1884 – Montana
Josie Kinsley was adopted when she was twelve. There are things in her past she doesn’t want anyone to know, things that drive her to seek security. She only wants to be a self-sufficient, independent young woman. She refuses the interest of the many cowboys who enter the home.
Walker Jones’s family was broken up when he was a kid. He has no use for secrets. He ends up at the Kinsley home when he is robbed and pistol whipped. He overhears Josie telling someone that if she ever married, it would not be a homeless, penniless cowboy. Which is exactly what he is. And the very reason a former love interest refused him.
Both Josie and Walker know the other person is not what they need. Walker senses Josie harbors a secret. And yet, as they spend time together, he is attracted to her strong spirit and her loyalty to her adopted family. Josie sees in him a man who is hard working, kind, and fun to be with. But he is a wanderer and she wants a permanent home.
Will the truth destroy their growing affection or will they learn that it is not the past that matters but what the future promises?
1893 – Washington
Can a patient love win her heart?
As Isabelle Atwood’s romance prospects are turning in her favor, a family scandal derails her dreams. While making a quilt for her own hope chest, Isabelle’s half-sister becomes pregnant out of wedlock and Isabelle–always the unfavored daughter–becomes the family sacrifice to save face. Despite gaining the attention of a handsome rancher, her parents are pressuring her to marry a man of their choosing to rescue her sister’s reputation.
A third suitor waits silently in the wings, hoping for his own chance at love. Isabelle ends up with three marriage proposals, but this only further confuses her decision. A handsome rancher, a stranger, and an unseen suitor are all waiting for an answer. Isabelle loves her sister, but will she really allow herself to be manipulated into a marriage without love? Will Isabelle capitulate and marry the man her parents wish her to, or will she rebel and marry the man they don’t approve of? Or will the man leaving her secret love poems sweep her off her feet?
1881 – Minnesota
Beautiful and independent Nadine has made a few too many mistakes. Now abandoned and far from home, she has nothing left but a black coat to wrap around her lies and desperation.
In 1881, intellectual Hayes Sullivan has one job as the local commissioner for the railroad, joining the east coast to the west. One night, running from his own complicated past, he succumbs to something unusually irrational and breaks down a door at the Silver Holiday Saloon. Crumpled in a smoke-filled room is a young woman presumably dead. After pulling her to safety, he stays with her into the night until he can find out who is responsible for her. The very information she refuses to reveal to anyone.
How long can Nadine hide her dark, scandalous lies to the people who have shown her such forbearance? How long can she sneak behind buildings to avoid the law or worse, Hayes Sullivan? Without a doubt, Hayes knows someone is tormenting this mystifying young woman. Yes, he needs her help, but beyond that why can’t he stay clear of her? Hating the illogical passion of the heart and his own behavior, he allows her into his own protected life.
Will haunting pasts suffocate believable futures?
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1880s – Illinois
Beginning a new life, Shanna Becket, secures employment at the Children’s Society Agency. Her first assignment brings her dangerously close to her abusive stepfather. What she didn’t count on is the distraction of a handsome stranger who sends her heart fluttering.
A second son who is second-best, Aidan hopes that his latest venture is his ticket to independence from his overbearing father. His travels bring him in contact with the lovely working-class, red-headed Shanna she steals his heart. His father won’t approve.
When a sick orphan brings them together, Shanna is forced to place her well-being in Aidan’s hands. Finally, a possibility of love for this spinster. But can she trust he is the man he says he is?
1886 – Illinois
A tragic barn fire takes Katie’s father and leaves her with a debt she can’t pay. To save her family she must save her farm, but how when she can’t talk to people?
Pete has pined for Katie a long time, but he can’t even get a smile from her. He’s given up on settling down and is ready to ride out of town. When lightning strikes the Tucker’s barn, he offers to help Katie with the farm and hopes to win her heart.
Can Katie overcome her shyness and learn to trust Pete?
The Honey Bride is a sweet Christian historical novella is set in Trenton, Illinois in the late 1800s. If you like stepping back to a simpler time then you’ll love Diana Lesire Brandmeyer’s poignant tale.
1894 – North Dakota
Deputy Marshal Brett Wickham is ready to retire from law enforcement and settle down.
But when his brother Taylor is killed in a bank robbery, Brett pins his badge back on and goes hunting for the Sallinger gang. Then a bear attack lands him right in the middle of the outlaws’ hideout. Anna McFarland, aka Lottie Sallinger, tends Brett’s wounds. She seems too sweet and innocent to be an outlaw. But looks can be deceiving. When his heart is drawn to Lottie, Brett fights the attraction. Can he do his job when everything within him wants Lottie to be innocent?
Anna McFarland is lonely now that her twin brother has married and moved away. She contemplates moving to Bismarck and looking for work, but when a stranger is wounded while saving her from a bear attack, she has her hands full caring for him. The handsome stranger intrigues her. When he recovers, he accepts a job on the ranch. One day he escorts her to town, and they discover a group of ragtag orphans. Somethings seems off at the home for orphans, and they work together to investigate the situation. Anna quickly falls for Brett, but he sends her confusing signals. When Brett accuses her of being an outlaw, Anna is devastated and loses all hope of winning his heart. Why did God send him to her if they weren’t meant to be together?
1887 – Illinois
She’s the best matchmaker in town… Or is she?
Emmie Mueller is ready to join her family in Kansas as soon as her grandmother sells the boarding house. Her grandmother won’t leave until the bachelors living in the boarding house have a new home. Emmie has a plan to use her matchmaking skills to find wives for the men. Tables are turned when the bachelors attempt to match her with the newest man in town.
1884 – Montana
Eve Kinsley was devastated when Cole Carter walked away from her two years ago to go to the gold fields of northwest Montana. She has her pick from many suitors, but instead spends her time and energy helping those in need. This takes her to a newcomer’s home to care for two elderly sisters. To her shock, she discovers it is Cole’s home. Even worse, those feelings she thought were dead spring to life again.
Cole Carter had loved Eve, but knew she wouldn’t choose him over her family. When she arrives to help with his mother and aunt, he is forced to accept her help temporarily. Only she is even more beautiful and desirable then she was two years ago and brings light and joy to his home.
As they are forced to spend time together, they both discover past misunderstandings and a deeper knowledge of what motivated the other to act.
Will the challenges they face make them see how suited they are for each other or will their differences again come between them?
1888 – Montana
Heiress Colette Vanderpool-Vane needs to prove she’s outgrown her impetuous ways before her parents will allow her to open her beloved art museum. But when the solutions she proposes aren’t enough, her father tasks her with a mission that demands she keep her life in Denver a secret. It’s a clandestine train adventure that brings her face to face with an intriguing stranger . . .
Jakob Gunderson has always come in second in matters of the heart. Hired to protect young ladies rescued from the streets of Helena as they journey to a better life, he is drawn to their lovely, free-spirited chaperone. He’s finally someone’s number one. When their train ride ends, Jakob proposes marriage. But then he learns the secrets Colette’s been forced to keep.
How can Colette say yes? But—with their hearts on the line—how can she say no?
1895 – Virginia
1881 – Texas
As far as Thea Michener is concerned, it’s time for a change. With her husband murdered and her much-anticipated baby stillborn, there is nothing left for her in Ladreville. Having accepted a position as Cimarron Creek’s midwife, she has no intention of remarrying and trying for another child. So when a handsome Texas Ranger appears on her doorstep with an abandoned baby, Thea isn’t sure her heart can take it.
Ranger Jackson Guthrie isn’t concerned only with the baby’s welfare. He’s been looking for Thea, convinced that her late husband was part of the gang that killed his brother. But it soon becomes clear that the situation is far more complicated than he anticipated–and he’ll need Thea’s help if he’s ever to find the justice he seeks.
1884 – Montana
After surviving a horrible train accident, Victoria Kinsley can never be sure of her age–or her identity. She was adopted by the Kinsleys and has never recalled her life prior to the accident. How can she embrace her future without knowing her own past?. She is guarded around strangers and keeps men at arm’s length. Until Reese Cartwright shows up.
Reese recognizes Victoria the moment he sees her. He’s been hurt in the past by a woman who was less than honest and cares deeply about truth and honesty. He’ll bide his time and learn if this young woman is truly the missing Constance Hayworth.
As Reese spends time with Victoria and her family in his quest to discover the truth, he finds himself attracted to Victoria. When the Hayworths whisk Victoria away, will these two face the truth, confront their pasts and accept a future filled with love?
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1893 – Illinois
While attending the Chicago World’s Fair in 1893, Winnifred Wylde believes she witnessed a woman being kidnapped. She tries to convince her father, an inspector with the Chicago police, to look into reports of mysterious disappearances around the White City. Inspector Wylde tries to dismiss her claims as exaggeration of an overactive imagination, but he eventually concedes to letting her go undercover as secretary to the man in question—if she takes her pistol for protection and Jude Thorpe, a policeman, for bodyguard.
Will she be able to expose H. H. Holmes’s illicit activity, or will Winnifred become his next victim?
1890 – South Dakota
Sober businessman Seb Ward may have come from a wealthy lumber-baron family in Minnesota, but he knows that appearances can be deceiving, and that his illustrious family is pretty dysfunctional. Being in another state has provided the buffer he sought from his father’s misdeeds, but when a little boy shows up on a train… a little boy who looks enough like Seb to be his own child… Seb’s faced with a dilemma. Raise the boy as his own, or let his mother suffer the embarrassment of “a brother by another mother.” And when the boy takes a shine to the Rachel Eichas, the newly contracted school teacher, Seb can’t help but do the same. But Rachel was raised by an unloving, business-first father and there’s no way she’s looking for those same qualities in a husband. Can she see through Seb’s focus and drive to find the loving man within?
1885 – Texas
Marrying a stranger to keep the woman’s siblings out of an orphanage is one thing, but when more children than expected pour out of the stagecoach, what’s a man to do?
Nervous about meeting her fiancé for the first time, Ellie Spritzer’s lifelong hope of finding love is about to end—or rather, begin. She never imagined her quest for love would take her to the other side of the country with all eight of her siblings in tow, but after her mother dies unexpectedly, what choice does she have? At least the man she’s been writing for the past year is still willing to marry her and take in her siblings… or so she thinks until she arrives in the dusty town of Twin Rivers, Texas.
Growing up an orphan, Sam Owens never had a place to call home or a family to love. So if his wife-to-be needs to bring three of her siblings with her, he has no complaints about having a ready-made family. But his mail-order-bride doesn’t arrive with three. She arrives with eight.
Sam can’t make himself turn away children in need. But as a beginning rancher, he doesn’t have the resources to care for so many people. When sinister forces threaten the things Sam and Ellie both hold dear, can they figure out how to keep their fledgling family together, or will they lose the very things they cherish most?
1899 – Kansas and Missouri
To escape her father’s insistence she marry a man she doesn’t love, Addy Morrison disappears to Kansas City where she finds refuge working in a yard goods shop. The excitement of a busy Christmas season also means rubbing elbows with another new employee, a kind, handsome man with a secretive past.
Something told Dillard “Witt” DeWitt that the Round M Up Ranch would provide the fresh start he desperately needed. When he’s tasked with the job of finding and bringing the owner’s errant daughter home—the gal he’s loved from afar—he sets out to be Miss Morrison’s friend. Knowing how she’ll feel when she learns he’s played her false, he is careful to hide his deep feelings for her.
Sensing regrets in Mr. DeWitt’s past, Addy shares God’s merciful forgiveness then finds she must learn to offer forgiveness of her own. As their relationship grows, Witt realizes that he and Addy share something more, the worst day in each of their lives—one that goes far beyond the betrayal of daily white lies.
1890s – Washington
Liora Fontaine wants nothing more than to help mistreated women escape from brothel owner, John Hunt. She understands the desperation and manipulation that force many women into his employ. But when she rescues a young girl, she is shocked by Hunt’s ruthless reprisal. Now as she cowers in her cabin, hiding from Hunt’s men, who are determined to kill her, she can’t help but think how much this day is a picture of her whole life. Ashes. Nothing but ashes.
Deputy Joseph Rodante can’t believe Liora took on a mission so dangerous without asking for his help! He arrives at her cabin to make sure she’s safe just as Hunt’s men start shooting up the place. Now they are stuck together inside with a long night looming. The Wyldhaven gossips are going to have a heyday over that! The only way to fix this is to make Liora his wife. But the stubborn woman turns him down flat.
Despite her protests, Joe vows to protect her—no matter the cost.
And it just might cost both of them everything!
1882 – Texas
A Partnership of Necessity
For the sake of her orphaned siblings, Charlotte Green will do anything to save her family’s Texas hotel—even hire her childhood nemesis, Nathan Taylor. Sure, he’s grown into a charming, handsome man since then, but it won’t change the past…or her present situation. Like it or not, Charlotte must work with Nathan, but that doesn’t mean she has to enjoy it!
After love burned him, the only commitment Nathan will make is to his career. He won’t be distracted…even if Charlotte is as lovely as she is feisty and the hotel is beginning to feel like home. But when a new opportunity pits his ambition against his heart, will Nathan choose Charlotte and her family?
1886 – Kansas
Faith Manning has lost everything–her husband, her home, and her hope. With few options available, she accepts the position of nanny to the three-year-old daughter of local rancher, Rayne Harding.
Rayne isn’t at all happy about having to hire someone to care for his beloved child, but his mother’s recent accident leaves him no choice. Promise Joy needs someone looking after her, and the little girl seems smitten with the young widow she calls “Annie Faith.” Part of Rayne’s opposition to having Faith under his roof stems from an unexpected attraction for her. A man who so recently buried his wife shouldn’t have feelings for another woman. So he steels himself against Faith’s tender attention to his daughter and kindness to his mother. Despite his determination to remain aloof, affection blooms, but when a stranger arrives—a man who claims to be Faith’s dead husband back from the grave—Rayne and Faith are faced with choices neither anticipated.
Do they satisfy self, or do they trust God to guide both of them to the love they’re meant to hold?
1884 – Montana
Flora Kinsley has always been a red-headed rebel who delights to ride madly across the country. After being orphaned at age four, she has always had an insatiable desire to run. But when her wild riding leads her into trouble, she finds herself lost and stranded in a snowstorm. She takes shelter in the home of a bachelor rancher.
Kade Thomas has lost enough loved ones because of foolish choices and risky behavior. The last thing he needs is to be involved with a wild rebel. But being stranded unchaperoned with Flora for two nights gives her preacher father plenty of reason to insist they marry. Knowing that if he forces Flora into marriage against her wishes, it would make for a miserable situation, he begs for a chance to persuade Flora she wants to marry him.
Will this pair find that love is awaiting them? Or will the truth destroy any chance of love?
1885 – Pennsylvania
Miss Isadora Delafield may be an heiress, but her life is far from carefree. When her mother begins pressuring her to marry an elderly and uncouth duke, she escapes from the high society world she’s always known and finds herself to be an unlikely candidate for a housekeeper position in rural Pennsylvania.
Mr. Ian MacKenzie is known for his savvy business sense and has built his reputation and fortune completely on his own merits. But when his adopted parents are in need of a new housekeeper and Isadora is thrown into his path, he’s unexpectedly charmed by her unconventional manner.
Neither Isadora nor Ian expected to find the other so intriguing, but when mysterious incidents on the farm and the truth of Isadora’s secret threaten those they love, they’ll have to set aside everything they thought they wanted for a chance at happy-ever-after.
1890 – Wyoming
Penny Castlerock needs a place to hide from an unwelcome suitor. The quiet refuge she finds on her grandfather’s ranch is short-lived when she finds herself roped into helping neighbor Jonas White with his passel of ornery kids. Matchmaking kids. Who seem to think she’s a perfect match for their shy father, a man with secrets she delights in discovering…
1895 – Wyoming
If there was one person that schoolmarm Sarah Hansen never wanted to bid on her auctioned-off picnic basket, it would be Oscar White. The ornery boy who tormented her in the schoolroom is a charming horse wrangler now and Sarah is determined to stay out of his way. Until three little girls need her help. Suddenly the horseman is the only person Sarah can depend on…
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1891 – Florida
Irish immigrant Margaret Murphy has many talents, but waitressing isn’t one of them. A hotel waitress job in pioneer Florida is her last chance to help her family stave off starvation. But she’s in danger of being fired. Will the love that blooms with a fellow worker, an immigrant from Italy, be a saving grace or a complicated distraction?
1885 – Nevada
Hattie Walker dreams of becoming a painter, while her parents want her to settle down. As a compromise, they give her two months to head to Denver and place her works in an exhibition or give up the dream forever. Her journey is derailed when a gunman attacks her stagecoach, leaving her to be rescued by a group of Arapaho . . . but she’s too terrified to recognize them as friendly.
Confirmed bachelor Lieutenant Jack Hennessey has long worked with the tribe and is tasked with trying to convince them that the mission school at Fort Reno can help their children. When a message arrives about a recovered survivor, Jack heads out to take her home–and plead his case once more.
He’s stunned to run into Hattie Walker, the girl who shattered his heart–but quickly realizes he has a chance to impress her. When his plan gets tangled through translation, Jack and Hattie end up in a mess that puts her dreams in peril–and tests Jack’s resolve to remain single.
late 1800s? – Texas
Once the town outcast, Nate Powell leaves his Texas home and rises to success as a respected Boston banker. But his life is empty without Hattie Brown, the saloon girl he left behind. Hoping she’ll give him a second chance, he returns to Texas, the place of bad memories and the home of Zachariah Keane, the man Nate blames for his sister’s death.
Now a Christian, Hattie ekes out a hard and humble living. When Nate returns without warning and promises her a life beyond her dreams, Hattie’s heart is torn. Her love for him has never died, but how can she leave her beloved home or Zachariah, the godly man who’s become like a brother to her? Especially when Nate’s become so hardened and unyielding.
In order to find happiness with the woman he loves, Nate will have to find a mend for his divided heart, forgive the man he’s grown to hate, and find peace with God.
Three previously released Christmas novellas.
Longhorn Christmas
Netty Lewis, a lonely young widow is saved from a raging mama longhorn by a passing cowboy who’s been wandering since the end of the Civil War.
She needs help surviving her rugged life and caring for Jeremiah, her young son. And that means rounding up a nice-sized herd of wild-as-wolves longhorns.
Netty and Roy, along with Jeremiah begin a journey toward Christmas, family, home and love.
And a herd of longhorns are making the way hard.
A sweet re-telling of The Gift of the Magi–with a happy ending
The Sweetest Gift
She longs for music. He needs a valuable horse to improve his herd.
When Christmas comes the gift they truly give is the gift of love.
The Christmas Candle
A lonely widower with a pair of out-of-control sons he never got to know while their mother was alive.
A woman with a love of nature and beauty and scent…and the little boys seem determined to destroy her way of life.
A feisty Ozark mountain granny who doesn’t put up with much nonsense.
The gift of a candle for Christmas and a Christ child who is a perfect match for this scent of heaven.
1884 – Colorado
As a child, she lost something precious at Christmas. Twenty years later, she’s about to lose her heart.
Lena Carver works as her physician brother’s medical assistant, housekeeper, and cook despite her disfigurement from a childhood accident. Each year, the Christmas holidays come with contradictions—cherished memories of a mysterious encounter and painful recollections of a great loss. Lena lives with the belief that she is beyond love’s reach, until a dark-eyed cowboy arrives broken, bruised, and bent on changing her mind.
Wil Bergman wakes in a stranger’s home with a busted leg, a bullet-creased scalp, and no horse. Trail-weary, robbed, and penniless, his dreams and plans for a future are suddenly unattainable. Forced to recuperate in the home of a country doctor, he finds himself at the mercy of a surgeon whose sister’s healing touch has power to stitch up his lonely heart and open his eyes to the impossible.
1884 – Wyoming
Marrying a stranger to save a ranch is one thing; losing the land on their wedding day is another.
Desperate to keep the ranch where three of her children and a husband lie buried, Annie Gephart must marry or sell. Which of the few bachelors in town would consider a surprise proposal to wed a plain widow with a rebellious daughter, a spirited boy, and unpaid taxes—without laughing in her face?
Jacob Hendrix has never fully let go of his ranching dreams despite ending up as a small Wyoming town’s marshal. The job wouldn’t be so bad, except he’s more errand boy than lawman. When Annie proposes marriage without a single coquettish bat of an eyelash, can he commit himself to a woman he hardly knows for a choice piece of property he’d be an idiot to pass up?
But taxes aren’t all that threaten Annie and Jacob’s plans. Cattle rustlers, crumbling friendships, and wayward children make this marriage of convenience anything but. When they lose what they’ve sacrificed everything to save, will the love of a stranger be enough?
1885 – Michigan
Ava Ryan resides alone at the New Presque Isle lighthouse on the shore of Lake Huron. Her father’s recent passing has made her the temporary lightkeeper. With nowhere else to go and her precarious health making it impossible to start over, she desperately needs to keep the position. She manages the property and the lighthouse duties well, until a handsome logging foreman interrupts her routine–and her peace.
Benjamin Colfax needs to map the best cutting route for his crew, and the best vantage point is from the lighthouse. However, the fiery little lightkeeper won’t allow him access. It’s obvious she’s hiding something, and Benjamin is determined to discover what it is.
When unexpected circumstances force them into marriage, neither is prepared for the challenges that lie ahead. Will they open their hearts and give in to the stormy attraction brewing between them, or will illuminated secrets tear them apart?
1893 – Massachusetts
Nicholette Everstone is already a widow at the age of twenty-two: her husband was murdered on their wedding day. She has just returned to Boston after two years of mourning in Europe. Although her husband was loving, the marriage was an arranged one, and Nicholette would like to wed again–this time for love…and to someone safe
As she acclimates to life in Back Bay again, Nicholette meets someone she can’t help but fall for. But when she learns of the danger and sacrifices Cal Hawthorne takes on for the safety of others, will her heart be strong enough to keep her fears of “what if” at bay?
This book was originally published in the Timeless Love: Romantic Stories That Span the Ages collection.
1883 – Michigan
Anna Wilson is determined to be the first female lighthouse keeper at Thunder Bay Island in Lake Huron. As her uncle nears his retirement, she makes herself indispensable at the lighthouse, doing everything but manning the tower.
Russian immigrant Maksim Ivanov is shipwrecked on an island when the James Thompson runs aground in a storm. The shipping line rescues the crew, but Maksim is stranded. At least there are a pair of old aunties who speak his language. He works to help the elderly lighthouse keeper, earning his way until he can get off the island.
The handsome and capable newcomer could steal Anna’s dream out from under her. Or he could provide a new one.
1897 – Illinois
Having returned to Chicago, young socialite Anna Nicholson can’t seem to focus on her upcoming marriage. The new information she’s learned about her birth mother continues to pull at her, and she hires Pinkerton detectives to help her find the truth. But as she meets people who once knew her mother and hears stories about the past, Anna soon discovers that some secrets are better left hidden.
At the same time, unflattering stories about Anna are leaked by someone who would love to see her disgraced and her engagement broken. And as Anna tries to share her faith with her society friends, she understands that her choice to seek God’s purpose for her life isn’t as simple as she had hoped.
When things are at their darkest, Anna knows she can turn to her grandmother, Geesje de Jonge, back in Holland, Michigan. Geesje’s been helping new Dutch immigrants, including a teen with a haunted past, adjust to America. She only hopes that her wisdom can help all these young people through the turmoil they face.
