Regency Warriors Series

Catherine Audley, the daughter of Britain's spymaster on the Iberian Peninsula, is far more sophisticated than most young women her age, which doesn't protect her from the machinations of her father, a husband of convenience, or the unrelenting demands of a long war. Over seven years of a first-hand, and highly personal, view of the Peninsular War, she matures into a woman who is finally able to go toe-to-toe with the enigmatic young man to whom she has given years of unquestioning devotion. Only to discover that love cannot compensate for betrayal of trust. Or can it? While masquerading as an ox-cart driver, the young Englishman known as Blas the Bastard meets Catherine Audley, and his life is changed forever. It is 1807 and France is about to invade Portugal. To protect Cat's father, his gaming establishment in Lisbon, and the British spy network on the Peninsula, Blas proposes a "paper" marriage between himself and young Catherine. She is fourteen; he, twenty-one—both too young for the responsibilities they must assume. Blas is arrogant, dashing, occasionally reckless, totally bound up in the demands of the war, and oblivious to the looming disastrous conflict with his sometime wife. When Cat finally discovers how badly Blas has deceived her, a monumental clash is inevitable. In no way does the triumph of allied troops in 1814 guarantee a happy ending for two people for whom the war was a personal disaster. Is she a sometime bride, "widow" of a man who never existed? Is she Blas's well-rewarded, but discarded mistress? Or is she a beloved wife whose only rival is her husband's determined expediency in a time of war? Author's Note: In addition to being a saga of young lovers caught up in a war, The Sometime Bride is the history of the Peninsular War, Britain's fight against Napoleon in Portugal and Spain. The story moves from France's invasion of Portugal and British troops driven into the sea at La Coruña to the return of British troops under General Sir Arthur Wellesley, the fortified lines at Torres Vedras, and the gradual push of French troops across Spain and back into France. Plus the chaotic times in Paris after Napoleon's surrender and the Emperor's triumph as he gathers up his old troops, only to be stopped in one of the most famous and bloody battles in history—Waterloo. Reviews: Reviewers Choice Award. "Sometimes a reviewer gets a book so powerful, it's hard to know where to begin to tell about it. The Sometime Bride is such a book. . . . Bride passes every criterion for a successful book that I was given as a reviewer. Ms Bancroft weaves a most unusual love story in among the threads of history that cover eight years. She gives a clear and concise overview of that terrible, yet glorious, age that held both Napoleon and Wellington, and she makes it fascinating by showing it to us through her characters' eyes. . . ." Jane Bowers, Romance Communications "The writing talent displayed by the author is wonderful . . . Ms. Bancroft's detail for historical events is phenomenal. . . ." April Redmon, Romantic Times Five Stars. "Set against the bloody Napoleonic wars, The Sometime Bride is ambitious, engrossing and absolutely wonderful." Rickey R. Mallory, Affaire de Coeur Five Stars. "The Sometime Bride by Blair Bancroft is a riveting and well-written story . . . The tension between the hero and heroine sizzles. Janet Lane Walters, Scribes World

Author's Warning: O'Rourke's Heiress contains major spoilers for The Sometime Bride. It's strongly recommended you read "Bride" first. Can the daughter of a jumped-up tradesman find happiness with a handsome and charming viscount, or does her destiny lie elsewhere? Perhaps with a man who isn't trying to kill her? Though Terence O'Rourke would never admit it, he loves Beth Brockman. Beth, daughter of Tobias Brockman, the Merchant Midas, has loved her foster brother, Terence, for all seventeen years of her life. Both are bastards. Both owe everything to Tobias, who has one simple goal beyond making money: he wants his only child to marry a title. Beth's protests are ignored as Terence sacrifices his own desires so she can marry the heir to an earldom. But disillusionment begins on Beth's wedding night. She is no longer a pampered princess. Her husband is master of her fate, her money, her person, her life. He can love her, starve her, beat her, sleep with as many women as he likes. He can abandon her . . . even kill her. And live happily ever after on her munificent dowry. Occasionally, Beth sees flashes of the charming gentleman she thought she married. As a bitter winter on Dartmoor turns to spring, she struggles to make her marriage work. But events begin to suggest her husband is a madman or a murderer. Perhaps both. Prior to Beth's wedding, Tobias Brockman sent Terence to Louisiana, where he assuages his anguish over Beth's marriage in the arms of an ambitious Creole, who clings to him all the way back to London. Where Terence discovers his "sacrifice" was in vain—his beloved Beth has suffered beatings by her husband, topped by a series of inexplicable accidents. A dash to Dartmoor reveals that the lovely, innocent young girl Terence once knew is totally disillusioned, determined never again to allow love into her life. Terence keeps trying, but their past mistakes continue to haunt them. Happily Ever After seems impossible for this pair of star-crossed lovers, but sometimes Fate does the strangest things . . .

Warning: Although the story in Rogue's Destiny stands alone, it contains major spoilers for the previous books in the Regency Warrior series: The Sometime Bride, Tarleton's Wife, and O'Rourke's Heiress. After suffering a broken heart and barely escaping the hangman, Jack Harding escapes his past by becoming the head of a private army and spending his leisure moments as a Devil's Disciple, a group of rakes who model themselves on the old Hellfire Club. But, to his surprise, he discovers that beneath the cold steel of a mercenary lurks the heart of a knight errant. When he meets a young woman from Quebec, alone at an inn on the road to London, he is enchanted, and shocked to find the young Canadian not eager to play by the rules of the Devil's Disciples. Victoire du Bois, daughter of a Canadian woodsman and granddaughter of an exiled English nobleman, has come to live with her lofty-titled relatives in England. But when they fail to meet her in Plymouth, she begins to wonder if they truly welcome the arrival of the young woman who is destined to inherit a large trust fund they might prefer to keep in the immediate family. A series of attempts on her life confirm her doubts, leaving Victoire with nowhere to turn but to the rake she nearly shot at an inn on the road from Plymouth.