Showing results by author "Jane Peart" in All Categories

Penny Sayres' red hair, freckle-splashed skin, and fierce independence drew the attention of some of the region's most eligible bachelors. One by one, they've been disappointed - because romance and marriage are the last things on Penny's mind! Since her childhood, she has sensed an unknown destiny beckoning from the horizon. When Penny's brother, Brad, invites her to join his family on their wagon train to California, Penny's dream of adventure comes true.

When southern born Adelaide Pride loses her home, her parents, and the man she would have married during the Civil War, she accepts a position as a companion to a Yankee spinster at a health spa in Napa Valley, California. Did she dare to hope that her dreams of love and belonging were yet possible?

It was to be a very special summer, the summer of Queen Victoria's Jubilee, the 60th year of the English monarch's reign. It was the summer Faith Devlin had looked forward to with great anticipation - the pressures of her debutante year were over, Jeff Montrose was back in London, and her American cousins were coming for a family reunion at the beautiful country estate of Birchfields. It was the summer of unexpected encounters and romantic enterprises....

Craig Cavanaugh opened his briefcase and drew out the folder containing the manuscript. It was getting dark when he finished reading. No question, he thought, Kitty Traherne can write. Her face came back into his mind. He saw the pain in her eyes, heard the urgency in her voice, as he recalled the passion with which she had told him her reason for writing this highly controversial book.

"Why, Cara, why did you do it?" "Maybe no one wants to see me as I really am. Maybe in this family it isn't all right to be different. And I am different, Kitty, whether anyone wants to admit it or not." "But, Cara,--it just seems like tonight you set out deliberately to cause trouble." "Even you don’t understand, do you, Kitty?" "I do, I mean I'm trying to. You're my twin, I want to understand!" "Yes, I know we're twins, but who am I?" demanded Cara hotly.

Heroine Holly Lambeth has escaped the humiliation of a broken engagement by visiting her cousin's family in Riverbend, Oregon. When her cousin proves less than hospitable, Holly is forced to find her own way in this very alien and hostile culture. An unforeseen opportunity presents a challenge that brings Holly to a decision that will not only change her, but alter her own vision of her future.

She had come to Virginia to work, not to fall in love - certainly not with someone like Kip Montrose. Both Kip and his ancestral mansion, Montclair, had captured her imagination. The history of the house intrigued her as much as its master. Even ten years after the end of WWI, the families of Mayfield, VA, still feel its destructive effects. With his days as a dare-devil flying ace behind him, Kip Montrose is having a hard time settling down in the small Southern town and finding a new direction for his life.

In this sequel to Valiant Bride, Lorabeth Whitaker flees England and an undesirable marriage engagement. Ransomed Bride is a historical romance that brings to life a young couple's choice between duty and love.

Slowly she turned to face the door just as Graham came through at full stride. At the sight of him a wild kind of joy seized her. Graham halted on the threshold. He drew in his breath sharply, and in spite of himself, his pulse thundered at the sight of the tall, willowy figure. The last time he had seen Avril she had been a child. Here in her place was a graceful young woman. "Avril, my dear," he said, finding his voice. "Welcome home!" Readers of Fortune's Bride will be smitten with the charm of the old South as they follow Avril's development into womanhood.

Free-spirited journalist Independence McClaren follows her heart to a Colorado silver-town - and a test of her fierce commitment to the truth. Mindy's birth name is Independence McClaren - a fitting match for her tenacity and determination. Leaving behind a secure but colorless future in the east, the fiery young woman heads west to Coarse Gold, Colorado, and the opportunity to carve her mark in a man's world.

She was of American blood, born in the islands. He was a native islander. Their love bridged two worlds that would one day threaten to tear them apart. As a child, Jana Rutherford played barefoot on the sparkling Hawaiian beaches with her friend, Akela, and Akela's handsome cousin, Kimo. But that carefreeness would change as Jana grew... and the quality of her and Kimo's friendship grew as well into something deeper, stronger.

With the death of her father, Jo-Beth, her brother, and their mother, Johanna, move in with relatives in town. There, Johanna makes a living sewing her exquisite quilts and Jo-Beth discovers a special friend. Kind, thoughtful, and deep, Wesley Rutherford draws Jo-Beth like a magnet... and their attachment to one another becomes strong - strong enough to endure separation while Wes studies in Philadelphia. Strong enough to make their future together seem certain... until the Civil War forces a decision.

When Joy Montrose received her commission to paint a mural depicting the healing miracles of Jesus at Good Samaritan Hospital, she never anticipated forming a close friendship with Evan Marshall. But the bond between the talented young artist and the gifted surgeon has grown, even though their lives are worlds apart. Now, with the family estate falling suddenly and unexpectedly into Joy's hands, she finds herself sifting not only through the memorabilia of generations but through her own heart and aspirations. Is it truly love that she feels for Evan?

Niki had come to France to seek her true identity and to experience the richness of her French heritage. But what begins as a romantic, carefree summer holiday for Niki; her stepbrother, Luc Montrose; and their friend Paul Duval, ends with the outbreak of war, changing their lives forever. As World War II ravages Europe, Niki wants desperately to serve her native country in its time of need. She finds herself making dangerous decisions and facing dramatic challenges, aware of - but unable to do anything about - the impact the war is having on her loved ones back at Montclair.

For Rod it was a moment out of a thousand dreams. Yet the reality was more than he could have imagined. 'Blythe!' He said her name and in his voice was all the hope he'd thought was lost. The woman he saw was even lovelier than the girl he remembered. She was still as beautiful -- tall, slender, the glorious auburn hair, the soft, vulnerable mouth and peachbloom skin -- as when he had first met her at Montclair.

Johanna Shelby could never have anticipated where that 'fateful encounter' would lead her. She could not have known then how love for the young, rough-hewn, mountain doctor would cause her to turn her back on her privileged lifestyle, threaten to estrange her from her family, and bring her to the wild mountains of Appalachia. If she had known... But no! Nothing could hold her back. Not her adoring, worried parents. Not her snooty, so-called 'friends.' Not even her own flashes of doubt and fear. No, this love would not be denied.

Thus begins the bittersweet story of beautiful Sara Leighton, the headstrong heroine of Folly's Bride, the fourth in the Brides of Montclair series. As with her predecessors, happiness does not come painlessly to this newest bride of Montclair. Her unusual beauty and her independent spirit places her on a collision course with romance, frustration, disappointment, and finally, true love.

"Noramary came out of the parlor into the hall. Stunned by what she had just heard, she felt slightly light-headed and leaned against the closed door for a moment to steady herself. The shock of Winnie's elopement during the night had been followed by a second - the staggering request of her foster parents that she step into her errant cousin's place as the bride of Duncan Montrose!"

"You see I must go, don't you, Kitty?" Kip asked. Everything in her cried out, No, I don't understand. What about her dreams, her desires, the life they had planned together? Then she remembered the epitaph on the head-stone in the old hillside cemetery, the one that had made such a lasting impression on her: "What I gave, I have; what I spent, I saved, What I kept, I lost." It had been true a hundred years ago, and it was just as true now. If she did not let Kip go freely, he would go anyway, and she would lose him. You could not keep what did not want to be kept.

Following the death of their parents, twenty-four-year-old Sunniva Lyndall and her younger brother, Tracy, leave the comforts and safety of their Ohio Valley home to travel west to California, With excitement, determination, and the money they received from the sale of the family farm, they head for Missouri and the wagon train that will take them west. But Sunny and her brother quickly learn the ways of the West the hard way when a con-man swindles them out of their money.