Love sees deep below the surface. In the aftermath of WWII, widowed Sarah is dragged to a carnival by friends where she's riveted by the unearthly gaze of the tattooed man in the freak show. When this sensitive soul hides in her hayloft after escaping imprisonment by the evil carnival owner, Sarah shelters Tom on her farm. Deeply drawn to the quiet yet powerfully magnetic man, Sarah fights her attraction while learning about his mysterious past and gentle nature.

Since the car accident that caused a traumatic brain injury, Jason has fought to regain his memories and the ability to organize thoughts and control emotions. His promising future shattered, he works as a night janitor in an office building and clings to routine to make it through his days. New lawyer Anna breaks down one evening after fumbling her first court case. Self-doubt brings her to tears in a deserted stairwell where Jason finds her and offers comforting words. From this unexpected meeting, an unlikely romance begins.

He seethes with raw power the first time I see him - pure menace and rippling muscles in shackles. He's dangerous. He's wild. He's the most beautiful thing I've ever seen. So, I hide behind my prim glasses and my book like I always do, because I have secrets, too. Then, he shows up in the prison writing class I have to teach, and he blows me away with his honesty. He tells me secrets in his stories, and it's getting harder to hide mine. I shiver when he gets too close, with only the cuffs and the bars and the guards holding him back.

Mina's well-ordered life is thrown into disarray when her father drops a bombshell on his deathbed: She has a brother she never knew of. Not only that, he is on his way to rescue her from the collapse of their school under a mountain of debts. A wild journey across country later, Mina finds herself thrown at the feet of the brutish William Nye, prize-fighter and owner of a disreputable inn, The Merry Harlot. Respectable Mina is appalled to find herself obliged to wed this surly stranger.

When her naturalist father dies on the upper reaches of the Amazon, Lady Tess Collier sets out to fulfill his last wish: return to England and marry. Desperate and broke, privateer Gryphon Meridon takes on an assignment he'd much rather refuse - shepherding a beautiful, eccentric young lady through London's ballrooms.