Members’ Regency Fiction Releases for 08/2021

Can the Ladies’ Wagering Whist Society ensure that two business rivals close the deal?
Joshua Powell, Lord Wickford, enjoys being the dashing, popular and successful owner of Powell’s Club for Gentlemen. But when he is nearly killed while riding through the streets of London, he realizes that he needs to find a wife and beget an heir. Joshua knows that his intended wife needs to be a lady from a well-esteemed family. So why is he constantly distracted by his business adversary’s sparkling beauty, sharp tongue, and dazzling mind?
Gwendolyn Sherman is fascinated with numbers and with figuring out the most efficient way to run her father’s business. So her father makes her a deal: he would allow her to anonymously start her own business – a club for ladies – only if she would stay in London and find a titled husband. But those Regency lords all seem to want her only for her dowry. All, of course, except for her biggest competitor, the annoyingly attractive Viscount Wickford.
It will be up to the Ladies’ Wagering Whist Society to win their last trick, by setting Joshua straight on his priorities. After all, the ace of hearts trumps the king of clubs.

Major Phineas Allan Storme is struggling with his new life. After being paralyzed from injuries received during Waterloo, he’s confined to a Bath chair. Depression bedevils him, making him feel useless and helpless. With his older brother sulking in the country and his younger brother no doubt causing scandal elsewhere, he’s keeping his mother company. What the bloody hell else can he do but be a companion?
Lady Jane Marsden—daughter of the Earl of Worchester—is popular within the ton. Though she enjoys society life immensely, it doesn’t fill the emptiness in her soul. After having her heart broken twice over, she never lets males close, but when she meets a dark-haired man at a late summer rout, her thinking changes. The need and longing in his eyes draws her interest, but his personality captivates her mind. What could it hurt to introduce herself?
As Finn and Jane strike up a friendship that blooms into something more, responsibility and duty constantly intrude, but each is determined to conquer the obstacles set before them. When an emotional misunderstanding threatens their romance, his depression convinces him he’s a millstone about the necks of those he cares for, and he’s determined to remove himself from life. It’ll take a harrowing night of heart-wrenching emotions for him and Jane to discover if love is worth risking everything to keep.

Lord Stephen Stanhope, a duke’s diplomat son who’s traveling to the Congress of Vienna, agrees to protect his friend’s wayward sister on Stephen’s journey to Austria. Lady Mary Beresford has impetuously set off on her own for Vienna. Vexed with the headstrong woman he’s yet to meet, Stephen despairs of ever catching up with the maddening lady. They eventually meet at an inn in the Alps, where the guests’ progress has been impeded by two matters: a blizzard—and Lady Mary’s refusal to leave until she’s found an elderly fellow traveler who has disappeared.

Mary’s infuriated that everyone at the inn is in a conspiracy to deny the woman ever existed and to imply Mary invented her. Just when every person at the inn is against her, the handsome Lord Stephen arrives and becomes her champion.

Stephen doesn’t tell her he’s been sent by her brother, nor does he actually believe her preposterous story. Until there’s an attempt on her life. . .

Hold on to your fans and get ready for the duchesses to clutch their pearls – the social season may have ended but the summer season is just getting started and it will be a scorcher!
Summer Pleasures, the latest Historical Romance anthology for charity from the authors at The New Romance Cafe, is heating up your Kindle from August, with a limited time romance collection.
All proceeds go to the Breast Cancer Research Foundation.

When an engagement of convenience turns into something more, what path will they choose?
Oliver Stuart Colborne, the Duke of Scarborough and a man of mixed heritage, needs a false engagement post haste. A parcel of unentailed land, held in his maternal grandmother’s name and potentially harboring Roman ruins, can be his if he marries within two years of taking the title… and he only has a month left. He wants that treasure if only to follow in his revered father’s footsteps.
The Honorable Marjorie Grace Fitzgerald, daughter of the deceased Viscount Highmore, has just been left at the marriage altar by her fiancé for scandalous reasons. Her reputations is in tatters, and the family name is running to rack and ruin from her younger brother’s careless vices. After stumbling upon an advertisement in the paper by a duke looking for a duchess, she answers it hoping for rescue from the mess. If she can’t have love, she wants respectability.
As the weeks pass, Oliver and Marjorie enter into an unlikely friendship while deceiving the ton —and his solicitor. To all appearances, they are a couple with every intention of marrying, with no one the wiser to the farce, but when forced proximity sparks surprising desire and genuine emotions come into play, they’ll both need to be honest in what they truly want from life and each other. As the deadline looms, they’ll either lose everything they’ve worked toward or grasp something infinitely more valuable.

An angry army spy who becomes a reluctant duke. A virgin widow who seeks a husband who will give her children. An attraction that leads to passion . . . and love . . .
Wyatt Stanton served as a spy for Wellington until he receives word of his brother’s death. Reluctantly, he returns to England as the Duke of Amesbury and to Amberwood, a place he once loved and was banished from after his brother falsely accused Wyatt of burning down the family stables with over two dozen horses inside. His soul seared by war, the man who lived for danger must now become a member of Polite Society and find himself a duchess so he has an heir.
Meadow Grant’s father sold her to Lord Selfridge so he could pay his gambling debts. Selfridge collects beautiful things, and Meadow is the most beautiful girl of the Season. Once he possessed her, Selfridge lost interest and moved on to other things. Now a widow, the resilient Meadow is ready to make her own choice this time and find a husband who yearns for children as much as she does. Though attracted to the Duke of Amesbury, he is far too arrogant and conceited for her tastes, even if he does kiss well.
Wyatt is bored with all the younger women on the Marriage Mart, but he believes the beautiful and more mature Lady Selfridge fits his idea of a suitable duchess. The fact that he is attracted to her and she gets along well with his friends only confirms she is the one. Meadow wants to be courted, though, and Wyatt is up to the challenge, relentless in his pursuit, even liking how Meadow makes him work to earn her favor.

Though neither looks for love, will the reckless Wyatt and spitfire Meadow realize love has found them and will flourish, given the chance?

Miss Rachel Berry, the adopted daughter of Freetown missionaries, wants to re-connect with her African mother’s family. She does not trust the Royal Navy, or Captain Hotham of the African Squadron. Her lying English father was a former naval seaman who jumped ship to join the lucrative African slave trade.
Capt. Christopher Halloren, 3rd son of a baron, transports a group of slaves he rescued to the missionary school in Freetown before attending the prize court to see if the judge will rule in favor of him and his crew so they can get on with the work of patrolling for slavers. The last thing he needs is to get involved with a beautiful mission teacher who seems hell-bent on putting herself in harm’s way with the illegal slave traders swarming at the fringes of Freetown.
Can they escape the destiny Society assigns them, or will they create their own?

A remarkable, sweeping historical novel based on the incredible true life story of Dorothy Kirwan Thomas, a free woman of color who rose from slavery to become one of the wealthiest and most powerful landowners in the colonial West Indies.

Born into slavery on the tiny Caribbean island of Montserrat, Doll bought her freedom—and that of her sister and her mother—from her Irish planter father and built a legacy of wealth and power as an entrepreneur, merchant, hotelier, and planter that extended from the marketplaces and sugar plantations of Dominica and Barbados to a glittering luxury hotel in Demerara on the South American continent.

Vanessa Riley’s novel brings Doll to vivid life as she rises above the harsh realities of slavery and colonialism by working the system and leveraging the competing attentions of the men in her life: a restless shipping merchant, Joseph Thomas; a wealthy planter hiding a secret, John Coseveldt Cells; and a roguish naval captain who will later become King William IV of England.

From the bustling port cities of the West Indies to the forbidding drawing rooms of London’s elite, Island Queen is a sweeping epic of an adventurer and a survivor who answered to no one but herself as she rose to power and autonomy against all odds, defying rigid eighteenth-century morality and the oppression of women as well as people of color. It is an unforgettable portrait of a true larger-than-life woman who made her mark on history.

If Maeve Pendleton, Lady Alymer’s mother, attempts to introduce her to one more useless nobleman, Maeve will do her bodily harm. Married to a man thrice her age once was enough for widow now young to appreciate her independence.

After disappearing almost two years ago, Brandon Radcliff, Viscount Harlowe, is now recuperating at his sister’s home. The problem? He has no notion who bludgeoned him and left him on the road for dead. He’s determined criminal activity was afoot. Only he can’t remember if he was on the right or the wrong side of history.

Maeve has no care for her own reputation when the lives of two little girls are jeopardized, endangering her well-earned independence. But Harlowe steps in to save the day, being the hero he is… or is he?

“Edgy, fast-paced, sexy, is Kathy L Wheeler’s latest Rebel Lord of London.” ~USA Today and New York Times Bestselling author, Cheryl Bolen

She stole his heart, but can he walk away when another man claims to have married her first?

Thaddeus Berringer has reconciled himself to a future of great riches, but also unceasing responsibility as the Duke of Exeter’s only heir. He’s in no hurry to be leg-shackled, despite his cousin’s urging. But he’s keenly interested in bed sport with a certain spinster who’s proven more wanton than wallflower. Eugenia Hillcrest’s passions and expectations for a brief fling match his own completely, delighting him in every way. But just as he’s considering the advantages of a lasting connection with her, he’s stunned to learn his perfect lover was never his to kiss in the first place.

Eugenia has for years lived as a spinster, and is certain she’ll remain one. So it was with little hesitation that she begins a thrilling affair with the Duke of Exeter’s handsome heir, Mr. Berringer. She revels in every stolen kiss and caress, but expects to lose him to a wife one day. Never in a million years did she imagine she’d lose him to a husband. Her dead husband back from the grave. Confused and unconvinced, Eugenia is willing to do anything to keep control of her life—even if it means leaving her life and the man she loves more than she’d dreamed possible.

Pleasures of the Night is a full-length regency historical romance from USA Today bestselling author Heather Boyd. It’s the sixteenth book in the steamy Distinguished Rogues series but can be read as a stand-alone.

Richard Mallet comes to Egypt with dreams of academic glory. He will be the one to unravel the secrets of the ancient Kushite language. Armed with license to dig, he sets out for Meroë, where the Blue Nile meets the White. He has no room in his life for dalliance or entanglements, and he certainly doesn’t expect to face insurrection and unrest.
Analiese Cloutier seeks no glory—only the eradication of disease among the Egyptian women and children of Khartoum. She has no interest whatsoever in romantic nonsense and will not allow notions about a lady’s proper role to interfere with her work. She doesn’t expect to have that work manipulated for political purposes.
Neither expects to be enchanted by the amorous power of moonlight in the ruins of Karnak, or to be forced to marry before they can escape revolution. Will their flight north take them safely to Cairo? If it does, can they build something real out of their shattered dreams?

When a second chance at love comes with a new perspective, chase it with eyes—and a heart— wide open.

Julianna Leah Winslow, Lady Mayborne, is three years a widow. While packing items to clear clutter, she finds an antique jade elephant among her husband’s possessions. When a secret panel pops open revealing a cryptic note with the name of his best friend—the man she’d wanted to marry as a young girl—she summons James no matter that seeing him again will open old wounds not fully healed.

James Percival Holles, Earl of Braxton, has just turned forty-two. It’s time to marry and set up his nursery, but every relationship he’s had has ended in disaster. When an urgent summons comes from Julianna, he’s immediately wary but intrigued, and agrees to travel to the Berkshire estate to perhaps vent his spleen and air old grievances. He would not let the fact that he still had a tendre for her sway his attitude.

Emotions explode each time they’re together, to say nothing of her twenty-year-old son’s animosity toward James, yet when long-held secrets are brought into the light, both he and Julianna find a shaky peace and a new direction. As the August days pass, they give into the desire brewing between them, and trust is put to the forefront. If they can stop hiding their true selves and surrender to the strength and security found as a couple, they’ll have a chance to grasp a second chance at love.

What happens in The Soho Club, stays in The Soho Club. These novellas range from sweet, to spicy. The rules are few.

This collection of ten tales center around The Soho Club, an exclusive establishment in Regency London, offering a taste of everything, for anyone to sample.

Discretion is paramount, and scandals abolished – because if there’s one thing Regency-era lovers need, it’s a place to be who they are.

Tea is at four, and you’re welcome to do business, or indulge your pleasure.

Are you game?

Miles Notley returns home as the new Duke of Winslow after being sent away for accidentally killing his younger brother when he was ten years old, an act his older brother committed—and denied. With his brother’s death, Miles finds himself in unfamiliar waters. He has no idea how to run an estate, much less be a duke. Until he meets an intriguing young woman.

Emery Jenson came to Wildwood ten years ago with her parents, hired to be the estate’s steward and housekeeper. She has taken on more responsibility as her father’s mind grows weak and now runs the ducal country seat. When the new duke shows up, she schemes to hide her father’s deficiencies, believing the Duke of Winslow won’t remain long since the Season is in full swing and he will need to claim a bride and provide an heir.

But Miles isn’t going anywhere. He becomes captivated not only by Emery’s charm and confidence but admires her skills in making Wildwood a profitable estate. Miles decides no one but Emery can be his duchess—and he is up for the challenge, ready to convince the blunt beauty in the battle of wills that they can both come up winners—if she will only say yes.

Will Emery, who thinks she has found her place in the world and urges Miles to now find his, discover that the best place she can be is at the Duke of Winslow’s side?

French singer and spy Marie-Louise Fortier has spent her life protecting idealistic men like her father, who died trying to wrest France back from Napoleon. So when the British War Office asks her to safeguard a former naval captain in the little spa village of Grace-by-the-Sea from the emperor’s threats, she doesn’t hesitate, even if it means pretending to be engaged to the legendary Captain St. Claire to remain at his side.

Quillan St. Claire has been taking care of himself since he was a foundling. He’s fought Napoleon in battle and now smuggles the tyrant’s secrets from France to aid England’s cause. He’s certainly not willing to trust the pretty soprano with his life, yet her siren’s voice seems to call to him. As danger draws closer, these two must work together to protect the friendly little village that welcomed them, only to discover that protecting each other may mean risking their hearts for a real chance at love.

5 Stars! “The cozy village and its interesting people will always be in my heart.” Huntress Reviews

The only one who can help her is the man who broke her heart.
Four years ago, Lady Caroline Astley took one look at Henry Greville, Viscount Thetford, and fell horribly in love, in that particular way you can only fall in love at the age of fifteen.
He didn’t just reject her.
He humiliated her.
But now, in a stroke of rotten luck, he’s the only one who can help her.
It turns out that the “paste” pendant she borrowed from her sister, Anne, was no fake. It’s actually an ancient Egyptian amulet, and now Anne wants to auction it off to save hundreds of widows and orphans. What Caro can’t bear to tell her sister is that the necklace was stolen from right around her neck.
Caro has a few clues, but she doesn’t know an amulet from an obelisk, and the trail has gone cold. Guess who grew up in a house stuffed with Egyptian artifacts? Caro may despise Henry, but she needs him if she’s going to track down the thieves. Which begs the question of which is worse: letting down the orphans or risking her heart all over again.

If you like sizzling Regency romance that makes you laugh and makes you swoon, give How to Train Your Viscount a try!

Wrong Place. Wrong Time. But the Right Knight in Shining Armor.
Scheming mamas make the best matchmakers…
Disillusioned with romantic love, Lady Harriet, Hattie, is looking forward to becoming a spinster and forever hiding her shameful secret. A notorious recluse, Lord Hatherop, Percy, has a secret of his own he wishes to keep such and no intention to marry any time soon. Fate—in the person of a mother anxious to marry her daughter at all costs—places them together in the same room, alone.
The honorable thing to do is marry in haste.
When the ghosts from the past threaten the newlyweds’ future, will the strong chemistry between them be enough to save their marriage?

Regency Mid-Summer Mischief: Seven stories of Regency heroines and heroes finding love in the fact of obstructions: mayhem, malice, and mischief. Varying heat levels, both in the text and during the English summertime. Seven best-selling and award-winning authors team up to delight your summer holiday reading.

For Jack Beresford, Earl of Hawkenden, emotional entanglements are the path to pain. But when his brother brings his new wife and her best friend to his country home, everything changes. Lady Cecily Thornhill is both vibrant and beautiful, and Jack finds himself increasingly captivated by her sunny nature. Yet he must resist her charms, for in a month she’ll be gone— unless his frozen heart thaws before then…

By day, Lady Donnatella is a duke’s silly daughter.

So she can save London lives by night.

When she stumbles into something larger than a street fight, everything she’s balancing may come crashing down…

It’s another lonely season for Tella, dancing and gaming madly while keeping marriage away. She cannot tell her family or friends that her true self is the one battling danger in the city’s dark streets. Nor will anyone guess; she’s perfected her disguise.

Then her night-time alter ego is seen — just when she can no longer count on her best friend, or her beloved great-uncle. And the resulting fuss in the newspapers isn’t making any of this easier. Nor is the reporter who saw her.

Henry Fitzwilliam, third son of a marquess, left London society to serve in the wars, and won’t go back. He’s devoted his life to telling the stories Britain needs to hear, and perhaps this Caped Count falls into that category. He can’t be sure until he gets much, much closer.

Tella can handle a fight, but tracking a murderer makes for higher stakes. She might need someone at her back. Fitz might be the worst choice — or he might be more perfect than either of them suspects.

Sir Robert Benson’s life is in London. He fled Ashmead the day he discovered the man he thought was his father had lied to him, and the girl he loved was beyond his reach. Only a nameless plea from his sister—his half-sister—brings him back. He will not allow a ludicrous bequest from the earl who sired him turn him into a mockery of landed gentry. When a feisty little termagant with flashing eyes—and a musket—tries to turn Rob off the land—his land—he’s too amused and intrigued to turn away. But the longer he stays, the tighter the bonds that tie him to Ashmead become, strengthened by the powerful draw of the woman rooted on land he’s determined to sell.
Lucy Whitaker’s life is Willowbrook, its land, its tenants, its prosperity, but she always knew it wasn’t hers, knew the missing heir would come eventually. When a powerful man with military bearing rides up looking as if he wants to come in and count the silver, she turns him away, but her heart sinks. She can’t deny Rob Benson his property; she can only try to make him love the place as she does, for her peoples’ sake. A traitorous corner of her heart wishes Rob would love it for her sake.
His life is London and diplomatic intrigue; hers is Ashmead and the land. How can they forge something lasting when they are torn in two directions?

Marriage is for dupes and fools. It is a truth Lord Whiddon has witnessed firsthand and more than once. He’s been distraught, watching his closest friends fall one by one—and he’s determined to avoid parson’s mousetrap himself.
He’s surprised, then, to find himself in sympathy with a pretty, young debutante, in Town for the Season and determined to find herself a husband. But Miss Charlotte Mayne is a challenge and a worthy verbal sparring partner, with unique vision and a vulnerability that only he seems to see. He can’t marry her himself, but he deigns to help her in her quest.
Well. Best laid plans and all of that. Misfortune—and a spiteful adversary—strikes, and the pair finds themselves forced to wed.
Whiddon vows it will be a marriage in name only, but Charlotte wants more. She marshals her wit, determination and probing insight and plans her siege, but she’s up against Whiddon’s stubbornness, the ghosts of his past, and the maneuverings of their foes.
Will fiery passion and fledgling love be enough to conquer the obstacles in their path—and their own fears?

When fate opens a door, one must …
Selina Pemberton’s father arranged for her to marry a duke’s son. However, he wasn’t the gentleman who starred in her fantasies. No. The honor went to the groom’s cousin. A most maddening Scotsman. He irritated her with his teasing and the nickname Duchess he bestowed on her. Yet his kisses ignited a passion that soothed her soul. Every stolen moment with him tempted Selina to defy her father’s demands. Can Selina change the course of her destiny?
There wasn’t a lass who didn’t find Duncan Forrester charming. With the exception of his cousin’s bride to be. A lady who had stolen his heart. He shouldn’t give into his temptation to seduce her, but her vulnerability kept drawing him under her spell. He wished to steal her away to Scotland. When Selina finally opened her heart to him, Duncan thought they would spend their lifetime loving each other. However, his uncle had other plans. He forced them apart, leaving Duncan struggling to win Selina’s affection. Can Duncan convince Selina of his undying devotion?
A lady whose greatest wish was to feel loved. A gentleman whose greatest wish was forbidden. Would these two fall victim to a lost courtship? Or would Selina and Duncan succumb to scandalous temptation?

How the Scot Stole the Bride is the fourth book in Laura A. Barnes’s Matchmaking Madness Series. If you enjoy an emotional romance filled with passionate scenes, then you’ll love Selina and Duncan’s gripping love story.

“If…looking for something new with Austen’s spirit, humor, and dashing heroes, they can’t do better than MacGregor.” -Entertainment Weekly

A Duke in Time is the first book in a three-story arc that will have you rooting for leading heroines, searching for lost dowries, and falling for swoon-worthy heroes.

Katherine Vareck is in for the shock of her life when she learns upon her husband Meri’s accidental death that he had married two other women. Her entire business, along with a once-in-a-lifetime chance to be a royal supplier, is everything she’s been working for and now could be destroyed if word leaks about the three wives.

Meri’s far more upstanding brother, Christian, Duke of Randford has no earthly clue how to be of assistance. He spent the better part of his adult years avoiding Meri and the rest of his good-for-nothing family, so to be dragged back into the fold is…problematic. Even more so is the intrepid and beautiful Katherine, whom he cannot be falling for because she’s Meri’s widow. Or can he?

With a textile business to run and a strong friendship forming with Meri’s two other wives, Katherine doesn’t have time for much else. But there’s something about the warm, but compellingly taciturn Christian that draws her to him. When an opportunity to partner in a business venture brings them even closer, they’ll have to face their pasts if they want to share each other’s hearts and futures.

A heartfelt and funny coming-of-age story, this magical-realism drama, adventure and romance sweeps from Spain to the Scottish Hebrides.

Can a girl who wants to heal others heal her own heart?

Spain, 1825. The young and poetic Sofia-Elisabete Fitzwilliam, a British-Portuguese girl, lives in a world of restrictions and expectations, where repression is the order of the day. Her acts of freedom are to find humor in the absurd and to see magic in the mundane. The girl is drawn to a longing to heal others, but her own heart is troubled. Once abandoned by her mother, she struggles to trust people, and doubts whether she’s worthy of love. When her mother attempts to sell her into an arranged marriage, she feels betrayed.

With family ties pulling her in different directions, Sofia-Elisabete rebels against tradition by running away. Ferdinand VII’s Spain is certainly no female paradise for one so bold as she, or a girl who is forever finding trouble and prone to misadventure. Sofia-Elisabete loves a Scotsman, Kitt Munro, who treats her as an equal and can offer her a new life in England. But Kitt is torn between family duty and his love for her. Can she ever let go of her past and trust Kitt’s love and the healing power in her hands?