Roarin' In: Unusual Historicals for March 2023

March roared in like a lion for yours truly. Besides some truly wild weather for the part of the world I live in (rain, so much rain...), it's been a crazy busy month on the work front. My reading has suffered a bit because of that, coming in fits and starts.  The current patterns seems to be barely reading during the week, then gorging at the trough on the weekends.  Which is also why I'm fashionably late with this month's Unusual Historicals post - but it's worth the wait! Some choice picks this month, including a Wendy favorite reprint!  Read on Macduff...

 

The Untamed Warrior's Bride by Michelle Willingham 

To claim what should be his… 

He must claim her! 

Piers of Grevershire might have been born illegitimate, but he’ll fight for the land he knows is his. To do so, he must win Lady Gwendoline’s hand in marriage! What starts as a secret mission of vengeance soon becomes more as Gwen’s unique fire ignites a powerful connection between them. And when they’re married, Piers finds earning Gwen’s trust means revealing his true identity—and the betrayal that risks destroying their fledgling bond…

Let me tell you how grossly behind I am on Willingham's backlist - I need to go on a binge of my Harlequin Historical collection, which is now forming it's own mini-cluster of mountains in my TBR pile.  This is the second book in her Legendary Warriors series and features that most medieval of staples, the hero out for vengeance who inconveniently falls in love with the heroine who initially started out as a tool to achieve said vengeance. I'm expecting some good groveling here.

The Prospector's Only Prospect by Dani Collins 

After eight days in a cramped stagecoach, divorcée Marigold Davis already regrets her decision to come to Denver City to marry. She certainly didn’t realize she’d signed up for mosquitoes, mud, and scores of rough men eyeing her like a hot meal on a cold day. But with her life in Kansas all but incinerated, Marigold needs a husband. Even if she’s not the bride that gold prospector Virgil Gardner is expecting… 

Virgil Gardner has a reputation as a grumpy hard-ass, and he’s fine with it. He’s also no fool—this is not the woman he agreed to marry. It takes a tough-as-nails woman to survive the harshness of a Rocky Mountain gold claim, and this whiskey-eyed, gentle beauty is certainly not the type. Now it’s just a matter of how quickly she’ll quit so he can find a wife who will stick. Someone who can care for the only thing he values even more than gold–his children. 

But Marigold isn’t about to give in. Cramped in a one-room shack. Berry picking turned into a bear escape. Or cooking for an entire crew of bottomless pits. She’s got more grit than most. And just when Virgil starts to realize his replacement bride might be the treasure he’s been looking for, an unannounced guest arrives…to change everything.

I will never not want to read a historical western written by an author who came to write said historical western from some other sub genre.  I'm still lugging around the baggage from the Great Historical Western Migration to Regency Ballrooms and Almack's Terrible Lemonade from the late 1990s and early 2000s after all.  So when an author does the opposite of that - and comes to historical westerns - I'll always be intrigued.  Collins is best known for her work with Harlequin Presents and this is not only her first historical western, it's her first published historical.

Hotel of Secrets by Diana Biller 

During ball season, anything can happen— even love. 

It’s ball season in Vienna, and Maria Wallner only wants one thing: to restore her family’s hotel, the Hotel Wallner, to its former glory. She’s not going to let anything get in her way - not her parents’ three-decade-long affair; not seemingly-random attacks by masked assassins; and especially not the broad-shouldered American foreign agent who’s saved her life two times already. No matter how luscious his mouth is. 

Eli Whittaker also only wants one thing: to find out who is selling American secret codes across Europe, arrest them, and go home to his sensible life in Washington, DC. He has one lead - a letter the culprit sent from a Viennese hotel. But when he arrives in Vienna, he is immediately swept up into a chaotic whirlwind of balls, spies, waltzes, and beautiful hotelkeepers who seem to constantly find themselves in danger. He disapproves of all of it! But his disapproval is tested as he slowly falls deeper into the chaos - and as his attraction to said hotelkeeper grows. 

This is Biller's third book and of course I haven't read the other two yet. Like you even have to ask?  Anyway, she's garnered herself a loyal and ardent fan base in Romancelandia already, and this one is set in Vienna and the heroine's family owns a hotel. I cannot say no to hotels, boardinghouses, and the rest of their ilk in historical romance. It's a very particular blend of catnip that I like.  Anyway, this is a trad published (Macmillan), trade paperback release - so I'll likely be leveraging my library card for this one.

Frontier Midwife Amanda by Kate Bridges (Reprint)

Will Amanda's new life be torn apart if she reveals her tender secret and opens her heart to Chase? 

Midwife Amanda Ryan moves to a beautiful Rocky Mountain town after a heartbreaking family loss, optimistic and hopeful for a new start. She doesn’t expect a run-in with the tall and handsome owner of the town’s lumber mill, former Mountie, Chase Murdock. 

Who is he to claim that her new cabin is actually his cabin, declaring she’s been swindled by the same crook who just fleeced his lumber mill? She insists she has papers to verify she bought the home, fair and square. 

Setting out to prove each other wrong, Chase and Amanda can’t risk getting emotionally entangled. He’s had it with dishonest people, and she's hiding something. Yet, their time together is lively and filled with laughter. Unexpected kisses turn into passion. Their intimacy builds into something much deeper, but Amanda’s not ready to move forward after all the heartache she’s suffered in the past. 

Bravely and silently dealing with the loss of her own baby and resulting infertility, then her shocking divorce, Amanda nurtures the other women in town. She can’t have children and wonders if she could ever be the wife that Chase deserves. 

Falling in love with Chase means risking her heart. Or is he a stronger man, a kinder man, than Amanda might imagine? 

Gah! I've been waiting forever for this to be reissued because it's a good 'un! Originally published as The Midwife's Secret by Harelquin Historical in 2003, you can read my review from 2005 (!) right on this here blog. The hero has been swindled by his business partner, his fiancée has run off, and now the heroine shows up claiming to own a piece of his land. For her part the heroine has a pretty big secret. She's a midwife and not only is she divorced (!), she's barren. And she knows for a fact that women tend to not want barren, divorced women as their midwife.  

The Maiden's Hand by Susan Wiggs (Reprint)

Roguishly handsome Oliver de Lacey has always lived lavishly: wine, weapons and women are his bywords. Even salvation from the noose by a shadowy society provides no epiphany to mend his debauched ways. 

Mistress Lark's sole passion is her secret work with a group of Protestant dissidents thwarting the queen's executions. She needs no other excitement—until Oliver de Lacey drops through the hangman's door and into her life. 

As their fates become inextricably bound together in a struggle against royal persecution, both Oliver and Lark discover a love worth saving…even dying for.

 

Wiggs wrote several historical romances (in a variety of settings and time periods) before she settled into the women's fiction she's been writing for the last several years.  This is the second book in her Tudor Rose trilogy and it was originally published under this title back in 2009.  Prior to that though, this story's first appearance was back in 1995 under the title Vows Made in Wine. I really, really need to dig this trilogy out in 2023 because this back cover blurb practically sings to me...

That's it for this month's trip through Unusual Historicals.  What are you looking forward to reading?

#TBRChallenge 2022: A Season of the Heart

The Book: A Season of the Heart by Jillian Hart, Kate Bridges and Mary Burton

The Particulars: Historical romance anthology, Harlequin Historical #771, 2005, Out of Print, Not available digitally (at one point it was though - so check your digital TBRs and/or local library).

Why Was It In Wendy's TBR?: It's a historical western anthology with a Christmas theme published by Harlequin Historical. Of course it was in my TBR.

The Review: I don't know exactly how long I've had this anthology in my TBR, but well over a decade is likely in the ballpark - and that's the problem. Because I think younger, less jaded, not beaten down to her soul by the last two years Wendy might have enjoyed this purely on a comfort read level - for a lot of the same reasons folks turn to Hallmark movies. But it's 2022 and I've lived five lifetimes in the past two years and this ended up being an anthology where none of the stories entirely worked for me.

Rocky Mountain Christmas by Jillian Hart is straight-up Rescue Fantasy. Sheriff Mac McKaslin is summoned to the train station on a snowy night where a single mother and her young daughter have been discovered stowing away on the train. The train conductor (in all his leering, "I'm sure there's some way you can settle up missy..." glory) is demanding restitution for his employer and Mac, while not wanting to throw her in jail, can't feed her to the wolves.  So he makes all the appropriate mouth noises and takes Carrie Montgomery into town, depositing her with his parents until he can figure out what to do with her.

What he does is basically try to get her out of town as fast as possible. Mac's a widower, haunted by his wife's tragic death, and Carrie makes him feel tingly in his manly bits - which is obviously like the worst thing that can happen to these sorts of romance heroes.  Her parents put her to work in their store, he secures her a train ticket to Seattle (where she was hoping to go to find work) and of course Carrie is one of those prideful Won't Take No Charity sorts of romance heroines so they butt heads.   

I mean, that's pretty much it.  Then they decide after knowing each other a few days that they're in love and the requisite marriage proposal happens.

I mean, it's fine, I guess?  But there's just not much fire here. There's not much of anything here.  Heroine in trouble, hero playing white knight, the end.  Meh.

Grade = C

The Christmas Gifts by Kate Bridges was the best story in the bunch for me, and while it didn't light my world on fire, it was better than OK. Sergeant James Fielder, a Canadian Mountie, is patrolling an isolated area on his dog sled when he finds an abandoned baby. Out in the cold.  The infant girl is cold, hungry and he's days away from civilization but he knocks himself out to get to Maggie Greerson's store in record time. Maggie is a young widow and James has mighty unrequited feelings for her.  Anyway, Maggie takes the baby in, her and James rekindle feelings they once had for each other and deal with past baggage between them.

What stood out for me in this story was what Maggie and James fight about - money.  Maggie is a widow with a successful business and sees all men as interlopers out to get their hands on her money.  James has a strained relationship with his father stemming from financial hardships the family had when he was growing up.  As sick as this sounds, I love reading a good argument in a romance story, and this was a really good argument.  This is also the story that I found was heaviest on the Christmas atmosphere, so a good candidate for a quick Christmas Eve read.

Grade = B-

Before Mary Burton took to writing suspense novels she wrote several historical westerns, and while The Christmas Charm starts out promising it ended up leaving me cranky.  It's 1869 and Colleen Garland is a young widow who has spent the past several years nursing an elderly husband from complications of a stroke. She made a lot of sacrifices so that her younger sister, Deirdre, could have the opportunities she never did, but now the bubble-headed ninny says she's quitting school and she's run off to marry a local ranch foreman!  Turns out the foreman works for Keith Garrett, the boy Colleen loved prior to the War, and who refused to marry her before he went off to fight. He's now a prosperous local rancher and naturally all butt-hurt that Colleen didn't wait for him - so there's tension there.

I cannot abide romance heroes like Keith. He's all up in his fee-fees because Colleen married "an old man" not considering for one hot damn minute that maybe she had no choice. It was either marry the old man or become a prostitute.  Her parents died, she finds out her father took out another mortgage on their land, the cattle all died during a terrible winter, the crops failed, like it all went to hell.  And there's Keith judging her after the fact. The same Keith who was all "I couldn't marry you, Virginia needed men to fight" and I'm reading this thinking child, please! F*ck Virginia!

And then of course they fall into bed together and they decide to get married and this asshat is all like "You need to give up the store."  After she worked herself to the bone to keep the store profitable after her husband's stroke?! The store that saved her from a frickin' life of poverty?!  Go f*ck yourself Keith. And then go f*ck the horse you rode in on. Seriously, this guy!

But of course they end up working it out and she pops out twin boys during a Christmas Day epilogue.  He's a jerk and she's an idiot for not shooting him in his manly pride. And on top of all this? He fought for the wrong damn side.  Seriously, I hated this guy.

Grade = D

So not a terribly successful anthology, although Bridges' story was not without some charm.  Honestly, what I'm taking away from this reading experience is the satisfaction that a long neglected print book is out of my TBR. Dare I say it? It feels like an actual sense of accomplishment.

Coming Back Around Again: Unusual Historical Highlights for October 2022

Seriously y'all, can you believe it's October already?! So many of my Romancelandia friends are embracing Spooky Season and hauling out their sweaters from storage and I'm here in Southern California bracing for triple digit temperatures and everything catching on fire. I don't miss snow, but I sure do miss autumn. But I'll get a taste of it next week when I'm heading back to the Midwest for a visit home. Apple cider, donuts, sweatshirts, visiting my favorite used bookstore ever - I got plans y'all, which will hopefully entail reading. What better way to start thinking about "airplane reading" than looking at October's crop of Unusual Historicals? Here's what's catching my eye landing in October.

 

The Boxing Baroness by Minerva Spencer

Magnetic and educated, Marianne Simpson has the manner of a lady and the looks of a lover, not a fighter. Neither of which explains her occupation as a boxer in her uncle’s circus, Farnham’s Fantastical Female Fayre. Nonetheless, when St. John Powell, the exquisitely handsome Duke of Staunton, begins turning up at her shows, she finds herself dangerously distracted by the powerful peer’s mysterious presence. With her safety at stake, Marianne’s days in the ring are numbered. But how long can she fight her attraction to the man the ton calls Lord Flawless? 

St. John Powell doesn’t just want Marianne Simpson, he needs her … to rescue his brother, who is being held for ransom by a treasonous English baron—the man all of Britain knows as the Rake of Rakes. No matter how little Marianne wants to see her duplicitous ex-lover, the man responsible for the humiliating nickname the Boxing Baroness, St. John must convince her. Even if it means climbing into the ring with the beautiful boxer and taking everything she’s got...

I won't disclose how long I've had an ARC of this (it's embarrassing) but how could I not have one-clicked a book featuring a Regency-era boxing heroine?!  Even better? This is the first book in a series.  Really looking forward to this.

Tempted By Her Outcast Viking by Lucy Morris

Tempted by the warrior… 

But she’ll never wed! 

Brynhild had once been close to Erik—until he’d betrayed her, and she’d hoped never to see him again. Now the fiercely independent shieldmaiden needs Erik’s skills to rescue her sister. Striking a truce with the tough, isolated loner, they reach a mutually beneficial deal: help her and, in return, she’ll help him in his quest to find a wife—by teaching him how to please a woman in bed! 

Speaking of books I'm looking forward to, this would be #1 with a bullet this month, Morris' second book in her Shieldmaiden Sisters series. I enjoyed the first book in this series when I read it this summer, and Brynhild is my kind of catnip heroine, the "fearsome one" who undoubtedly is masking her hidden vulnerabilities.  Oh, and the hero she falls in a love with? A bastard sold into slavery by his vile father. Gimme, gimme, gimme.

 

The Duke's Defiant Cinderella by Parker J. Cole

An arranged betrothal… 

By royal approval! 

As the servant girl who discovered she was the long-lost daughter of a comte, Lilas Moreau is no stranger to scandal. Now, more famous for her art, she won’t have her independence threatened by the return of her betrothed, Bastien, Duc de Languedoc. As a new attraction sizzles between them, Lilas is relieved he wants to end their secret marriage contract. But a summons from the queen means they’re forced to continue their charade!

Now this is exciting! And intriguing! Set in 18th century France a heroine determined to remain independent finds that independence threatened by a betrothed she was hoping was gone and...Marie Antoinette. This tale is set in 1775 so I'm not expecting any French Revolution shenanigans, but plenty of scandal and excess - which I am here for.

Father Goose by Jodi Thomas (novella, reprint)

 

Dispirited by war, Trapper Hawkins accepts a job hauling five little rich girls to Dallas. All he cares about is the money. He doesn’t expect the girls will awaken his spirit—much less that their intriguing nursemaid, Emery Adams, will awaken his heart. And when danger strikes as Christmas Eve nears, he definitely doesn’t expect Emery and the girls to risk their lives - for him...

A haunted hero who agrees to escort a woman and her five young charges to Dallas and gets more than he bargained for. This novella was originally published in The Cowboy Who Saved Christmas anthology, which at the time of this posting was available via Kindle Unlimited.  As someone who loves Christmas romances, just out here performing a public service....

Beauty and the Bounty Hunter by Lori Handeland (reprint)

Once Upon a Time . . . 

Beauty Became the Bounty Hunter 

Cathleen Chase was an unassuming farmer’s wife until her husband was gunned down in front of her. Desperate for revenge, she offered con artist Alexi Romanov anything if he would school her in the art of the dodge. 

Alexi didn’t realize he’d turned Cathleen Chase into Cat O’Banyon, a ruthless bounty hunter who would stop at nothing to catch the man who murdered her husband, until she was gone. That she took the heart he didn’t know he had along with her surprised him even more. 

Now Cat has a bounty on her head. Hunted by every gunslinger from Abilene to St. Louis to Denver, she won’t last long without an ally. With little choice, she turns to Alexi for help. But, again, he has his price. Again, she will pay any cost. 

To survive, they must trust each other, but in a relationship forged from deception and lust, is trust even possible? 

And if they can’t learn to trust, can they ever learn to love?

Sometimes y'all I could just kick myself in the teeth. Just READ this back cover blurb. I want to read the hell out of this and I'm pretty sure I have a print copy of this languishing in my TBR somewhere. Because I am THE. WORST.  Anyway, this was originally published by Berkley under Handeland's Lori Austin pseudonym and rights have obviously reverted.

Longing for Julia by Kate Bridges (reprint)

When Julia advertises for a husband, a bad-boy-turned-Mountie from her past shows up in town. 

Julia O’Shea could use a rugged man by her side as she’s running her busy newspaper and raising her young son alone. The young widow’s unique solution is to advertise for a gentleman husband. She’s dismayed when Ryan Reid arrives. 

Ryan loved and left her ten years ago. To everyone’s surprise, the black sheep of the Reid family has returned as an upstanding Mountie surgeon and commander. It doesn’t change how badly Ryan treated Julia. For her, there’s no such thing as second chances. But in all these years, Ryan has never forgotten Julia. She’s still as intelligent, beautiful and passionate. Now in his effort to save the town from a dangerous unfolding disaster, Ryan wonders if he and Julia were ever meant to be together… 

Bridges' has been reissuing her Harlequin Historical backlist as rights have reverted, and this one was originally published as The Commander back in 2006 - and yes, it's another book I've got buried in my print TBR because I am truly THE. WORST. This is another of Bridges' Canadian-set westerns (Calgary in this instance) and the third book to feature the Reid brothers.

The Hostage by Susan Wiggs (reprint)

Chicago, 1871 

Deep within the quiet of the night, a city erupts into flames, and a spoiled heiress is soon whisked away. 

Deborah Sinclair is a beautiful, accomplished young heiress with a staggering dowry. But her fortune does her no good when, one horrible night, Chicago is engulfed in flames. 

Tom Silver will walk through fire to avenge a terrible injustice—and he may have to. But when he makes Deborah a pawn in his revenge, the heat of the inferno fades next to the attraction he feels for his captive. And the further he takes her from everything she's known, the stronger their passion grows, until it threatens to consume them both.

I believe this is the second reprint (and third cover art iteration) for The Hostage, which was originally published back in 2000. It was my first read by Wiggs and I reviewed it for The Romance Reader, which just goes to show how old I am. Anyway, the book opens with the Great Chicago Fire and our kidnapped heroine ends up on isolated Isle Royale in Lake Superior, Michigan - and naturally she's hiding a Big Secret. Wiggs has moved on to women's fiction but she wrote some really great historical romance of which this was just one.

What Unusual Historicals are you looking forward to?

Run Wendy Run: Incoming Unusual Historicals for June 2022

When I was a wee baby Super Librarian wannabe, June was always one of my favorite months on the calendar - namely because I was getting out of school for a couple of months and I could carry myself off to the local library to read whatever the heck I wanted (no assigned reading?! SIGN. ME. UP.)  So the irony isn't lost on me that June and July now signify the busiest, generally most dreaded months of my working life. Close out the out-going fiscal year, get everything ready for the incoming fiscal year. Every year I welcome in summertime slightly unhinged and hit early August completely drained. My respite? I mean, besides wine and chocolate? New Unusual Historical romances of course! Here's what's landing in June that caught my eye:

 

The Viking She Would Have Married by Lucy Morris

In close quarters… 

With the Viking she’d loved and lost 

AShieldmaiden Sisters story - with her family fallen on hard times, Valda’s forced to join the crew on Halfdan Ulfsson’s merchant ship as he sets sail on the treacherous silk route. But this handsome jarl’s son is the man she’d planned to wed, until his bitter betrayal. Knowing she can never trust him, she must focus on saving her sisters…and not the intense connection that still burns between them!

If this were the Billboard Top 100, this book would be my number one with a bullet for June. First, give me ALL the Sheldmaidens! Second, Valda was a secondary character in A Nun for the Viking Warrior which I read earlier this year. Valda was the hero's BFF in that book, the hero who saw her like a sister and naturally her feelings for him ran a little deeper. But instead of being a villainess, Valda was more practical about love - which is to say she saw the writing on the wall.  I'm really looking forward to this book and should have a copy in my hot little hands very soon.

The Perfect Crimes of Marian Hayes by Cat Sebastian

Marian Hayes, the Duchess of Clare, just shot her husband. Of course, the evil, murderous man deserved what was coming to him, but now she must flee to the countryside. Unfortunately, the only person she can ask for help is the charismatic criminal who is blackmailing her—and who she may have left tied up a few hours before… 

A highwayman, con artist, and all-around cheerful villain, Rob Brooks is no stranger to the wrong side of the law or the right side of anybody’s bed. He never meant to fall for the woman whose secrets he promised to keep for the low price of five hundred pounds, but how could he resist someone who led him on a merry chase all over London, left him tied up in a seedy inn, and then arrived covered in her husband’s blood and in desperate need of his help? 

As they flee across the country—stopping to pick pockets, drink to excess, and rescue invalid cats—they discover more true joy and peace than either has felt in ages. But when the truth of Rob’s past catches up to him, they must decide if they are willing to reshape their lives in order to forge a future together.

We have Georgian London, a Duchess turned criminal and a highwayman, con artist who sounds too slick by half. I am here for the rogue with a heart of gold and this one sounds fun.

The Welsh Lord's Convenient Bride by Lissa Morgan 

A wedding between enemies

A marriage to heal their scars 

 Hiding a disfigurement, Eleanor de Vraille is already lacking confidence when she arrives at her future husband’s cheerless Welsh castle. And Rhun ab Owain’s open disapproval of her does nothing to make her feel at ease. Their union is to seal peace between their families, nothing more. But Eleanor’s heart rebels—is she a fool to hope for any affection from this strong-willed nobleman with the dark glittering eyes?

An enemies-to-lovers romance set in 13th century Wales featuring a scarred heroine.  This is Morgan's debut novel, the 12th manuscript she completed, and (wait for it...) the first historical.  Prior to getting the call for this book she had been consistently submitting contemporaries to Mills & Boon before a meeting with an editor suggested she try her hand at a historical.  This book was the result.

Guarding Jessica by Kate Bridges (Kindle Unlimited)

In this enemies to lovers romance, Jessica and a daunting Mountie are forced to travel together on a perilous secret mission. 

Jessica Haven desperately needs Mountie Travis Reid to escort her across the Rocky Mountains in secret search for the baby she’s lost. No one else believes her story, and the cold-hearted Mountie who doesn’t think much of her is her last hope. 

Travis knows Jessica as the mayor’s spoiled daughter. Travis is already on a deeply personal journey to deliver extraordinary horses to the other side of the Rockies. He doesn’t want to spend his days—and heated nights—on the trail with a woman he dislikes. Yet when Jessica discloses her tender story, it rings an emotional truth inside of him in a place he thought was long buried. She displays courage, grit and sensuality. While their risky path narrows and intimacy deepens, can Travis and Jessica lower their defenses to trust each other?

This is a reprint of The Proposition, which was originally published by Harlequin Historical in 2004. While it's the first book in what was the Reid Brothers trilogy back then - Bridges wrote several Canadian-set stories for Harlequin featuring Mountie heroes, and has been self-publishing them under a rebranded Mountie Brides umbrella.  This is one I haven't read, but I've enjoyed other books by Bridges and mama needs more historical westerns y'all.

What Unusual Historicals are you looking forward to this month?

Glad Tidings: Unusual Historical Picks for December 2021

I honestly don't know how much the average reader pays attention to the vagaries of the publishing world - but even with the advent of self-publishing I can state for a fact that December tends to be The Dead Zone. It's traditionally been a very, very light month. That said, when my swashbuckling through Amazon's forest of terrible algorithms only netted three titles I thought "This can't be right."  So I looked at my Unusual Historical post for December 2020 and found....four titles.  Yeah.  So here it is folks! The last Unusual Historical post for 2021. She be small but she be mighty!  Enjoy!

 

The Knight's Convenient Alliance by Melissa Oliver

The only man who’s tempted her… 

Now poses as her husband! 

When an injured knight arrives on Brida O’Conaill’s doorstep, the village assumes he’s her long-lost husband. But her only previous connection to Sir Thomas Lovent was an intense shared moment at a tournament years ago. Brida maintains the pretense while she nurses him, yet once he’s back to full, virile health, she cannot reveal Thomas is not her husband—or that she’s unmarried!—when everyone is expecting them to act like husband and wife…

Oliver's debut medieval romance landed in 2020 and here we are - already on book 4 of her Notorious Knights series. Do romance authors sleep?  Because seriously, I'm exhausted.  Anyway, the fake engagement/marriage/relationship trope is one of my all-time favorites (Forced proximity! Having to put on a show to convince others!) so I'm looking forward to this.

The Viking's Stolen Princess by Sarah Rodi

A kidnapped royal… 

Could be the Viking's undoing! 

After Brand Ivarsson of Kald abducts Anne of Termarth on the eve of her wedding, the Viking’s consumed with only one thing: revenge against her loathsome betrothed. But confronted with the stunning princess, so foreign to his world, Brand’s captivated not only by her beauty, but by her spirit and her kindness. Is Anne his prisoner…or is she the one who’s captured his scarred heart?

I spy with my little eye a debut author! It's got royalty, it's got a Viking, and it's got a revenge plot. I mean, what more could a girl possibly ask for?  Rodi has a background in magazines and is a long-time Mills & Boon fan, so one imagines she's chuffed to have gotten the call for this book - which she finished in one month (!) after being furloughed from her day job.  I'm not sure what I would do if I were furloughed - probably sleep for at least the first two weeks.  Finishing a novel that eventually sells sounds way more productive.

Protecting Virginia by Kate Bridges (Kindle Unlimited)

When Virginia is jilted at the altar, her former fiancé’s brother Zack, a rugged Mountie, proposes a marriage of convenience. 

For Mountie Inspector Zack Bullock, marrying his brother’s cast-off bride would fulfill his family obligations. Zack could marry Dr. Virginia Waters and not get emotionally involved. Their marriage would have other benefits. He could continue his risky work as a detective, and she could blossom in her role as a new doctor. However, the awkward girl that Zack recalls has grown into a stunning, desirable woman and he finds himself emotionally entangled. 

Virginia survived the shame of a first botched wedding. Now she has to survive the humiliation of knowing that Zack is marrying her only because of his sense of duty. But when dangerous criminals put her safety in jeopardy, Zack wonders if the marriage will ever happen. He does everything he can to guard Virginia, and protect himself from his growing feelings of love.

Originally published by Harlequin Historical in 2004 with the title The Engagement, I'm telling you right now I think I have a print copy of that edition buried somewhere in the depths of what I affectionately call my "Harlequin cupboard." Bridges wrote several historicals set in Canada with Mountie heroes and she's been self-publishing them now that her rights have reverted.  She's written some very good books and reading this plot description - HOW HAVE I NOT READ THIS YET?!  I need it in my eyeballs now.

What Unusual Historicals are you looking forward to reading?