Historical Books

Country mouse Lady Honora Banfield arrives in London with one mission: to catch a husband. A perpetual wallflower, she’s going to do whatever it takes to win a proposal from London’s most eligible bachelor, including teaming up with the most popular (and least proper) woman in London.

Miss Jacqueline Lockhart is having too much fun in her sixth season to ever consider settling down, even though she’s been unsuccessful at mingling with the upper echelons of London society.

When Lady Honora agrees to exchange invitations to the most exclusive events in return for Jacqueline’s introductions to eligible gentlemen, neither expects their friendship to ignite passion. Nora and Jacquie begin an affair with the strict understanding that it will end once Nora is married, but as a proposal becomes more imminent, choosing between a conventional life without love, or certain ruination if they stay together, isn’t as simple as it seems.

Praise from Publishers Weekly: "Walsh debuts with a charming if flawed Regency romance...Though Honora’s shift from shy curiosity to boldly stated interest feels a bit abrupt, her relationship with Jacquie is sweet, sensual, and believable. Subplots about a group of bluestockings and a society of LGBTQ Londoners add depth..."

Norwegian Kirsten Brun, a Nazi resister, has one mission: destroy the installation that produces the chemicals Germany needs for an atomic weapon. Unfortunately, her first attempt fails, leaving her injured and unconscious in the Arctic snow.

The Indigenous Sami people have tried to remain outside the conflict, but when Marrit Ragnar and the reindeer she herds discover Kristen and save her life, joining the battle is inevitable. A misfit in her own culture, Marrit participates in the second destruction attempt in order to avenge the killing of her family.

Kirsten’s and Marrit’s feelings for each other grow deeper, but each attack they join is costly in blood and conscience and nearly tears them apart. Should they carry on with the carnage for a questionable cause, or retreat north with the gentle reindeer?

Sergeant Bett Smythe and Lieutenant Gale Rains are building a life together, despite the risks in the tightly closeted world of the Women’s Army Corps. When another couple, Captain Kathleen Hartley and Lieutenant Victoria Whitman, invite Bett and Rain to a dinner party, they’re introduced to the lesbian underground on the base.

Kat and Whit have had a turbulent relationship, and as a budding friendship deepens, Kat’s attraction to Rain threatens both couples’ futures. When Whit’s friend is accused of sexually assaulting a recruit, the ensuing investigation impacts them all, professionally and personally.

As the Battle of the Bulge rages overseas, the bounds of love and friendship are tested. Whit will do almost anything to preserve what she has with Kat, but who is the real threat? And can Bett protect her relationship from the very real dangers close to heart and home?

Johanna Lennox, a working-class Scottish nurse, and Ellie Winthrop, a Voluntary Aid Detachment recruit from a wealthy British family, are thrown together in a general hospital in France during World War I.

When Johanna’s mother dies unexpectedly, Ellie is there to offer the comfort she desperately needs, and their feelings for each other grow into an attraction neither can deny. Johanna is convinced they can’t have a future together and throws herself into her work to escape her pain. She volunteers to serve closer to the front and almost loses her life before being sent home.

When Ellie refuses to give up hope and goes to find her, will Johanna be able to trust that a love born amidst the horrors of the Great War can survive in a post-war world?

The instant Delaney Peyton and Jade Taylor meet, they sense a connection neither can explain. That is until Delaney starts having strange visions that feel more like memories. Scotland, 1465: two young women meet and fall in love, but that love is threatened by deception and hatred. Delany isn’t sure if her feelings for Jade are real or left over from five hundred years ago. The more she sees, the more she’s convinced the key to her future lies in their past.

Jade is fresh from a bad relationship, and the last thing she wants right now is another one. Her attraction to Delany is overshadowed by a fear she doesn’t understand, and she is convinced she needs to keep Delany at arm’s length.

First publication 2015

Havana, 1952, a city throbbing with pleasure and danger, where the Mob peddles glamor to the tourists and there’s plenty of sex for sale. In the swanky hotels and casinos, and the steamy, secretive Red Light district of the Colón, Cantor Gold, dapper art thief and smuggler, searches the streets and brothels for her kidnapped love, Sophie de la Luna y Sol. Cantor races against time while trying to out run the deadly schemes of American mobsters and the gunsights of murderous local gangs.

For Stick “Mac” McLaughlin, it’s all about family: the stalwart friends, her former gang of bootlegging hijackers, and, above all, her lover and their daughter. So when New York mobsters begin squeezing the livelihood of new friend Rey, a veteran rum-runner on rural Lake George, Mac lends Rey resources but remains safely distant from enemies of the past.

Grateful for help, Rey opens her back-woods life to Mac’s seasoned, gun-toting crew, but never expects it to include the likes of petite bombshell Millie. The buxom, wily spitfire’s gumption and sass are as vital to the cause as they are aggravating…and beguiling.

But the Mob soon discovers a nemesis within its ranks, and, in the ultimate retaliation, draws Mac from anonymity by threatening everything she holds dear. Now, to finally end this deep-woods nightmare, Mac must cross the line with a vengeance.

In the years after World War II, the alliance that saved Europe is breaking down as the Soviet Union and the West compete for control of Germany. When Russia blockades Berlin, everyone, it seems, is hungry: Russian soldiers for German women, the Soviet leaders for territory, the Berliners themselves for food. But the hardest hunger of all is between a Royal Air Force woman and the wife of a Luftwaffe pilot who helped set fire to half of London.

In 1853 Wisconsin, Evelyn Bauer’s husband dies and, to support her children and their farm, she must disguise herself as him and work the logging camp for the winter. Sarah Bell has lost her partner, Abigail, to pneumonia. When she’s offered a job as a cook's helper at the logging camp, she has little choice but to go. The two women secretly forge a friendship as they struggle to survive the harsh environment.

As Evelyn’s and Sarah’s feelings grow, tension silently builds and their unspoken passion will either force them apart or bind them together forever.

Can the heart’s orders overrule the chain of command? 

September 1944. Private Helen Tucker has two goals—to drive for the Women’s Army Corps motor pool and to convince Tee Owens to be more than best friends. Helen has always done whatever it takes to survive, and she’s not good at waiting for what she wants. But Private Teresa Owens is a good Baptist girl who’s struggling with how her feelings for Helen can be wrong when she can’t bear to be without her.

Sergeant Gale Rains has learned to make her way in both the Sioux and White worlds, but will her love for Bett Smythe put her career in the WAC at risk? Private Elizabeth Smythe hopes Rain will be her future, but is she truly free from her past, including her class-conscious family?

Cody Walsh leaves Arkansas for California. Lured by stories of opportunity, even for women, Cody disguises herself as a man and prepares for the arduous journey west. 

Lillie Ellis leaves New York to accept a post as a schoolteacher on the frontier near a small homestead she just inherited from her uncle. Lillie’s ultimate desire is to become a painter, and she hopes the Kansas frontier will offer her the freedom to follow that dream. In the nineteenth century, a young woman has few options in the East that don’t revolve around marriage and motherhood. Lillie is interested in neither. 

Cody rescues Lillie after a chance encounter in Independence, Missouri. Their destinies and desires become entwined as they face the perils of the untamed West. Despite their differences, they discover that love’s uncharted frontier is not for the weak in spirit or the faint of heart.

"Crossing the Wide Forever is a near-heroic love story set in an epic time, told with almost lyrical prose. Words on the page will carry the reader, along with the main characters, back into history and into adventure. It’s a tale that’s easy to read, with enchanting main characters, despicable villains, and supportive friendships, producing a fascinating account of passion and adventure." –Lambda Literary Review

February 1862. The War Between the States has been raging for nearly a year with no end in sight. Philadelphia socialite Wilhelmina Fredericks is safe from the war’s clutches, yet she feels compelled to do her part to bring the madness to an end. Accordingly, she disguises herself as a man, takes up arms, and heads South to join the fight. What could possibly go wrong?

Clara Summers’s father and older brother are serving in the Confederate army. Forced to look after her two younger brothers as well as the small Tennessee farm the family depends on for its livelihood, Clara has no time for or interest in love. Then she meets a handsome Union soldier named Wil Fredericks, and her loyalty to both her family and the Southern cause is put to the test.

It is 1944, and vast armies drive each other back and forth over blood-drenched Europe. 

In the midst of it, two radically different women meet, one a Russian speaking American on a failed diplomatic mission and the other a Soviet sniper. The American, fleeing a sordid past worthy of Dostoyevsky, has murder in her heart but has injured no man. The other, a once-saintly believer, has killed a hundred of them for Stalin. Their politics are worlds apart, but a reckless drunken kiss has tied them together, through church and trench, incense and the smoke of battle. If they survive the war, can they survive the peace?

Abigail Eliot is a brilliant naturalist whose entire life is dedicated to her work. When she meets an earnest doctor, Norah Stratton who’s new to San Francisco, they start an unlikely friendship. When the 1906 earthquake and fire strike, they’re both caught up in the event in very different ways. Will their tentative connection turn to a lasting love or will San Francisco’s great tragedy drive them apart?

Socialite Elizabeth Carlton impulsively joins the Women’s Army Corps to escape love’s disappointments and her father’s attempts to control her life. Still, she has never been one to accept discipline imposed by others—not even someone as intriguing as her new sergeant. 

Sergeant Gale Rains is accustomed to challenges, but she’s never had a recruit quite like this one. Rains surrendered much of her Sioux heritage to the Army to escape the hardships and pain of her youth. Now a drill instructor, her calm, steady manner and firm hand have molded women from all walks of life into WACs. But not one of them has ever touched her. Why should this spoiled party girl be any different?

With the whole world at war, victory is never certain as two women wage their own battles of will and desire.

Royal Duval is the pride of her grandfather, Duke, from whom she learned all about faith, ambition, and women. After her father passed, Royal inherited his part of the family business: running bootleg whiskey. The back roads of Georgia had been perfect for the dissemination of the much sought after illegal elixir until the local Baptist minister, Abraham Porter, decided to make prohibition his mission, and Royal the target of his evangelical wrath.

Lovey Porter, Abraham's daughter, is the living embodiment of chaste beauty, until she meets the charmingly handsome Royal Duval. Their growing attraction for each other challenges every belief that Lovey holds dear and calls into question every truth she felt sure was absolute. Even if she must defy her father, in the end, Lovey has to find her own path to faith and love. She alone must decide whether that path leads to Royal.

Evelyn Hopkins leaves everything she knows and heads to London at the height of the Roaring Twenties, intent upon living her life to the fullest. But will the dark cloud of the Great War keep her from happiness and love?

Edward Hopkins returned from the war, but he is a shadow of his former self, broken by his experiences. His sister makes him a promise: to live her life well enough for both of them. London is a colorful world of jazz, fashion, and opportunities for lust and romance at every turn. When Evelyn meets handsome, eccentric Jos—with her butch style and gentle manner—she knows true attraction for the first time. But can love sustain them through tragedy and carry Evelyn into a new life she can be proud of?