Showing results by author "Brenda Novak" in All Categories

After a painful divorce, Maisey Lazarow returns to Fairham, the small island off the North Carolina coast where she grew up. She goes there to heal - and to help her brother, Keith, a deeply troubled man who's asked her to come home. But she refuses to stay in the family house. The last person she wants to see is her wealthy, controlling mother. Instead she finds herself living next door to someone else she'd prefer to avoid - Rafe Romero, the wild, reckless boy to whom she lost her virginity at 16.

Gail DeMarco left Whiskey Creek, California, to make a name for herself in Los Angeles. Her PR firm has accumulated a roster of A-list clients, including the biggest box office hit of all - sexy and unpredictable Simon O’Neal. But Simon, who’s just been through a turbulent divorce, is so busy self-destructing he won’t listen to anything she says. She drops him from her list - and he retaliates by taking the rest of her clients with him. Desperate to save her company, Gail has to humble herself by making a deal with Simon.

When Lucky Caldwell was 10, her mother, Red - the best-known hooker in Dundee, Idaho - married Morris Caldwell, a wealthy and much older man. It didn't last, of course, but Morris' kindness was the highlight of Lucky's life. Mike Hill, Morris' grandson, doesn't feel too well disposed toward Red or her kids. He believes they alienated Morris from his family. Even Morris' Victorian mansion, on the property next to the Hill ranch, wasn't inherited by one of his grandchildren. Instead the house went to Lucky, who left it sitting empty for years.

Thanks to a devastating revelation about her husband, Reenie Holbrook's once-perfect marriage is over. For 11 years she had the life she wanted - and now it's gone.

After growing up in cheap motels, moving from town to town with her sister and mother, Cheyenne Christensen is grateful to be on her own. She’s grateful, too, for the friends she found once her family settled in California. But she’s troubled by the mystery of her earliest memories, most of which feature a smiling blonde woman. A woman who isn’t her mother. Although Cheyenne has repeatedly asked for explanations, the people who could help aren’t talking.

Twelve people have been shot at point-blank range and left to rot in the desert sun. It’s Sophia St. Claire’s job to do something about it. She’s Bordertown, Arizona’s new chief of police - and she’s out of her depth. Help arrives in the form of Department 6 hired gun Roderick Guerrero. As far as Sophia’s concerned, his involvement only makes things worse. Maybe he’s managed to turn his life around. And maybe he’s a good investigator.

By the time Presley Christensen returns to Whiskey Creek with her little boy after two years away, she has completely changed her life. She's made peace with her past and overcome the negative behavior that resulted from her difficult childhood. Now she's back in the small town that was the closest thing to "home" she ever knew - the town where she can be with the sister who is her only family. There's just one catch: Aaron Amos still lives in Whiskey Creek.

The bodies of seven women have been discovered in Skull Valley, Arizona. Jonah Young, a private security operative from Department six, has been hired by the Yavapai County sheriff to assist in solving these murders. But Jonah’s not prepared for the complications that arise when he’s forced to work with a woman from his past, private investigator Francesca Moretti. Jonah betrayed Francesca 10 years ago. She hasn’t forgiven him and she’s pretty sure she never will. But the woman she was hired to find has been murdered in exactly the same way as the seven in Skull Valley, so, Francesca has to work with Jonah.

As the daughter of a hoarder, Phoenix Fuller had a tough childhood. So when the handsome, popular Riley Stinson became her boyfriend in high school, she finally felt as though she had something to be proud of. Phoenix was desperate not to lose him - especially once she found out that she was pregnant. Yes, she might have acted a bit obsessive when he broke up with her. But she did not run down the girl he started dating next. Unfortunately there was no way to prove her innocence.

A dangerous cult has recently taken over the desert ghost town of Paradise, Arizona. Members worship at the feet - and in the bed - of its charismatic leader, Ethan Wycliff, and obey his orders blindly. They’ve already tried to murder one woman and they’re implicated in the disappearance of another. Nate Ferrentino, who works for private security contractor Department 6, has been assigned to infiltrate this group.

One day, Callie Vanetta receives devastating news… She needs a liver transplant. But her doctors warn that, in her case, the chances of finding a compatible donor aren’t good. Determined to spend whatever time she has left on her own terms, she keeps the diagnosis to herself and moves out to her late grandparents’ farm. She’s always wanted to live there. But the farm hasn’t been worked in years and she begins to fear she can’t manage it, that she’ll have to return to town.

After catching her fiancé cheating - with another man - usually straitlaced, workaholic scientist Ellie Fisher liberates her wild side just long enough to indulge in a passionate one-night stand with a tall, dark stranger she meets at a trendy Miami bar. Embarrassed by her recklessness, she ducks out the following morning without learning the guy's full name, something that shouldn't have been a problem - until a pregnancy test turns positive.

Keith bears scars - both physical and emotional - from his childhood, but he's worked hard to overcome the past. After walking away from his mother and her controlling ways five years ago, he's built a new life in LA. He's also accumulated a fortune of his own. But as soon as he learns of his mother's death, he returns to Fairham. He feels he owes it to his grandfather to put the family empire together again, and he's determined to find his mother's killer.

To escape her cruel stepfather, seamstress Alexandra Cogsworth envisioned sailing far from England…though not as a captive aboard a pirate’s ship. Pirate captain Nathaniel Kent’s strategy for exacting revenge on his coldhearted father involved taking a valuable hostage…not a seamstress he mistakenly thinks is his half sister. Yet fate has designs of its own, landing them both on board the Royal Vengeance. At sea, Nathaniel intercepts and plunders his father’s ships, all the while tormented by his illicit hunger for the tempting prisoner he thinks is his blood relation.

Evelyn Talbot knows that a psychopath can look perfectly normal. She was only 16 when her own boyfriend, Jasper, imprisoned and tortured her - and left her for dead. Now an eminent psychiatrist who specializes in the criminal mind, Evelyn is the force behind Hanover House, a maximum-security facility located in a small Alaskan town. Her job puts her at odds with Sergeant Amarok, who is convinced that Hanover is a threat to his community, even as his attraction to beautiful Evelyn threatens to tear his world apart.

Eighteen months ago, Autumn Divac's husband went missing. Her desperate search has yielded no answers—she still has no idea where he went or why. After being happily married for twenty years, she can't imagine moving forward without him, but for the sake of their two teenage children, she has to try. Autumn takes her kids home for the summer to the charming beachside town where she was raised. She seeks comfort by working alongside her mother and aunt at their bookshop, only to learn that her daughter is facing a life change and her mother has been hiding a terrible secret.

Jeannette Boucher, a young French beauty from a family left penniless by the revolution, must marry against her will to save them all from ruin. But almost immediately after the vows are spoken, she learns that her old English husband is impotent - and in his desire for an heir, he plans to compromise her in the worst way. Determined to escape such a fate, she stows away on one of His Majesty’s frigates. But a woman alone is in constant danger.

When Serenity Alston swabbed her cheek for a genetic test, she joked about uncovering some dark ancestral scandal. The last thing she expected was to discover two half sisters she didn’t know existed. Suddenly, everything about her loving family is drawn into question. And meeting these newfound sisters might be the only way to get answers.

Psychiatrist Evelyn Talbot has dedicated her life to solving the mysteries of the psychopathic mind. Why do psychopaths act as they do? How do they come to be? Why don't they feel any remorse for the suffering they cause? And are there better ways of spotting and stopping them? After having been kidnapped, tortured, and left for dead when she was just a teenager - by her high school boyfriend - she's determined to understand how someone she trusted so much could turn on her.

What Delaney wants is a baby. A baby of her own. At 30, she longs to break away from the constraints of her life, longs to reach out for her heart's desire. She'd prefer marriage as well, but there's no man in Dundee, Idaho, she's interested in marrying. Then one winter night, she and her best friend, Rebecca, go to Boise with the intent of finding a man for Delaney. She meets a handsome stranger named Conner, a man who might be able to provide her with the solution she needs - and the baby she wants!