Böcker av Rose Lerner

Fire and ice cream...Robert Moon risked everything, including his father's hardwon legacy, to open his beloved Honey Moon Confectionery on the busiest street in Lively St. Lemeston. Now he's facing bankruptcy and debtor's prison. When a huge catering order comes in, he agrees to close the sweet-shop for a week to fill it. There's only one problem: his apprentice is out of town, so his beautiful shopgirl Betsy Piper must help Robert in the kitchen.Betsy's spent the last year trying to make her single-minded boss look up from his pastries and notice that she would be the perfect wife. Now the two of them are alone in a kitchen full of sweet things. With just one week to get him to fall in love with her, she'd better get this seduction started...She soon discovers that Robert brings the same meticulous, eager-to-please attitude to lovemaking that he does to baking, but can kisses-no matter how sweet-compete with the Honey Moon in his heart?

London 1815, just before Waterloo...After her noble father disowned her, Lady Serena Ravenshaw clawed her way from streetwalker to courtesan to prosperous innkeeper. Now she's feared and respected from one end of London to the other, by the lowest dregs of the city's underworld and the upper echelons of the beau monde, and she'll do anything to keep it that way.When mild-mannered chemist Solomon Hathaway turns up in her office, asking for her help, she immediately recognizes him from one fateful night years before. She's been watching and waiting for him for years-so she can turn the tables and put him in her debt, of course, and not because he looked like an angel and was kind to her when she needed it most.She's determined not to wonder what put that fresh grief in his eyes. But after a betrayal even Serena didn't expect, she must put aside her pride and work with Solomon to stop a ring of French spies and save her beloved inn, her freedom-and England itself.

He thought her money was the end of his problems, but it was just the beginning...Young Lord Nevinstoke enjoys every moment of his deep-gaming, hard-drinking, womanizing life. Then his father is killed in a drunken duel, and Nev inherits a mountain of debts and responsibilities. He vows to leave his wild friends and his mistress behind, start acting respectable-and marry a rich girl.Penelope Brown, a manufacturing heiress, seems the perfect choice. She's pretty, ladylike, good at accounting, and looking for a marriage based on companionship and mutual esteem, not love. In fact, the only rash thing she's ever done in her life is accept Nev's proposal.When the newlyweds arrive at Nev's family estate, they discover that all the respectability and reason in the world won't be enough to handle a hostile next-door neighbor, mutinous tenants, and Nev's family's propensity for scandal. In way over their heads, Nev and Penelope have no one to turn to but each other-but to their surprise, that just might be enough.

England 1819: the hottest summer in years...Simon Radcliffe-Gould's career as an architect is stalled and his bank account is almost empty. Yet every week he finds himself losing money he can't afford at Maggie da Silva's bohemian gambling den, just so he'll have an excuse to see the beautiful, irrepressible hostess.Maggie thought she had her life sorted out. She has a best friend (with benefits), a successful business, and a truly spectacular wardrobe. But lately she's been...bored. Intrigued by serious, shy Simon, she finds a way to draw him into reluctantly betting on her favors at the faro table.A few glorious nights are all she expects. But when an old flame hires Simon to design a folly during a scandalous house party at his country estate, Simon asks Maggie to pose as his mistress so he can actually get some work done. Sure, she'd rather be his mistress, but she jumps at the chance for a well deserved, all-expenses-paid vacation. What could go wrong?Turns out, everything: Simon has unresolved issues with his ex, it's impossible to keep kosher, and worst of all, Maggie is in danger of losing her heart...

Something borrowed...Ash Cohen raised himself and his younger brother Rafe out of the London slums and made them the best confidence men in England. Then Rafe decides he wants an honest life-and Ash resolves to steal one for him.When Ash meets captivating, lonely Lydia Reeve, a small-town heiress scrambling to get her hands on the dowry held in trust for when she marries, he knows all he has to do is con her and Rafe into falling in love. But did Ash choose the perfect wife for his brother...or for himself?Contains secrets and pies.

Politics can make spectacular bedfellows...Prickly newspaperman's widow Phoebe Sparks has vowed never to marry again. Unfortunately, the election in Lively St. Lemeston is hotly contested, and the little town's charter gives Phoebe the right to make her husband a voter-if she had one.The Honorable Nicholas Dymond has vowed never to get involved in his family's aristocratic politicking. But now his army career is over for good, his leg and his self-confidence both shattered in the war. Helping his little brother win an election could be just what the doctor ordered.So Nick decamps to the country, under strict orders to marry Phoebe off to somebody before the polls open. He's intrigued by the lovely widow from the moment she shuts the door in his face. Phoebe is determined not to be persuaded by the handsome earl's son, no matter how charming he is. But when disaster strikes her young sister, she is forced to consider selling her vote-and her hand-to the highest bidder.As election intrigue thickens, bringing Phoebe and Nick face to face with their own deepest desires, they must decide which vows are worth keeping, and which must be broken...Contains elections, confections, and a number of erections.

***This novella originally appeared in the Hamilton's Battalion anthology with linked stories by Courtney Milan and Alyssa Cole.***Life, liberty, and the pursuit of happily-ever-after...Donning men's clothing, Rachel left her life behind to fight the British as Corporal Ezra Jacobs-but life catches up with a vengeance at the siege of Yorktown, when she arrests an old love as a Loyalist spy.At first she thinks Nathan Mendelson hasn't changed one bit: he's annoying, he talks too much, he sticks his handsome nose where it doesn't belong, and he's self-righteously indignant just because Rachel might have faked her own death a little. She'll be lucky if he doesn't spill her secret to the entire Continental Army.Then Nathan shares a secret of his own, one that changes everything...

Always the bride's maid, never the bride... John Toogood always prided himself on being the perfect gentleman's gentleman: skilled, discreet, and professional. But now he finds himself laid off and blacklisted, stuck in tiny Lively St. Lemeston until he can find a new job. Any job.His instant attraction to his happy-go-lucky maid Sukey Grimes couldn't come at a worse time. Her manners are provincial, her respect for authority nonexistent, and her outdated cleaning methods...well, the less said about them, the better. Sukey can tell that John's impeccably impassive facade hides a lonely man with a gift for laughter-and kissing. But she also knows he'll leave her sleepy little town behind the moment he gets the chance, and she has no intention of giving him her heart to take with him. Then John learns that the town vicar needs a butler-but the job is only for a respectable married man. Against both their better judgments, John and Sukey tie the knot. The ring isn't on her finger long before Sukey realizes she underestimated just how vexing being married to the boss can be...