Miranda March wears her extraordinary beauty like a mask to conceal her emotional vulnerability. A successful small businesswoman, she might appear to be in control of her universe, but ever in the back of her mind is the one thing that can yank the rug out from under her at any moment: Her mother who suffers from mental illness. Enter handsome, sensual-and rich-Harvey (Tack) Tackett, a friend of a friend, in town overnight on business. The instant they meet, Miranda feels a connection that stirs her to break one of the rules she lives by-no foolish flings with men passing in the night. After a night of passionate lovemaking like she's never known, profound emotions emerge. She believes the feeling is mutual. But Tack leaves town without so much as a call and she hears no more from him. As she struggles to overcome her disappointment, she learns her mother has sunk into a depression that calls for immediate attention. Miranda has no choice but to move Mom in to live with her. Her life will never be the same. From out of the blue, Tack reappears. But it's too late. Miranda is committed to her duty to her mother. Trying to have a romantic relationship with Tack or any man would be as hard as mixing oil and water. She has already tried and failed at that. Can she solve the conundrum and find a happy-ever-after with Tack?

Desired (Miranda's Chronicles)

Romance

Jeffrey, Anna

Contemporary

Anna Jeffrey Books

After two divorces, Sandi Walker, entrepreneur extraordinaire, is on her own and loving it. As a devout animal lover, she has made a success of the only gourmet pet food bakery in Midland, Texas. She’s also a pet foster parent with fifteen assorted abused and unwanted animals at home. When a golden-colored stray dog with an abundance of personality appears at her door, she can’t refuse him and she can’t keep from falling in love with him. She names him Waffle and gives him a permanent home. General Manager of the Flying C Ranch, Nick Conway, has searched for months for his lost dog, Buster. He looks for a new dog and finds a puppy at a pet grooming shop. There he also encounters a beautiful redhead he can’t put out of his mind. Little does he know that she found Buster in an alley and has claimed him as her own. Sparks fly when Sandi refuses to return Buster to him. He hires a lawyer and sues her for custody. It will take a sitting judge, a mouthy parrot, the matchmaking of the Domestic Equalizers and Cupid himself to resolve this conflict.

You Can Have My Heart, but Don't Touch My Dog (The Domestic Equalizers)

Cash, Dixie

Romantic Comedy

Doug Hawkins, disgraced LAPD homicide detective, moves to a small Idaho town to find a peaceful existence. When he stumbles into a rendezvous at a remote mountain cabin with the barmaid from one of the town's two taverns, the last thing he expects is to be confronted by a good-looking blonde who charges from out of nowhere, attacks his truck with a tire iron and threatens him with arrest for trespassing. His relationship with the hot-blooded Alex McGregor goes downhill from there. He can't get along with her, but he can't ignore the emotions she arouses in him. The wealthy and reclusive Alex lives with her two cats in a hundred-year-old mansion on Wolf Mountain. She's busy traveling between Callister and L.A. where she owns two businesses. She wants only to be left alone, but she's a magnet for trouble. When a mysterious fire incinerates the old cabin located on her land and kills her alcoholic ex-husband, Doug's honed instincts lead him to suspect the worst. She doesn't want a man interfering with her life, but she's drawn to Doug who seems to be able to deal with all of her problems.

The Love of a Stranger (The Callister Books)

Terry Ledger, wealthy land developer and builder of high-end homes has searched for years for the right location for a retirement development. The last place he expected to find it was in an eBay auction. He paid a million dollars to win the tiny far West Texas town of Agua Dulce. He’s used to his projects changing lives, but little did he know that his association with Agua Dulce and its 10 eccentric citizens would be a life-changing event for himself. Marisa Rutherford, the ostensible mayor of Agua Dulce, manager of the only cafe, flea market and tourist trap and nurturer of her dying mother, never expected to have to protect the town’s odd population from an outsider like Terry and his plans. Nor did she expect to find the man of her dreams to be the instigator of so much trouble. Can she reconcile her heartfelt feelings for him with the loyalty she feels for Agua Dulce’s citizens?

Sweet Water (The West Texas Series)

Cassie and Ronny Jennings are sisters, living a going-nowhere existence in a small town in the mountains of upstate New York. From out of the blue, they are notified of an inheritance from the father they never knew—an estate consisting of land, a house and livestock in Los Tropicos, Texas. As stated in the will, they must live there a year to legitimately claim their bequest. Cassie is excited. She’s tired of the cold winters. Ronny is dubious but goes along with her younger sister, planning all along to return to New York.\nIn Texas, they find 80 acres of land a stone’s throw from the Rio Grande River and the Mexican border, an antiquated adobe house more than 100 years old and 4 longhorn steers that their father saved from slaughter, all located 12 miles from a town with a population of 136. Their disappointment is palpable.\nTheir handsome neighbor, Boudreau Buckalew, a Texas Ranger working undercover, policing people and drug smuggling across the Mexican border comes to their aid more than once. Cassie, a career elementary teacher, falls head over heels and for the first time ever considers giving up her teaching career.\nNext, they run into Tex Barton, a giant of a man with a heart as big as Texas, and a building contractor who agrees to do some work on the old house. He hires Ronny to be his helper. Ronny stumbles across a business opportunity she never dreamed she would have, sees her future in Texas after all and stops planning to return to New York.\nAdd to the sisters’ culture shock is the ever-present atmosphere of drugs and people smuggling, the unexplained disappearance of food from the kitchen and a strange encounter in the house with smuggled women who appear out of thin air. In a thrilling but chaotic end, the sisters accidentally solve the mystery.

You Can't Build a Herd with 4 Steers, Even in Texas

Literature & Fiction

Humor & Satire