Life for Adda Sinclaire, New York Times best-selling author and historical romance writer extraordinaire, reads more like a country song than a breathless, bodice-bursting affair. For starters, she has no romance in her own life. That might have something to do with the fact that her husband - correction, ex-husband - ran off with Stick Woman, whom everyone knew would never be more than a mid-list author anyway.

Kate’s creed: Thou shalt embrace singledom and be unbelievably, inconceivably happy. Yeah, right. Kate Meadows, a successful San Francisco artist, is this close to giving up on finding a nice, solid man with whom to spend her life. So when not one, but two eligible bachelors enter her orbit in rapid succession, it seems too good to be true. And it may be.

Pale rider. For all the wives lost to him, it is what some call England’s renowned trainer of knights, a name that reaches beyond those losses to the plague come out of the east. Believing it God’s will he not wed again, Hector Wulfrith resists being drawn to the courageous lady who enters a country at war with her own and, disguised as a man, trespasses on his home.

Piper Wick left her hometown of Pickwick, NC 12 years ago, shook the dust off her feet, ditched her drawl and her family name, and made a new life for herself as a high-powered public relations consultant in Los Angeles. She’s even engaged to be engaged to the picture-perfect US Congressman. Now all of Piper’s hard-won happiness is threatened by a reclusive uncle’s bout of conscience. Obadiah Pickwick's decided to change his will, leaving money to make amends for four generations’ worth of family misdeeds, which will reveal all the Pickwick’s secrets, including Piper’s.

The ultimate cure that could heal any disease? Crazy. That's exactly what research scientist Marian Creighton has always believed about her father's quest, even if it does stem from a desire to save her sister Ellen from the genetic disease that stole their mother from them. But when her father falls into a coma after drinking a vial of holy water believed to contain traces of residue from the Tree of Life, Marian must question all of her assumptions. He's left behind tantalizing clues that suggest he's crossed back in time.