Action & Adventure Books

No pirate on the high seas is more bloodthirsty than the notorious Branded Ann, a woman with eyes like ice and a face marred by a mysterious cross-shaped scar. When she raids a merchant vessel bound for Jamaica, her only objective is to obtain the map that will lead her to a legendary treasure. But she hadn't bargained on taking Violet, the merchant's young widow, on board her ship as a prisoner. In spite of her childlike appearance, Violet has a dark side of her own that Ann finds both infuriating and endearing.

As Branded Ann sails in search of treasure, her task is made more difficult by a stowaway child, an increasingly rebellious crew, and the treacherous seas of the Devil's Triangle; to make matters worse, she finds herself falling for her not-so-innocent but altogether charming captive. But will Violet be able to overcome the demons of her past and accept Ann's love? And will they survive the treasure hunt that has already claimed the lives of so many before them?

Tristaine's hard-won peace is shattered when a deadly plague threatens to devastate the Amazon clan. Their only hope for a cure lies in the sinister laboratories of the City Clinic. To save the sisters they love, Jess and Brenna must leave their mountain village and return to the place of their nightmares, the malevolent facility that almost cost them their lives. The danger they face is harrowing, the stakes enormous...and they have precious little time.

It's tempting to describe the action in The Crown of Valencia, but then we'd reveal spoilers from The Spanish Pearl. Just know that once again, Kate Vincent finds herself in a mess, both romantically and time travel-wise. Romance, betrayal, intrigue, disobedient children, and religious fanaticism pack this tense conclusion to the epic adventure begun in The Spanish Pearl.

Valerie Foret—archeologist and heir to a terrifying task—returns in a powerful desert adventure set in Egypt and Jerusalem, in both modern and medieval times.

On the eve of the release of Valerie Foret's great chronicle, Valerie learns that hers is not the 100th generation of the prophecy at all. In grappling with a mysterious and lethal opponent, Valerie witnesses the horrors of the first Crusade in which her ancestors, both innocent and malevolent, have carried out a drama identical to her own. The weapon that succeeded then and now threatens once again is the terrible power of faith. Will the outcome be the same?

In the course of fleeing the forces of violent fundamentalism, Valerie, a westerner, and Najya Khoury, an Arab-Israeli, fall in love and find out just how dangerous it is to challenge accepted "truth."

When Kate Vincent and her partner travel to Spain, Kate is accidentally transported back in time...way back in time...to 1085. What does a woman like Kate do in a world of no antibiotics, no feminism, no Diet Coke? She denies it as long as possible, then sets her mind to getting home. Tricky with her now useless twenty-first century skills.

Things don't go well. Kate is captured by a band of mercenary soldiers and becomes an unwitting pawn in the violent conflict between the Catholic kings and the Islamic Moors. In her struggle to stay alive and return to the future, Kate must flee exotic harems, filthy dungeons, and treacherous Moorish courts. But when a sword-brandishing woman with an astonishing secret sweeps into Kate's life, Kate is suddenly torn between two women, and between two centuries.

The Spanish Pearl is an epic adventure spiced with humor, lust, and danger—a story with surprising twists that will capture your imagination just as Kate's dilemma captures your heart.

Riannon, outcast and female knight, seeks a cause worthy of a chivalric hero in a medieval world of magic and misogyny. Eleanor, a wealthy widow, has given up all hope of finding passionate love and her perfect knight—until she meets Riannon. Aveline, a powerful priestess, needs a warrior for her secret mission of starting a holy war. She binds Riannon with double-edged oaths and a magical sword. A love affair worthy of troubadours' songs clashes with loyalty, intrigue, ambition, and war, tangling the three women in a web that perhaps not even Riannon's sword can cut through.

When you're short on friends and long on enemies, things can't get much worse. Until they do...

Ranger Riki Sadiq is known as a troublemaker, and in the close knit heretic community, a bad name is hard to lose. Standing sentry duty on a winter's day, all she can see lying ahead is an afternoon of being cold, miserable, and bored. Her mood isn't helped by deliberate goading from people who are supposed to be working with her. Even so, retaliating in kind isn't one of Riki's better ideas. When Riki is dispatched to Westernfort for one last chance in the Rangers, the hostile reception means her list of enemies has become still longer, and prime candidate to head the list is her new patrol corporal, Tanya Coppelli. It is hate at first sight. The way Riki sees it, Tanya may have good looks, talent and sharp wits, but is that any reason to like her? However, if Riki but knew it, trouble of a deadly kind is heading her way. With their lives at stake, Riki and Tanya will have to overcome the mutual antagonism and learn to work together.

For Blayne Keller, being in the wrong place at the wrong time just might turn out to be the best thing that ever happened to her—once she stops running for her life.

A typical day at a Chicago travel agency turns deadly when Blayne witnesses a mafia murder.

Overnight, her life is turned upside down and she is thrust into WITSEC, the Federal Witness Protection Program. But the mob is determined to keep her from testifying and has a fed on its payroll leaking information about her every move. Only Alexi Nikolos, an enigmatic WITSEC Inspector with an agenda of her own, can keep Blayne alive, and it's not an easy task when the sparks between them are flying faster than the bullets aimed at their heads.

On a world torn by war, two women discover a love that defies boundaries, challenges allegiances, and that just might mean the survival—or destruction—of all they hold dear.

Roshan O'Landha, a Gantharian resistance fighter, works hard to maintain her cover as a wealthy businesswoman as war on occupied Gantharat seems imminent. When the Onotharian forces strike an overwhelming blow to the resistance, Roshan sends a plea for help to Kellen O'Dal, Protector of the Realm. In the meantime, Roshan is forced to work closely with Andreia M'Aldovar, a woman she once cared for who now holds a pivotal position in the Onotharian interim government. Andreia also guards a secret, one that if known could cost her life at the hands of either the Onotharians or the resistance. As the two women struggle to prevent annihilation, Roshan is given the only order she may not be able to obey, not even to save Gantharat—assassinate Andreia M'Aldovar.

After three years of studying with the Empress Bykoda, Jemeryl has learned all that the elderly sorcerer can teach her and is ready to return to Lyremouth. However, before she leaves, Bykoda reveals a grim secret - an oracle of death, and asks her to perform one final assignment. Jemeryl must take Bykoda's talisman to a place of safety. Failure will mean complete destruction not only in the present, but also the past.

While in Tirakhalod, Tevi has been working as an officer in Bykoda's army. It has been a difficult time for her, living in a land where those who cannot work magic are treated as insignificant. Only Jemeryl's love has made life bearable. With the return to the Protectorate drawing close, she hopes that the worst is over. However, somebody is after the talisman, and that person is willing to commit murder to get what they want.

Tristaine: Book Three

On the run from the City soldiers, the Amazons of Tristaine seek refuge deep in the mountains, where an even greater danger awaits.

In their new mountain stronghold, a battle rages for the lives and souls of the Amazons of Tristaine. While Jess and her warriors fight a ghostly army, their weakened leader, Shann, must find a way to defeat a powerful demon queen. Shann's only hero is to reveal long-held secrets that will change Brenna and Jess's life forever. The Thesmephoria moon rises over the last bloody confrontation between two great Amazon tribes--the living and the dead--and when the sun dawns, only one queen rules the village.

After a harrowing escape from the City's prison, new lovers Brenna and the Amazon Jesstin are thrown into a battle that will determine the fate of their entire world.

While Brenna struggles to find her place in the clan and the love between her and Jess grows, Tristaine is threatened with destruction when a crucial betrayal brings the City soldiers down upon the village.

Brenna's emerging psychic gifts aid Jess and her warriors in a final bloody confrontation against the forces bent on destroying the Amazon way of life.

Ancient curses, modern day villains, and a most intriguing woman who keeps appearing when least expected and then disappearing.

Archeologist Valerie Foret has spent a year searching for a tomb in the Egyptian desert—a labor broken only by high risk trysts with a powerful man's wife. When she finally makes the discovery of a lifetime, she is set upon by jealous rivals and religious fanatics. Worse, she is drawn into the depths of the desert by forces that offer knowledge of vast mysteries and at the same time threaten to destroy everything she knows. For what she's found is a glimpse into the hereafter, and it's nothing like it's supposed to be.

Brilliant scientist that she is, she has loved most unwisely and learned what she does not want to know. Follow her adventures through modern and ancient Egypt, through this world and the next, with Book One of the Ibis Prophecy.

Tevi and Jemeryl, soldier and sorceress, must risk all in the race to uncover a traitor and retrieve the chalice that, in the wrong hands, could bestow dangerous powers.

A dark presence is threatening to uncover long hidden secrets, and the future of the whole Protectorate is at stake. Without allies to help them, Tevi and Jemeryl will need to rely totally on each other; something made all the more difficult when the rest of the world seems intent on pulling them apart. Events will force them to re-evaluate their assumptions about society and their places in it. Success will require making difficult choices, even while they battle for their lives.

Revised Edition

Aided by a haunted young City medic, the descendents of an ancient warrior tribe fight for their freedom.

Brenna's new duties as a Clinic medic include monitoring the health of political prisoners after they've been interrogated. The extreme measures employed by Caster, the Clinic's director, are not supposed to distress Brenna—any such humanistic concerns have long been dismissed by the tyrannical City Government. But Brenna finds herself deeply conflicted by her first patient, Jesstin, a wild and rebellious warrior reputed to be descended from ancient Amazons. Through Jess, she learns of another way of life in the Amazon village of Tristaine, where freedom and passion are prized more highly than political power.

As Caster's methods grow increasingly brutal, Brenna fears for Jess's life, and struggles with the deepening bond between them. Soon she faces a critical choice, and a harrowing fight for survival.

Danger, destiny, and romance on the river.

A wilderness kayak adventure brings together two very different women--Chaz Herrick, a laid-back outdoorswoman, and Megan Maxwell, a workaholic news executive. As they battle the challenges of nature for survival, they discover that true love may be nothing at all like they imagined./p>

A shocking assassination creates an unconventional bond between a princess and her guardian in a kingdom filled with political intrigue, danger and unexpected romance.

Princess Shasta Soltranis enjoys a pampered life of court dances, elaborate finery, and the occasional secret fencing match with her twin brother, Daric. But in the midst of a birthday celebration, her world shatters when a mysterious assassin takes her brother's life. Shasta, the only remaining heir to the throne, narrowly escapes the assassin's blade thanks to the intervention of a traveling acrobat named Talon.

With the threat of another attempt on Shasta's life imminent, her father declares that the young hero will be come the Princess's bodyguard. But what Shasta doesn't know is that her new guardian has a very well-kept secret: he is actually a she.

Talon and Shasta soon grow closer than anyone, especially her father, could have predicted. Will the truth of her guardian's secret change their relationship forever?

The quest for the stolen chalice is a sham - her family's excuse to get rid of Tevi. Exiled in a dangerous and confusing world filled with monsters, bandits, and sorcerers, Tevi battles demons within and without as she searches for her place in the strange new world.

Jemeryl has her future planned out - a future that will involve minimal contact with ordinary folk who do not understand sorcerers. Her ambition is to lead a solitary life within the Coven and to devote herself to the study of magic. It is all very straightforward - until she meets Tevi.

Two unlikely allies join forces to defeat an insidious evil and on the journey find one another.

Revised Edition