In a land torn apart by conflict, can love mend the tattered pieces?
As 1754 is drawing to a close, tensions between the French and the British on Canada’s Acadian shore are reaching a fever pitch. Seamstress Sylvie Galant and her family—French-speaking Acadians wishing to remain neutral—are caught in the middle, their land positioned between two
forts flying rival flags. Amid preparations for the celebration of Noël, the talk is of unrest, coming war, and William Blackburn, the British Army Ranger raising havoc across North America’s borderlands.
As summer takes hold in 1755 and British ships appear on the horizon, Sylvie encounters Blackburn, who warns her of the coming invasion. Rather than participate in the forced removal of the Acadians from their land, he resigns his commission. But that cannot save Sylvie or her kin.
Relocated on a ramshackle ship to Virginia, Sylvie struggles to pick up the pieces of her life. When her path crosses once more with William’s, they must work through the complex tangle of their shared, shattered past to navigate the present and forge an enduring future.
In 1715, Lady Blythe Hedley’s father is declared an enemy of the British crown because of his Jacobite sympathies, forcing her to flee her home in northern England. Secreted to the tower of Wedderburn Castle in Scotland, Blythe quietly
awaits the crowning of a new king. But in a house with seven sons and numerous servants, her presence soon becomes known.
No sooner has Everard Hume lost his father, Lord Wedderburn, than Lady Hedley arrives with her maid in tow. He has his own problems—a volatile brother with dangerous political leanings, an estate to manage, and a very young brother in
need of comfort and direction. It would be best for everyone if he could send this misfit heiress on her way as soon as possible.
In this whirlwind of intrigue, ambitions, and shifting alliances, Blythe yearns for someone she can trust. But the same forces that draw her and Everard together also threaten to tear them apart.
It is 1755, and the threat of war with France looms over colonial York, Virginia. Chocolatier Esmée Shaw is fighting her own battle of the heart. Having reached her twenty-eighth birthday, she is reconciled to life alone after a decade-old failed love affair from which she's never quite recovered. But she longs to find something worthwhile to do with her life. Captain Henri Lennox has returned to port after a lengthy absence, intent on completing the lighthouse in the dangerous Chesapeake Bay, a dream he once shared with Esmée. But when the colonial government asks him to lead a secret naval expedition against the French, his future is plunged into uncertainty. Can Esmée and Henri's shared vision and dedication to the colonial cause heal the wounds of the past and reunite them?
Selah Hopewell seems to be the only woman in the Virginia colony who has no wish to wed. True, there are too many men and far too few women in James Towne. But Selah already has her hands full assisting her father in the family's shop. And now she is in charge of an incoming ship of tobacco brides who must be looked after as they sort through their many suitors. Xander Renick is perhaps the most eligible tobacco lord in the settlement. His lands are vast, his crops are prized, and his position as a mediator between the colonists and the powerful Powhatan nation surrounding them makes him indispensable. But Xander is already wedded to his business and still grieves the loss of his wife, daughter of the Powhatan chief. Can two fiercely independent people find happiness and fulfillment on their own? Or will they discover that what they've been missing in life has been right in front of them all along? Bestselling and award-winning author Laura Frantz takes you to the salty shores of seventeenth-century Virginia in this exploration of pride, honor, and the restorative power of true love.
Lady Elisabeth Lawson lleva haciendo encajes desde que tenía cinco años. Su tranquilo mundo se pone patas arriba cuando en el Williamsburg colonial la paz salta por los aires en vísperas de la Revolución Americana. Su prometido la abandona y por si fuera poco, la acusan de ser una espía británica. Todos odian a los británicos, así que ella se queda sola, sin nadie que la apoye salvo Patriot Noble Rynallt, un hombre que ya tiene suficientes enemigos de por sí. ¿Y qué hacer ahora? ¿Podrá confiar en él? ¿Se quedará con los revolucionarios o se mantendrá fiel a sus raíces británicas?
Unflinching and plainspoken, Tessa Swan is not your typical eighteenth-century woman. Born and bred on the western Virginia frontier along with her five brothers, she is a force to be reckoned with. Quiet and courageous, Clay Tygart is not your typical eighteenth-century man. Raised by Lenape Indians, he returns a hero from the French and Indian War to the fort that bears his name, bringing with him Tessa's long-lost friend, Keturah, a redeemed Indian captive like himself. Determined to avoid any romantic entanglements as fort commander, Clay remains aloof whenever he encounters the lovely Tessa. But when she is taken captive by the tribe Clay left, his hand-and heart-are forced, leading to one very private and one very public reckoning. Intense, evocative, and laced with intricate historical details that bring the past to life, An Uncommon Woman will transport you to the picturesque and dangerous western Virginia mountains of 1770.
After fleeing Virginia, Temperance Tucker and her family established an inn along the Shawnee River. It's a welcome way station for settlers and frontiersmen traveling through the wild Cumberland region of Kentucky-men like Sion Morgan, a Virginia surveyor who arrives at the inn with his crew looking for an experienced guide. When his guide appears, Sion balks. He certainly didn't expect a woman. But it is not long before he must admit that Tempe's skill in the wilderness rivals his own. Still, the tenuous tie they are forming is put to the test as they encounter danger after danger and must rely on each other. With her signature sweeping style and ability to bring the distant past to vivid life, Laura Frantz beckons listeners to join her in a land of Indian ambushes, conflicting loyalties, and a tentative love that meanders like a cool mountain stream.
Magnus MacLeish and Lark MacDougall grew up together on the same castle grounds, but Magnus is now the laird of the great house and the Isle of Kerrera while Lark tends to his bees. When Magnus finds that his wife has trouble bearing an heir, he goes to Lark to request a tincture that might help his ailing wife conceive. When his wife suddenly dies, Lark finds herself on the run, accompanied by Magnus, after a whirlwind of accusations expelled them from their beloved island. After running towards a life of indentured servitude in the New World, Lark and Magnus find that maybe this is a chance for a new beginningÄîtogether.
The American Revolution is finally over, and Sophie Menzies is starved for good news. When her closest neighbor, General Seamus Ogilvy, finally comes home to Tall Acre, she hopes it is a sign of better days to come. But the general is now a widower with a small daughter in desperate need of a mother. Nearly destitute, Sophie agrees to marry Seamus and become the mistress of Tall Acre in what seems a safe and sensible arrangement. But when a woman from the general's past returns without warning, the ties that bind this fledgling family together will be strained to the point of breaking. When all is said and done, who will be the rightful mistress of Tall Acre?
When colonial Williamsburg explodes like a powder keg on the eve of the American Revolution, Lady Elisabeth Liberty Lawson is abandoned by her fiance and suspected of being a spy for the hated British. No one comes to her aid save the Patriot Noble Rynallt, a man with formidable enemies of his own. The Virginia belle-turned-lacemaker is left with a terrible choice: will she side with the radical revolutionaries, or will she stay true to her English roots? And at what cost? With The Lacemaker, historical-romance favorite Laura Frantz continues to enchant listeners with her meticulous eye for detail and her knack for creating living, breathing characters.
Sheltered since birth at her Kentucky home, Rowena Ballantyne has heard only whispered rumors of her grandfather Silas's vast fortune and grand manor in Pennsylvania. When her father receives a rare letter summoning him to New Hope, Rowena makes the journey with him and quickly finds herself in a whole new world-filled with family members she's never met, dances she's never learned, and a new side to the father she thought she knew. As she struggles to fit in during their extended stay, she finds a friend in James Sackett, the most valued steamship pilot of the Ballantynes' shipping line. Even with his help, Rowena feels that she may never be comfortable in high society. Will she go her own way . . . to her peril?
Ellie Ballantyne, youngest child of Silas and Eden, has left finishing school. But back at her family home in Pittsburgh, Ellie finds that her parents are away on a long trip and her siblings don't seem to want her to stay. When she opens a day school for young ladies, she begins tutoring the incorrigible daughter of the enemy Turlock clan. The Turlocks are slaveholders and whiskey magnates, envious of the powerful Ballantynes and suspicious of their abolitionist leanings. As Ellie becomes increasingly tangled with the Turlocks, she finds herself falling in love with an impossible future—and Jack Turlock, a young man striving to free himself from his family's violent legacy. How can she betray her family and side with the enemy? And will Jack ever allow her into his world?
