Linford romance library

Louise's life has been dominated by her mother, the beautiful dancer Dretea, who resents her very existence. Louise dreams of becoming a dancer and winning he mother's love, and when Miguel re-enters her life he encourages her, offering help and tuition. Is he helping her for old time's sake or because he wants to? Or is he being more subtle and pressing her to choose between her dance career and himself?

'And now, get out of my life.' Those hard, implacable words from Ric Burnett had meant the end of everything for Glenna. She was sure her love for Ric was more than just a holiday romance - why, when he was badly injured in an accident it had made no difference to her feelings for him. Yet he had made it clear that he had no use for either her love or her sympathy - and had married his nurse instead. All that was eight years ago, but now, in New Zealand, they had met again. But Ric was, after all, a married man, and Glenna had got over him anyway. Or had she?

Faith Bridges should be wedding dress shopping with her bridesmaids, finalising the menu for the reception, house hunting. Instead she's up close and personal with Harry March - the last man on earth she’d trust with her heart - a fractious baby and a four year old diva. She and Julian may not have had the most conventional of courtships but he’s wise, responsible and utterly dependable. The exact opposite of Harry, who thinks that all he has to do to get her to stay and take care of his sister's children is to tease her, charm her and, when that doesn’t work, make love to her. It won't work; Faith knows that love is like meringue — all sugar and air, and about as substantial. And she has made a promise that she isn’t about to break. So why does she find it so hard to walk away?

"Out in the East they say that the mind of a woman is a jungle, and it is the one jungle in which a man should never get lost." That was the code by which Edwin Trequair professed to live. Why then had he asked Heron to marry him? More to the point, why had she accepted? True, he had much to offer her - money and his fascinating house, the house that had meant so much to Heron all her life, the Glass Castle - but Heron was not the type to marry for mercenary reasons. Yet her feeling for him was of fear and curiosity more than any other emotion. Could she ever understand such a strange, arrogant man? Or still less, make him a successful wife?

When she woke up in hospital the name 'Carol Legat' was on her name tag, and although it didn't sound right she accepted it. She began a new life with a man who wanted to help her trace her past. But she wanted to forget. Gradually, the nightmare she had shut out of her mind caught up with her, and then there was only one thing to do: confront it, with the help of the man who loved her.

Millionaire Sir Charles Bainbridge, at the end of his patience with his daughter Georgette's behaviour, sends her to Kenya. Humiliatingly, she must work as an assistant to the ultimate male chauvinist Lukas on a location shoot. They met once before-- in rather strained circumstances! In fact, she'd showered him with flour and he hadn't been pleased. And now she must be nice to him. This will take every ounce of acting ability Georgette possesses-- and she is no actress.

It was the answer to their dreams! Chantal and her brother could hardly believe their luck when they inherited from their grandmother prosperous vineyards in France. But the legacy was not lovingly given--their unknown grand"mere had disowned them long ago. Only a quirk of fate brought this gift to them. Their arrogant neighbor, Marquis de la Roque, laughed when he learned of their plans to work the land themselves. But that was just the challenge Chantal needed to prove him wrong!

Fenella Shaw leaves England to start a new life on a Canadian cattle ranch, bequeathed to her by the father she hasn't seen since childhood. Understandably, she relies for help and advice on Max Geerling, the ranch-manager. So it comes as no surprise when the news of their engagement is announced: it appears to be a true love match. But it soon becomes clear that blond Max is not all he appears to be, and Fenella finds her fiancé with another woman. Moments after, in a blind fury, she has a wild and passionate night a stranger, and begin the most hair-raising adventure of her life. She rides with the stranger through the Canadian wilderness to the magistrate's office - to become Mrs. Gail O'Shean. Then they part forever, or so she thinks. Try as she might, Fenella cannot forget Gail's handsome face and beautiful eyes. But repentant Max wants her back desperately. Suddenly, in a rush of kidnapping, bandits, and sheriff posses, Fenella is involved in a breathtaking intrigue. Three men want her, but only one loves her. Will she discover him before it was too late?

It has been three blissful years since Abbie married Grey Lockwood. She has it all: a glamorous jet-setting career, a beautiful home and, best of all, a loving husband to come home to. Her friends tease her that they would never leave a man as devilishly sexy as Grey on his own for long, but she always thought their marriage was based on trust. Yet ... has she left Grey alone once too often? He no longer seems satisfied with a part-time lover. He wants a full-time wife - ANY wife!

Esmeralda and Jacobina have a younger sister Cindy. Alda is plain, but a musician with good taste. Jac is fat, placid, and quite insecure. But Cindy is pretty, blonde, blue-eyed, and popular. Alda is, in truth, the real Cinderella of the story. Besides being the focal point of the narrative, she does the kitchen work and generally looks after the others.

Emerald Carlisle's father with do anything to stop a wedding between her and her penniless friend Kit Fairfax. Announcing their engagement sees a sure-fire way of helping Kit raise some cash! Tom Brodie is her father's lawyer. His duty, to buy off the groom and to bring Emerald to heel, is thwarted by Emerald's beauty and charm. When she persuades him to help her "elope," Tom soon realizes she could persuade him to take her anywhere ... even up the aisle!

Thea Cranbrook, recently widowed and burdened with the problems of two grown-up daughters, has little time for thinking of her own, but when Harriet leaves her husband and Lizzy falls in love with a man old enough to be her father she finds herself facing, for the first time, the fact that her own marriage might have been less than perfect. The difficulties with which the various age groups enmesh themselves in each other, so that the feelings of mother and daughters merge and are resolved, make an absorbing study of two generations, hoping and striving for an elusive happiness.

Juliet hoped that Switzerland would help her to get over her broken engagement, but all that happened was that she fell in love with Richard Thornton, who was not interested in her.

On her wedding day, Tara was abducted by the masterful Leon Petrides, dragged off to Greece and forced to marry him. And from the start it had been a real marriage, not an "in name only" one. Yet hadn't Tara any mind of her own at all? Why hadn't she flatly refused to marry him? Why didn't she try to run away? After all, she loved her fiancé David, didn't she, and wanted nothing but to get back to him. This feeling she had for her pagan husband, a feeling she couldn't deny, was only physical attraction, wasn't it? So what was stopping her?

Five years ago, Melanie's drunken husband died in a car crash, nearly taking her baby son with him. Since then, she's not entrusted her heart to anyone, but aware that her son needs adult male company, she asks her boss, Jack, to fill that role. However, Jack longs to make the three of them a proper family. On a romantic trip to the Amalfi Coast in Italy, he hopes that Melanie, forgetting her fears, will learn to trust him...

Beth was in love with her boss, but he could only dream of the brief passionate interlude he had shared with a Japanese girl long ago, and of the child he had never seen. Beth agrees to accompany him to Japan in search of his daughter. There, perhaps, the ghost of Madame Butterfly would be laid, and he would turn to her for solace. Her loyal heart is lead along dark and dangerous paths before finding the love she craves.

Heaven or horror? Penny Padroni left the city and bought a country house, ugly and decrepit though it was, so that she could budge her fiance, Arthur Westbrook, out of his mother's apartment. It worked for a while, but the more she saw Arthur, the more she saw of his mother too. Mrs. Westbrook tried to take over and redesign Penny's house to suit her own tastes. This, in turn, led to clashes between Penny and Arthur, and to Penny's eventually turning to her handsome neighbor, Cork Corbett, for help with her domestic as well as romantic problems. Would Cork take Arthur's place in Penny's life, or would her old love win out? Would Penny's house become a heaven or a horror for her?

Would she ever be free of the past? Erica was starved for love. Daughter of a Texas millionaire who had time only for business, she thought up a desperate scheme to get her father's attention. Unfortunately, her plan backfired and she found herself seriously involved with Rafael de la Torres, a man she believed to be a worthless fortune hunter. That had been a year ago; the affair had almost ruined her life. Now she was in love with a wonderful man. But she wasn't free to marry him. First of all she must find Rafael...!

The bitter irony of fate, Rachel thought. She had resented Nick Retford for so long that it was hard to believe she could be in love with him. What was the use anyway? Loving Nick Retford was like reaching for the moon. He was just as magnetic and just as difficult to attain. Only one name dominated his world - Vanessa Maybury. The news of their proposed marriage hit Rachel like a thunderbolt!

She never got over her crush on Grant. Liz had become a successful author, Grant a famous surgeon, in the years since she had worshipped him and he had called her "the horror." Now, his career ruined by an accident, deserted by his fiancee, Liz's handsome former neighbor was returning home. Passion grew as Liz helped Grant recover his zest for life. And when he proposed, even though he told her she'd never have his love, Liz accepted....

Madeline felt that her lines had fallen in pleasant places when she was asked to go to Morocco with her employer, a charming American woman - so charming, in fact, that Madeline soon discovered that she was doing her best to manufacture an engagement between her secretary and her nephew, Brooke Van Cleefe. Certainly Morocco was a place made for love. Its very air breathed romance. But, life being what it is, Madeline's heart was captured not by Brooke but by the glamorous Doctor Victor Tourelle - the one man who seemed permanently unaffected by Morocco's romantic spell!

She would never love another man. Liane Goulden had loved Richard Wilding for six years, but he saw her only as his efficient, self-effacing secretary. So when he became engaged to another woman, Liane took a holiday at her cousin's in South Africa to unravel her tangled emotions. The last thing she wanted was to get involved with someone else--and especially the imposing Flint Dawson. And she lost no time in telling him so! Then why was she so disappointed when he took her at her word?

Rosalind thought she had her life all mapped out - a job she loved, a thoughtful, reliable fiance ... what more could she want? How was she to know that a handsome stranger with laughing blue eyes and a roguish grin would burst into her life, kiss her to distraction and turn her world upside down? But there was more to Jack Drayton than met the eye. He offered romance, excitement, and passion - and challenged Rosalind to accept. Dared she?

Buchanan's woman! Elusive celebrity Chay Buchanan had made it only too plain that trespassers weren't welcome at his secret island hideaway, in Malta, but Sophie's precious sister was missing, and she'd run any risks to find her! Driven to desperate measures, Sophie suddenly found herself a reluctant houseguest of this broodingly handsome, enigmatic and intensely private man. Desperate to escape, yet captivated by his charm, Sophie realized that the price of freedom could be her own loving heart!

Arabella Birch had a less than happy introduction to Holland when she became involved in a road accident. It seemed destined that the first person on the scene should be Dr. Gideon van der Vorst, who took charge of the situation--and Arabella--in a very commanding way. When Arabella found herself involved professionally with the imposing doctor, she began to wonder if destiny had known what it was doing. Once her glamorous cousin Hilary caught sight of Gideon, it would be no use falling in love with him.

Caroline Cliburn was to be married next Tuesday, and yet she suspected that gratitude was the wrong reason to become a bride. Perhaps that was why she and her younger brother Jody had taken the long drive north to Scotland in search of her missing brother Angus. As the landscape grew more stark and wintry with each passing mile, Caroline recognized the coldness inside her even more. But she never dreamed that a sudden spring blizzard would leave them stranded by the roadside. Or that snow in April could give both her and a lonely young Scot one last chance to find the healing warmth of love...

Bachelor alert! "Your word, like any other woman's, Kate, is worthless." Kate's latest assignment was the answer to her prayers, but she'd have turned it down flat if she'd known that Jason Warwick was to be her boss! His devastating looks ensured constant female attention, yet he cynically branded all women as faithless and incapable of love. Kate wasn't interested in a temporary affair, but that was all Jason appeared to be offering. So conjuring up an imaginary boyfriend seemed the best defense against his seductive charm. But who was Kate really deceiving--Jason, or herself?

It was with a mixture of pleasure and regret that Marie Todd arrived from New York to spend Thanksgiving at the family home in Renfrew. Her two brothers and her sister had gathered at the old homestead, too -- and all were there to discuss the sale of Renfrew seemingly necessitated by Mr. Todd’s enforced early retirement. Marie soon learned that other problems were brewing in the once-placid family. Only Jack Baird, a young psychology professor boarding with the Todd’s, seemed unperturbed and ready with a solution -- not only for not selling the house but for also providing Marie with a new outlook on life.

Sitting on a California beach at summer's end, Jane Marsh thought back to her childhood at the estate called Elvie in a remote corner of Scotland. She remembered not only the heather-covered hills and lonesome loch, but her grandmother... and, of course, Sinclair. She had secretly dreamed of marrying rakishly handsome Sinclair and settling at Elvie forever. Now an urgent visit from her grandmother's lawyer would become the catalyst for her return to Scotland...where waiting for her was passion, not gentle love, and the chilling realization that she might be ready to wed the wrong man.

Julie Alnaker was rich, young and lovely. She and Toby Grant, who recently qualified at the Central, had been childhood sweethearts, grown up together. But now Julie was engaged to Rupert Ferris, an eligible architect of whom even Julie's mother approved. Julie injured four days before her wedding in a riding accident and with Toby being on call was the first doctor to reach her and the first to realise that Julie might never walk again...