Parisian Passion by Evelyn Trimborn

Contemporary, Suspense; Setting: London, Paris, rural England

Just when Caroline Edwards thinks she has escaped from her past in the competitive world of high-fashion modeling, she is propelled into a nightmarish encounter with her controlling ex-fiance Michael, who seems hell bent on either having her back, or ruining her new career as a top photographer.

Trapped in Paris with desperate designer Derek Alexander, on deadline to get his next collection’s shoot done, she struggles to cope with the ghosts from her past and her tumultuous feelings for her new boss.

Is Derek only interested in her as another pretty face? Why is he so intent on luring her back into the world she thought she had firmly left behind?

When someone starts sabotaging the photo shoot, who can Caroline trust? Is the secretive and mercurial Derek really all he seems? Or is he part of Michael’s whole plot to entrap her and get revenge?

Caroline must choose between the devil she knows, and the one she doesn’t, but longs to with every fiber of her being, if she is ever to leave her past behind and risk all to win true love with the enigmatic Derek.

Click on the link to read the first chapter:

Parisian Passion
Rating: Moderately sensual, some suspense elements

Posted May 25, 2008 Comments(1)

4 1/2 stars Romantic Times, Top Pick, and Reviewer’s Choice Award Nominee:

Call Home the Heart, Shannon Farrell

Ireland, 1845

Widowed by a shooting accident on her honeymoon, Muireann Caldwell discovers that her wastrel husband Augustine has left her penniless, and almost homeless. She now faces returning to her smothering family back in Scotland, or charting her own course with the crumbling Caldwell estate in Ireland.

Deciding to remain in Ireland to tackle Barnakilla and its mountain of debt, Muireann turns to the handsome, capable Lochlainn Roche, her late husband’s estate manager, for support.

Lochlainn worries that with Augustine dead, his lifelong home will be forfeited, especially if the young widow decides to run home to Scotland.

But he’s surprised by the strength Muireann displays, and grows to admire her courage and determination, especially as the Irish Potato Famine begins to spread its blight on the land he loves so well.

Muireann struggles to re-build the estate and create a sanctuary all can call home. She grows to love Barnakilla as much as Lochlainn does. Dare he hope she returns the love he has found for her? Or will the sacrifices she is forced to make prove too much for her?

And dare Lochlainn even trust her? When her husband’s cousin begins to ask questions about the fatal shooting accident, Muireann and Lochlainn must trust to love if they are ever to save Muireann and Barnakilla from certain doom….

Muireann’s lips parted with a sigh, deepening the sweet kiss into something much more compelling as he raised one hand to hold her chin tenderly and explored her mouth with a leisurely thoroughness that thrilled them both to the core.

At last Lochlainn lifted his lips, knowing he couldn’t hide his throbbing desire for her forever. But she seemed untroubled by the kiss, stroking her hand down the long column of his neck with her eyes closed.

“How long will it take us to get to Enniskillen?” she asked sleepily.

“We should be there by tea time if we have clear roads, but then we’ll have to hope for a lift out to Barnakilla,” he whispered against her silken hair, now a mass of curls which he tousled with this hands, savoring the soft feel of her all over.

Like a rose without thorns. The thought came to him suddenly, and he found the simile apt.

Muireann nodded, and stroked the hand around her as she returned her head to the pillow. She reflected somewhere in the back of her drowsy mind how wonderful Lochlainn felt in the bed beside her. How they just seemed to fit together.

She had had the strangest sensation when she had first met him on the docks in Dun Laoghaire, and their hands had touched in greeting. She had trembled then as though the ground under her were shaking. She had felt almost as if she had come home, though of course she had never before set foot in Ireland. As though they belonged together for all time…

Call Home the Heart
Shannon Farrell
Setting: Ireland, 1845
Word Count=117,000
Rating: Quite Sensual

Click on the link to read the first chapter:

Call Home the Heart

Posted May 17, 2008 Comments(0)

The Matchless Miss
The Rakehell Regency Series
Book 4
Sorcha MacMurrough
Off the shelf, into the fire!
England, 1814

Spinster Sarah Deveril is content to live quietly with her brother and his wife in the rolling English countryside, tending house at the vicarage, and working for the benefit of the poor. Though wealthy and beautiful, she has never met any man who stirred her heart, until a mysterious visitor with the same name as her brother appears on her doorstep.

The man she re-christens “Alexander” is blind and wounded as a result of the Peninsular War, with no recollection of who he really is. Taking pity on the desperate, and exceptionally handsome gentleman, Sarah nurses him back to health, and sets him on the path to discover his past, and how he came to be so terribly injured.

The more Alexander discovers about his true identity, the more he simply wants to linger with the rare woman who has come to mean more to him than life itself. But ignorance is a luxury he and Sarah cannot afford, as the enemies from his past make various attempts upon his life.

Only Sarah stands between Alexander and certain death as the men who betrayed their country for the sake of Napoleon scheme to kill Alexander before he can expose their treason. Can she save her one true love, or will their love become just another casualty of the long, terrible war?

The Matchless Miss
The Rakehell Regency Series
Book 4
Sorcha MacMurrough
Rating: Very Sensual
Word Count=97,00

Click on the link to read the first chapter: The Matchless Miss

Posted May 11, 2008 Comments(0)

The Faithful Heart

Sorcha MacMurrough

Tudor Ireland, 1537

Who has murdered Morgana Maguire’s brother, poisoned her father, and stolen most of her clan’s ships? There are just a few of the pressing questions the novice nun must find answers to if she and her one true love Ruairc MacMahon are ever to find happiness in each other’s arms.

Morgana broke off her engagement to the only man she ever loved when her brother was murdered, convinced that her fiance had had betrayed them all. Now, two years later, Ruairc returns to Donegal at the request of Morgana’s father, who wants to make peace with them both before he dies.

In the time that’s passed since the murder, Ruairc is the only one who does not appear to have profited from the young man’s death in any way. In fact, his life has been a living hell.

Ruairc has never loved anyone but the fiery woman with hair like living flame. Forced to earn a living after being banished from his clan for a murder he did not commit, Ruairc has had to dance attendance upon the powerful and ambitious English courtiers in Dublin.

Ruairc is overjoyed to be summoned back to the Maguire lands to be with Morgana again, despite the nest of murdeous interigue he is walking right back into. He would brave the gate of Hell itself if it meant winning Morgana for his wife. If only he could convince her he loves her for herself alone, not her title, lands or wealth.

Despite her suspicions, Morgana bonds with Ruairc, as her most trusted ally and lover too, the only anchor in her swirling world. As their enemies surround him and brother fights brother for clan supremacy, the sensual couple can barely keep their heads above water as the shifting quicksands of loyalty and allegiance threaten to drag them under.

Only Morgana’s greatest ship, The Faithful Heart, stands between the Maguire and MacMahon clans and the destruction of their entire region at the hands of the fanatical, power hungry traitors in their midsts.

Set against the backdrop of Tudor power politics and Reformation during the reign of Henry VIII, and the rebellion of the great Irish leader Silken Thomas, Morgana and Ruairc must fight not only to win each other’s love, but to protect all of Ireland from civil war and foreign invasion.

The Faithful Heart

Word Count: 90,000

Rating: Moderately sensual.

Click here to read more or order: The Faithful Heart

Posted May 5, 2008 Comments(0)

The Isle of Destiny
Book Two of The Druids of Destiny Series
Northern Wales, Ireland, 1146

Caradoc the Black Hawk rescues novice nun Morgaine from a murderous band of cutthroats. Caradoc tries to return the beautiful young woman safely to her convent, but her enemies have burnt it to the ground, leaving her completely at Caradoc’s mercy.

Demanding answers from the lovely but mysterious woman who sets him on fire, the scarred and battle-hardened warrior is shocked to discover his companion is none other than the legendary Morgaine of Yns Draiocht, said to be descended from both King Arthur and the great wizard Merlin.

Caradoc believes that Morgaine is being used as nothing more than a pawn in her neighboring lord Yestin’s bid for power over the magical island of Yns Draiocht, the most sacred of all druid strongholds.

Morgaine’s father Gawain is being held to ransom by Yestin’s Viking allies in Dublin. Morgaine is willing to trade herself for her father, but Caradoc refuses to allow her to make the bargain. He knows they will keep Morgaine a prisoner forever, and destroy all that she as a druid is sworn to protect.

Despite his being half-blind as a result of his deliberate maiming at the hands of rogue royal prince Cadwalader, Caradoc is determined to rescue Morgaine’s father and remove Yestin’s threat to the druid isle forever. As he travels to Dublin to rescue her father, and finds himself falling in love with Morgaine, he is willing to make any sacrifice to keep her safe, and stop Cadwalader from overrunning all of northern Wales.

Morgaine is stunned at the depth of her feelings for the handsome but badly scarred Caradoc. She determines to trust him with her life and love, and teaches him how to use the power she can sense within him to control the four elements. Their torrid passion and deepening love give both the strength and confidence to do battle with the forces of darkness.

But the mystical forces underlying Yns Draiocht are nothing if not seductive. Will Caradoc uses his new found magics for good or evil? And can this practical man of the world ever believe in magic, or that he is worthy of the love of so powerful a princess?

The Isle of Destiny

Shanna Murchison
Setting: North Wales, June 1145
Word Count=118,000
Rating: Very Sensual

Click on the link to read the first chapter: The Isle of Destiny

Posted May 1, 2008 Comments(0)