would spend the next two years on his Outback sheep station, and that's all there was to it. There was no way, however, that Tracey would accept Ryan's domination meekly ....

Before Caryn's sister Loren had died, giving birth to a baby, heartbroken because the father had deserted her, she had told Caryn his identity: he was Tristan Ross. But, having gone to his home in Wales to confront him with the evidence, Caryn couldn't be quite so sure about Tristan. Surely Loren had been telling the truth? Tristan vehemently denied responsibility for the child—yet he had taken the baby into his home and given Caryn a job as his secretary so she could be with the child, so what was she to make of that? And then she found herself faced with another

anya dazedly tried to understand what Adrian was saying. "Six years ago," he went on, "your government announced that all its citizens who were married to foreigners had divorced them. So seeing you was something of a shock." Something of a shock! The understatement almost made Tanya laugh, except that she was the butt of the joke. Not only was she in an alien country, but the man to whom she had come no longer wanted her. Even worse, for five years he had believed that she no longer wanted him!

Caroline refused to let her wealthy father force her into an arranged marriage. To escape his tyranny, she fled to a mountain valley in Spain. Instead of the old childhood nurse she expected to find there, she met Pio Viroda. The rebellious son of a poor revolutionary, and an artist, Pio's political cartoons had made him an enemy of the establishment world to which Caroline belonged. The only interest she shared with Pio was her need for personal freedom. But when he drew her into his arms and kissed her, she ceased to care about the differences that divided them...

NOTE >>>this book was originally listed on Internet Archive as Lisa Marie Rice's Midnight Vengeance. "You will stay and marry my brother." Julio Valdez spoke contemptuously. "Because of you, my brother, Ramon, is now a paralyzed cripple, with very little to live for. But he wants you, so he shall have you." Julio's hard, unyielding expression warned Darcy Beaudine it was useless to argue. He was determined to tie her to a man she didn't love, in a marriage that could never be consummated. She would be forced to spend the rest of her life at Julio's Spanish estate--devoting herself to Ramon, but loving Julio!

Every novel in this collection is your passport to a romantic tour of the United States through time-honored favorites by America’s First Lady of romance fiction. Each of the fifty novels is set in a different state, researched by Janet and her husband, Bill. For the Daileys it was an odyssey of discovery. For you, it’s the journey of a lifetime. Your tour of desire begins with this story set in Oklahoma.

"You must beware, mademoiselle ...." The fortune-teller's ominously harsh voice had sent shivers down Christina's spine. "Beware of the devil at Archangel." The prediction seemed silly when Christina first arrived at the Brandon's beautiful Caribbean plantation. Left without means and a home by her godmother's death, the job at Archangel seemed like a gift from heaven. But everything changed when she met Devlin Brandon. He disturbed her to the core of her being. She must indeed beware of this manor did another devil await to torment her?

The world-famous film star Serafina Neri made slaves of the men who surrounded her. Yet her life was hedged about by fear, and a strangeness that made her rely on the companionship of the ruthless Rick Lordetti day and night – or so people said. And it was Rick whom Donna Lovelace had met in the moonlit Colosseum on the never-to-be-forgotten night; Rick with whom she had fallen in love. But then, when she took a job as Serafina’s secretary, Donna met him again, only to find that he treated her as a stranger…Was that one night of romance all that Donna would ever have of Rick?

Every novel in this collection is your passport to a romantic tour of the United States through time-honored favorites by America’s First Lady of romance fiction. Each of the fifty novels is set in a different state, researched by Janet and her husband, Bill. For the Daileys it was an odyssey of discovery. For you, it’s the journey of a lifetime. Your tour of desire begins with this story set in North Dakota.

For years Helen’s marriage to Paul Eastwood had been a disaster and a mockery. Paul was weak, selfish, and blatantly unfaithful to her. But she was still his wife and some sense of duty, some undercurrent of feeling that perhaps she was to blame in some way, made her stay with him. Paul, she felt, was a spoiled child at heart and depended on her as he did on no one else; without her he might well be finished. But now Mark Eliot had come into her life, and Helen soon had to admit that the passionate love she felt for him bore no relation to the duty and pity that was all that was left of her feeling for her husband. What would happen to her sense of duty now?

"I want my son more than I want you.- Logan Sutherland told Fiona, and she had to admit that he had good reason to be angry with her. She might have been bitterly hurt by his rejection of her after that one night of love five years ago, but she knew she should have let him know that she had had his baby. Now, however, he was prepared to marry her to get possession of little Jonathan - and arrogantly sure that he could make her fall in love with him all over again, just as a bonus. But although Fiona was prepared to marry him for the sake of her son's future, she was determined to fight the double threat of Logan's masterful charm and her own treacherous heart.

‘I’ve never wanted anyone as much as I want you, and I warn you, my dear, I have never failed to get what I want,’ Randal Mercier told Laura Hallam. But Laura loved Tom Nicol, had always loved him and always would. Then Laura discovered that her father was in serious trouble, that Randal, who was his employer, had found out about it – and that the only way she could rescue him was to marry Randal after all. So what alternative did she have – especially as Tom still showed no sign of asking her to marry him himself? Married to one man and desperately loving another – how could Laura ever hope for happiness again?

For years Andrea had been used to getting her cousin Clare out of scrapes - but this one really took some beating! Clare, it appeared, had made a rash promise to marry a Frenchman whom she had never even met, and he was insisting on keeping her to the promise. So Andrea found herself agreeing to go to France in Clare's place, to sort the situation out. She had certainly never foreseen what would ensue: that in a short time she would find herself married to the forbidding Blaise Levallier, and in the centre of a mystery from which there seemed to be no escape. She had not foreseen, either, that she would fall in love with Blaise - a man about whom she still knew nothing . . .

It was paradise...with one fatal flaw Julie Lancaster thought her new job was perfect. She had a gracious employer, a charming teenager to teach, and best of all, the splendid beauty of Hawaii. Then Ruel Chandler came on the scene. Her pupil's brother and head of the household, he was aloof, indifferent, bored with women. Yet something in Julie reached out to him no matter how hard she tried to deny it. Ruel stirred a flame in her. Could she resist, or would she lose everything - her job, her new home, herself...?

Juliet soon learned: never love an enemy! Juliet went to Italy to check on her siste, Jan. According to Jan, she'd arrived just in time. Wealthy, powerful Santino Vallone was trying to prevent Jan from marrying his young brother, Mario. With courage and determination, schoolteacher Juliet came to the rescue. Bravely she led Santino down a false trail by pretending to be Jan. But Juliet only had one side of the story. When Santino kidnapped her, taking her to his castle by the sea, she realized the path she'd chosen led to danger - and heartbreak!

Even before she met Matt Hume Leigh had decided he must be the most selfish, heartless man on the face of creation—and when they eventually met, and he offered her a job as his secretary, she accepted, with the sole idea of punishing him for his callousness to her young cousin, and to all the other girls he had encouraged and then tossed aside. But Matt turned the tables on her by declaring that he intended to make her his property—and by wearing down her resistance with all the skill he possessed. Could Leigh get out of the situation before it was too late ?

Every novel in this collection is your passport to a romantic tour of the United States through time-honored favorites by America’s First Lady of romance fiction. Each of the fifty novels is set in a different state, researched by Janet and her husband, Bill. For the Daileys it was an odyssey of discovery. For you, it’s the journey of a lifetime. Your tour of desire begins with this story set in Arizona.

She was afraid she'd never become a woman. After her desperately unhappy marriage to Barry, the last thing Vicki Peters wanted was another involvement. Being an unloved widow was better than risking her heart again. But almost against her will, she found herself married to Garth Travis. Vicki was convinced she had done it mostly for the sake of Garth's little son. Then she discovered two things: that she was madly in love with Garth--and that he was no better than Barry had been....

Jealousy stabbed Philippa as she thought of Rose and Luke together. Jealousy--and a deep sense of loss. Loss of what? Of Luke? Was she so possessive that she couldn't bear to think of him with another woman even though she didn't want him herself? But she did want him! The realization stunned her. It was an annihilating admission that destroyed the whole fabric of pretense she'd constructed from the day she had married Luke.

She hadn't expected a memorable summer. Julie had come to the Canadian summer resort to forget about her father's tragic suicide. Adam Price her fiancé, would handle the business details. All she had to do was relax. But how could anyone relax under the pressing attentions of Dan Prescott? Vibrantly attractive, and the son of a prominent New York family, he was vacationing nearby. Julie was too serious a girl for a summer fling – and she soon realised just how strong her feelings for Dan were. But everything seemed against her: Adam, Dan’s family – and her own common sense!

Running away had accomplished nothing! Briony Adair fled to her aunt's Yorkshire cottage as a refuge. Away from the pressures of her father's plans and the unexpected return of her estranged husband, Logan -- missing for a year, presumed dead, on a foreign assignment -- she hoped to sort out the muddle of her life. But it was more than painful memories she had to face. Logan himself turned up there -- different from the man she'd married, as she was changed from the young girl bride. And Logan was determined not to let her escape again!

Joanna didn't know what to expect... Necessity forced Joanna Seton to accept a position as governess to Jake Sheldon's daughter. She set out for Ravensgarth, his farm in the Lake District, with a determination to make the best of what she found. What she found was a man whose scarred face reflected his battered life--who had cut himself off from all social contacts. His daughter, too, had suffered. She was a wild, uncontrollable child. Even though both of them seemed to hate her, Joanna's heart went out to these two survivors of past tragedy!

As soon as she heard that the dashing TV star Matt Wolfe was coming to live in her quiet Cornish seaside home Lisa sensed there would be trouble – and how right she was! For right from the beginning he began to intrude into her life far too often for her peace of mind. His brittle, sophisticated world was not her world, and she knew she would only be hurt if she didn’t keep away from it. And in any case, she had no desire whatsoever to become part of any triangle in which the glamorous Livia Marlowe formed the third side!

"Don't lose your temper," her mother warned Andrea when she set out to tell top TV interviewer, Maxwell Lane, just what she thought of him. Andrea was sure his ruthless interview with her beloved uncle had contributed to his death. "Of course, I won't," Andrea replied firmly. "I'm going to be cool, calm and demolishing!" So much for good intentions. Somehow Andrea found herself working for Maxwell Lane as a research assistant and her chances of getting even with him seemed more remote than ever!

Miranda hadn’t married Jaime Knevett for love; in fact she hardly knew him, and she had never liked what little she had know – but her mother needed help and this was the only way Miranda could provide it. In fact it had never been a true marriage and the two of them had parted almost immediately after the wedding. All that had been four years ago, but now Miranda was thinking of marrying Paul Courtenay, so here she was in Brazil, to meet Jaime once again to ask for an annulment. But Jaime was still a man to be reckoned with; even if he would agree to the end of their marriage, could Miranda be absolutely sure, now, that that was what she really wanted?

Five years ago, when she was eighteen, Amanda had been frightened rather than flattered by Cesare Druetso’s proposal of marriage. She had been determined not to be yet another scalp on Cesare’s belt – or a slave to his masterful ways – and she had categorically turned him down. But now she was back in his home in Tuscany, this time engaged to his younger brother, gentler brother Piero. But Cesare, it soon turned out, had no intention of accepting the situation. He refused to acknowledge Amanda as his brother’s fiancée, declaring that she was meant for him and for no one else – and his whole family, indeed the whole town, appeared to be backing him up! Just what could Amanda do about it all?

Sparks had flown between Tara Blaine and Jago Black from the moment they met -- sparks of antagonism, and something else. But by the time Tara was admitting that she felt something more for him than dislike, she had discovered who he really was . .

"See the island of dreams," they urged. And Sally Herrick, recently arrived on another Indian Ocean island, was intrigued enough to go. It was a turning point in her life. Spoiled, rich and used to having her own way, she came face to face with Luke Vilis, a hard, calculating man seeking revenge for the harm she had thoughtlessly done his sister. His demand that she marry him was madness. Yet Sally soon discovered that she was in no position to refuse!

Kim thought the past was dead and buried. But she found she was wrong when she went to the wilds of Westmorland to help her cousin run her small hotel. If she had known Luke Savage was one of the guests--no matter how much she was needed there--she'd never have gone within a thousand miles of the place! It had taken three long years to rebuild her shattered life after her husband, Luke, had left her. But she had managed it. And she would not--dared not--let him disturb her again!