The Inner Circle (Return of the Ancients Book 3) (28 page)

However, even that plan goes drastically awry. On his wedding day, he finds himself faced instead with an enticing, green-eyed lass named Bree. A walking disaster, his bride immediately turns his world into chaos and threatens to melt his resolve never to love again.

Betrayed by her own mother, Bree flees to Skye, thinking only to reunite with her long, lost father. Instead, she finds herself wed to Ruan MacLeod as a replacement bride. When she is forced to remain in the castle, she is soon caught between brothers and the mentally ill wife of the laird.

Shy, yet strong, Bree embarks on a journey of independence and learns along the way that all men are not necessarily evil. In fact, one particularly brooding, yet gentle-hearted warrior is worthy of love, and she soon loses her heart forever.

Award-Winning Novel: The Bedeviled Heart

"The Bedeviled Heart" is the ROMANCE SILVER MEDAL WINNER of the 2012 Independent Publisher Book Awards!

(Scotland, 1479) Cameron Malcolm Stewart, Earl of Lennox, had made his peace with destiny. It was not his fate to love as other men. Each of his politically arranged marriages had ended in disaster. And though he had never touched a one of his wives, he had come to believe that sharing his name would consign a woman to an early grave. So, on the sunny spring day Cameron encounters a delightfully devious, bright-eyed lass selling charmed stones in one of Stirling's alehouses, he tosses her a shilling, thinking only to steal a kiss. But it is a kiss that will change his life forever.

To care for her ailing father, the precocious Kate Ferguson has resorted to swindling the drunkards of Stirling. But a chance meeting with a handsome and seductively mysterious outlaw named Cameron ends with a kiss that changes the course of her destiny.

But as dark times descend upon Scotland, Kate is inadvertently caught in a deadly web of court intrigue spun by the royal favorite, Thomas Cochrane. And as King James III falls prey to his fear of the Black Arts, accusations of witchcraft and treachery abound. The fate of Scotland hangs in the balance, and while Cameron vows to defy destiny itself to hold Kate forever in his arms, he must unravel the plots of nobles and commoners alike to protect the country that he loves.

The Daring Heart

(Scotland, 1482) - To the scandalous Lord Julian Gray, marriage is a malady and nothing more. How can a man even court a lass longer than a fortnight when there are so many pouting lips to kiss?

Roaming the courts of Europe, Julian appears to spend his time drinking wine, wagering gold, and dandling willing lasses upon his knee. But no one knows the man behind the mask. No one knows that he is Le Marin--Europe's most daring and brazen spy.

But everything changes the night he finds a dagger pressed against his ribs and an alluring hazel-eyed minx in his bed.

Born into the Vindictam, the renowned Venetian family of assassins, Liselle dreams of the day she will be allowed to practice the family craft. And when she is sent to the Scottish court, her dream is finally realized. But is it an honor ... or a curse?

As the threat of civil war looms over Scotland, and the king's own brother conspires with the English to put himself on the Scottish throne, Julian can't help but be distracted by the mysterious Venetian beauty and her many secrets.

But will it be his undoing?