New York Times bestseller Julia London’s second book in her Highland Grooms series hits the ground running. Widow Daisy Bristol, Lady Chatwick, is under a deadline to remarry, forced into matrimony by the terms of her late husband’s will. When she receives a letter from her long-lost first love, it gives her hope that, if wed she must, this time she might do so with genuine affection. She flees with her son to the family holding in Scotland, hoping to buy time until her long-ago suitor can get back to England. The first Scot she meets is a brusque, imposing man who introduces himself only as Arrendale.

Cailean MacKenzie, laird of Arrendale, doesn’t want any Londoners in his glen, but Lady Chatwick is hard to ignore. She’s unlike the usual Sassenach: He comes across her barefoot and in bedclothes, her hair uncombed. Then he spies her once again, dirtied, sweaty and sporting a bleeding scratch from clearing her own garden. And she flirts with him with bold eyes and an even bolder, sassy mouth. He doesn’t want to be interested, but his heart isn’t listening.

How is Daisy not supposed to notice when Cailean wears his plaid, displaying bare knees and a peek of his powerful thighs? He has told her in no uncertain terms that he’s not interested in her, yet a curious friendship begins to unfold between them. And soon, even that line becomes blurred as each is drawn more and more fiercely to the other.

Then Daisy’s first love, Captain Robert Spivey, arrives on the scene. Not only is he an old enemy of Cailean’s, but Spivey is a cold fish whom Cailean knows will kill the very passion that makes Daisy the woman she is. So Cailean risks his own safety to assure the union between Daisy and Spivey will never take place.

Julia London pens a lush, sweeping story of love, loyalty and cultures clashing that will keep readers glued to their seats, hearts in throats, as they turn pages at lightning speed to make sure Daisy and Cailean get their just deserts: the happily ever after both so richly deserve.

New York Times bestselling author Lisa Kleypas returns readers to the world of the Ravenal family and Victorian England in Devil In Spring.

Lady Pandora Ravenal is quirky, brilliant, beautiful and completely opposed to marriage. She’s participating in the London social season solely to support her twin sister, whom she adores. Determined to endure the endlessly boring hours of balls and soirées without causing a scandal, Pandora finds corners to hide in and declines gentlemen’s offers to dance.

One warm summer evening, her dress becomes caught and she’s stuck in the wooden carvings of a settee. When handsome, eligible, cynical bachelor Lord Gabriel St. Vincent comes to her aid, their host finds them in an innocent, yet compromising, position. Honor demands Gabriel offer marriage.

His frustration at the situation quickly becomes fascination, and he’s determined to claim the high-spirited Pandora. She is equally determined to find a way out of their predicament without damaging her family’s reputation and her sister’s marriage prospects. When the two spend long hours together at Gabriel’s family seaside estate, Pandora quickly realizes she can’t resist the powerful attraction that draws her to Gabriel. But when independent, business-minded Pandora inadvertently runs afoul of Irish terrorists, danger threatens her life. Can these two strong-willed, passionate people survive a love neither expected but cannot live without?

This thoroughly delightful novel is a showcase for Kleypas’ strengths as a writer. The time period details are flawlessly executed and the relationship between the hero and heroine, two people who at first meeting appear to be wildly disparate, intrigues and delights. The dialogue is witty and often hilariously funny, while the characters are engaging and eminently likable. Readers will find themselves thoroughly absorbed in this deeply emotional tale and anxiously awaiting the next novel in the series.

Lois Dyer writes from her home in Port Orchard, Washington

So you love brainy American heroines and the stalwart, strapping English heroes who love them? Then this is the book for you. USA Today bestselling author Maya Rodale wraps up her Keeping Up With The Cavendishes series with Lady Claire Is All That.

When her brother James shockingly inherits a dukedom, it's Claire who convinces her siblings to give England a chance. She possibly has an agenda. OK, fine, she is fervent about math and numbers, and this is her only way to meet the Duke of Ashbrook. She has dreamed of telling him how much she loves the papers he’s written for the Royal Society. Claire longs for the opportunity to discuss his difference machine with him and offer a few possibilities she has worked out to enhance his analytical machine even further. She certainly doesn’t desire crossing an ocean to attend silly balls. She will, however, put up with them for her siblings’ sake.

Maximillian Frederick DeVere, Lord Fox, took a hit to his pride when his perfect-for-him fiancée eloped with an actor. Still, he’s a competitive man. So when a comrade insists no one can transform Lady Claire, given the rapidity with which she has been driving prospective grooms away by the droves with all her talk of math, Max promptly bets he can. He even goes so far as to wager his beloved dog. Almost as quickly, he wonders what the hell he was thinking. He loves all things physical and he’s a social creature. God knows he doesn’t understand a fraction of what Lady Claire talks about. Yet he is genuinely drawn to the passion she displays rhapsodizing over the very topics he fails to understand.

Claire finds Lord Fox a mental lightweight. But he certainly is physically appealing. And he manages what she was unable to do for herself: He introduces her to the very Duke she’s been dying to meet, then escorts her to the Royal Society to talk with likeminded mathematicians. And before she knows it, Fox is introducing her to a passion that owes nothing to math.

Maya Rodale has penned a quirky novel peopled with unique characters and situations not often seen in historical romance.