Today’s Steals and Deals at AAR…..

Angsty and satisfying plus great chemistry between the leads! What more could you want? (Our review is here.)

 

When Douglas McRae visits a business acquaintance named Hartley, he is surprised to be confronted by a woman he has believed dead for years. Jeanne Du Marchand is governess in Hartley’s household, and Hartley openly sizes her up as a potential bedmate in front of Douglas, who listens on, infuriated. Douglas is torn between the breathtaking chemistry they once shared, and hatred for the woman whom he believes tried to kill their child. He resolves to have Jeanne watched, in case she tries to leave the city without his knowledge. A chance encounter in the street leaves him certain that he is unable to let her out of his life so easily again, feelings of loathing for her past sins aside.

As the plot goes on we learn that, ten years previously, Jeanne Du Marchand conducted an intimate affair with Douglas. When she broke the news of her impending pregnancy to her father, a wealthy French aristocrat, she expected he’d permit her to marry. Instead he confines her to a convent for the duration of her pregnancy and commissions a servant to have the baby killed. Douglas is led to believe it was Jeanne who ended their relationship, and when he eventually goes back to look for her, finds that she appears to have absconded and dumped his child to die. His bitterness towards her as they meet again ten years on is clearly explained.

Douglas is torn between hatred for Jeanne and the powerful chemistry that exists between them and continues to draw them closer. When Hartley attempts to seduce Jeanne, she flees the house in secret, only to be nabbed by one of Douglas’ servants. She is taken to Douglas’s remote estate, where she will act as governess of his own daughter. Meanwhile, Jeanne’s noble French father, whom she has learned to hate while confined for ten years in the nunnery and subjected to torture at the hands of a crazed, sin-obsessed nun, has come back in pursuit of a very valuable gem that belonged to Jeanne’s mother, which he believes she has.

Jeanne and Douglas find it impossible to exist in the same household on a platonic level, and soon they have become passionate lovers at night, unable to address the tangled-up truth of the past. The first half of this book I found incredibly powerful, in its description of Jeanne’s tormented past at the hands of the nuns, and how badly and unfairly she is subsequently treated by Douglas, who still believes the worst of her.

 

It’s at Amazon for 1.99 here.


This very fun historical has a strong heroine we loved. Our B+ review is here.

 

Upon his scandalous brother’s death in a boating accident, Mason St. Clair was pulled away from his duties as a dean at Oxford to become the new Earl of Ashlin. Sensible, studious Mason is aghast to discover his brother left behind a barrelful of debts and three hoydenish daughters that Mason despairs of ever marrying off. Mason feels that the only way he can restore his family to its former grandeur is by marrying the brainless but wealthy Cit, Miss Pindar. But then a beautiful stranger bursts into his study and Mason begins thinking like his bawdy brother for the first time in his life.

Mysterious, infamous actress Riley Fontaine is floored to discover that her theater’s patron, the Earl of Ashlin, has died, and the new Earl is eager to collect on the debt the theater owes him. Although he knows she’s a common actress, he admires her considerable charm, which is a quality his nieces are sadly lacking. To stall the Earl until her new play opens, Riley agrees to tutor his three horrible nieces into passable young ladies suitable for the Marriage Mart. Mason and Riley feel an instant attraction despite their different stations in life and, of course, become involved with each other. When Mason discovers that someone is making attempts on Riley’s life, he demands that she move into the house and pretend to be his cousin so he can protect her from the assassin. Naturally, society is abuzz over the young “cousin” Riley St. Clair. Amidst all this intrigue, Mason and Riley must decide what they really want from each other.

 

It’s on sale at Amazon for 1.99 here.


This HR also has a wonderfully strong heroine. (Our review is here.)

 

Emily Longesley waited patiently for her intended to return from the war and has been waiting patiently for him ever since. Yes, there was a wedding but since he left her just weeks after their nuptials, it is almost like the ceremony never occurred. She would have been content to go on waiting for him indefinitely, but his heir apparent, Rupbert, comes by and reminds Emily that the estate she has run with such consummate skill is not really hers; it is her husband’s. And if she doesn’t produce said husband soon Rupbert will presume he is dead and act accordingly. Emily heads to London. She has no intention of letting her husband’s disinterest in their marriage cost her the home she has worked so hard for.

Adrian, Earl of Folbroke, would rather be dead than blind. Since he is still living but rapidly losing his sight, he works at changing the situation. He spends his time in London drinking and gambling at the worst dives imaginable, hoping someone will eventually slit his throat for his coin. Then he meets a mysterious lady who stirs his blood and brings out the noble side of his character which has long lain dormant. Can he hope for a bit of light before the darkness completely consumes him?

Emily tracks Adrian to a truly wretched dive, where she proceeds to capture his attention. However, that attention is only to the physical her since he doesn’t recognize his own wife. She proceeds to seduce him, determined to have him in her bed if nowhere else. As the two begin their affair it becomes apparent just how much they can mean to each other. Can their relationship withstand the blow of Emily’s secret?

 

It’s at Amazon for 1.99 here.


This contemp is a very good time. (Our review is here.)

 

This book just works on a whole lot of levels. Two great lead characters – both amusingly eccentric and, at the same time, deeply traumatized from horrific incidents in their pasts – share the stage with a secondary romance almost as enjoyable as the main one. Add in a town full of terrific characters who very satisfyingly come to light, along with humor that flows naturally from those characters and the situations in which they find themselves, and you’ve got a lot of reasons to add Then Comes Marriage to your TBR pile.

To the outside world, heiress Honor Witherspoon may seem like a woman who has it all, but reality is far from the truth. Kidnapped and held captive by men who also sexually threatened her (First Comes Love), the FBI agent who shared her last days in captivity kept both of them occupied by relating stories of the small town of his childhood. During those unimaginably horrible days, Hot Water came to represent to the lonely heiress the love and community acceptance she had long dreamed of, but never achieved.

However, since Honor has a few more options at her disposal than you and I, instead of just moving to the small town, her father buys the town’s historic district and gives it to Honor to run. At the same time, he also purchases a security software company owned by Bram Bennett, a reclusive genius still reeling from the murder of his young wife eight years earlier. When Honor’s father accepts a foreign ambassadorship and has to leave the country, his approach to dealing with his growing security concerns regarding his daughter is a bit inexplicable. Believing that a man will do anything to protect his wife, he successfully bribes Bram and Honor to marry by threatening economic ruin to the town they both love.

 

It’s at Amazon for 2.99 here.


Looking for an HR with working class leads AND a MOC story? Here you go! (Our review is here.)

 

It’s quite refreshing to find a story set in this period in which the protagonists are ordinary working people. In A Debt Paid in Marriage, Laura Townsend and her mother are left to the care of her uncle following the death of Laura’s father, who was a prosperous draper. Unfortunately, Robert Townsend very quickly gambles away the family business and reduces them all to penury.

In a desperate, last-ditch attempt to salvage something, Laura sneaks in to the home of Philip Rathbone, the moneylender from whom her uncle had borrowed a large sum for which he’d used the business as security. She plans to force Rathbone into returning some valuable cloth to her so that she can recoup some of their losses and begin to repay the debt. Discovering her quarry relaxing in his bath, Laura confronts him at gunpoint. Rathbone is surprisingly unperturbed and makes no bones whatsoever about rising from the bath and dripping all over the carpet so he can show her – while completely naked – the paperwork proving his ownership of the business.

Shocked at his sangfroid and realising hers is a lost cause, Laura flees back to the dingy room in Seven Dials she shares with her mother, knowing that they will soon be unable to afford even that. Her uncle has disappeared on one of his regular drinking binges, and she has no idea what is to become of them.

Philip, meanwhile, can’t forget the quiet desperation and courage of the young woman who had challenged him, and thinks she may provide the solution to some of his most pressing problems. A widower with a young son and a thirteen year-old sister, he needs someone to guide and befriend Jane and a mother for Thomas – so he tracks Laura down and proposes a marriage of convenience. He will take care of her and her mother and in return she will run his household and learn his business and eventually, he hopes, bear him more children. Having no alternative, Laura agrees, and that very day Philip removes her and her mother to his home, but not before an unpleasant confrontation with her uncle, who makes clear his opposition and threatens them both.

 

It’s on sale for 1.99 here.


 

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