Historical

It was a marriage of convenience for everyone except the bride and groom. He never wanted to be a laird. She never wanted to marry one. Wee Ellen Mackintosh, sickly and quieter than a church mouse, holds a secret that even time hasn’t healed. Unable to use her voice since childhood, she’s not up to being lady of the castle, but her father wants a MacKenzie son-in-law. So when the giant Silas MacKenzie returns to the Highlands, both their fathers’ schemes take off like runaway stallions. Too tall and broad for anyone’s good, but especially his own, Silas breaks everything he touches. To appease his dying father and an increasingly rebellious clan, Si reluctantly agrees to the marriage, vowing to keep it in his kilt—no less so when he sees the tiny, perfect creature they expect him to wed. Unwanted but undeniable, the spark between them burns hotter by the day, even as they try to push each other away. But can Silas fight the monsters within his clan—or at war within himself—without her? Or will Ellen finally find her voice, only to disappear forever?

In 1725, a secret convent has been established on the Aberdeenshire coast. Jory Mackintosh is more excited by healing herbs than husbands or holy prayers. She craves freedom—and a chance to sneak into medical school. Instead, on the eve of her escape, she becomes an unwilling pawn in her family’s schemes with a rival clan. Finlay Shaw, the disgraced younger brother of the laird, has spent ten long years atoning for his past failures, but nothing can wash away the stain of fratricide. When the clans order him to escort Jory to her new life as a nun, thus securing an alliance with the freshly formed Black Watch, it’s his last chance for redemption. Too bad for Finn, Jory has no intention of following orders. Trapped on the road together, often with only one bed between them, the two butt heads and match wits, forced to acknowledge the dark shadows that have haunted them both for years. Can they learn to trust each other, and themselves, to fly in the face of their families’ wishes, or will they choose the solitary futures they always believed they deserve in this unorthodox runaway bride story?

A murdered mentor. A contested inheritance. And secrets powerful enough to kill for. It’s a new semester at Grantabridge University. Along with the beautiful flowers of spring comes the hope of no more dead bodies, the possibility of none of Lady Corinne’s machinations, and a new professor! Wilhelmina Schultz, Willa to her friends, has settled comfortably in her apprenticeship routine with the apothecary and mentor, Rupert Benson. That is, until she meets her new professor and begins to doubt her place in her chosen career. Her professor is just the beginning of her problems. The apothecary shop is broken into more than once, someone’s watching the shop … and then she finds the body. Every clue the Ladies of WACK uncover leads to more secrets to unravel. Mysterious medications. An apothecary who lost his license. Coded records to difficult to decipher. Can the Ladies of WACK solve yet another murder? Only time will tell . . .

Once upon a time, Maggie Mackintosh Budge yearned for handsome rogues and breathtaking adventure. Now widowed after a disastrous marriage and desperate to escape her still-matchmaking father, she stows away on the nearest vessel because sometimes the only solution is running away to sea. Bastian MacLeod never chose a life of piracy, but after coming of age under the brutal regime of Auldfarrand’s Revenge, his world has been limited to placating the volatile captain and staying one step ahead of the navy, that is until he discovers Maggie in the cargo hold. The first rule of piracy is: wenches are unlucky and will be cast overboard. With Bastian’s help, Maggie disguises herself and joins the crew, but sparks between them ignite like St. Elmo’s Fire. Can they keep her secret—and keep their hands off each other—long enough to outwit the navy and hunt down the captain’s lost treasure? Or will bad luck send them both to the hangman’s noose?

When Kat Stempien discovers a mysterious postcard among her late great-grandmother’s belongings, she is drawn back to her ancestral homeland of Poland. What begins as a search for answers soon unearths a tangled web of secrets, forcing Kat to confront a past that refuses to stay buried. Her only ally is Marek Nowak, a man with his own complicated ties to the past. When his great-grandfather’s name appears in an old book linked to Kat’s family, their fates become intertwined. As they follow a trail of deception stretching back to the late 1930s—when Poland stood on the brink of war—they uncover a story of betrayal, resilience, and the dangerous lengths people went to in order to protect those they loved, and what they believe to be true. But some truths do not set you free. As Kat pieces together her family’s past, she must ask herself: is the past worth uncovering if it threatens to consume the present? Blending historical fiction, magical realism, a dual timeline, and Polish folklore, The Daughters is a story of lineage, sacrifice, and the inescapable pull of history.

When three young couples decide it’s time to move forward in their relationships— from “special friends” to newlyweds—they’re faced with a rather bureaucratic process of petitions, directives, and communal obligations. There’s a chance the committee of church elders may vote against the marriage request, or that the mandated Period of Separation might result in someone losing interest and boarding the train for the Outside World. For one bride’s father, however, the process is even more complicated than any of them know. As an appointed elder and businessman, he’s forced to consider the complications and consequences of adhering to “the old ways” while maintaining the sanctity of tradition. Together with his fellow elders, he must answer the multitude of questions growing louder among this quiet cluster of villages in rural Iowa—questions that will force the Inspirationist community to see that change doesn’t just mean letting go and moving on... ...it also means surviving.