Romance in Ellis Library: A Reader's Guide: Romantic Suspense

Tory Bodeen grew up in a small, rundown house where her father ruled with an iron fist and a leather belt--and where her dreams and talents had no room to flourish. But she had Hope--who lived in the big house, just a short skip away, and whose friendship allowed Tory to be something she wasn't allowed to be at home: a child. After young Hope's brutal murder, unsolved to this day, Tory's life began to fall apart. And now, as she returns to the tiny town of Progress, South Carolina, with plans to settle in and open a stylish home-design shop, she is determined to find a measure of peace and free herself from the haunting visions of that terrible night. As she forges a new bond with Cade Lavelle--Hope's older brother and the heir to the Lavelle fortune--she isn't sure whether the tragic loss they share will unite them or drive them apart. But she is willing to open her heart, just a little, and try. But living so close to those unhappy memories will be more difficult and frightening than she ever expected. Because the killer of Hope is nearby as well.

The coachman tried to warn her away from the ruined, forbidding place on the rainswept Cornish coast. But young Mary Yellan chose instead to honor her mother's dying request that she join her frightened Aunt Patience and huge, hulking Uncle Joss Merlyn at Jamaica Inn. From her first glimpse on that raw November eve, she could sense the inn's dark power. But never did Mary dream that she would become hopelessly ensnared in the vile, villainous schemes being hatched within its crumbling walls -- or that a handsome, mysterious stranger would so incite her passions ... tempting her to love a man whom she dares not trust.

Desperate for peace and safety, Christy Loren flees from her psychic gifts to the Blue Ridge Mountains and the reassuring presence of her Aunt Nona. But in this peaceful place, something wicked hides. Here, Christy knows the blood-chilling dream that has haunted her will come to terrifying life. For someone will do anything to stop her from discovering the dark secret hidden in the mist...or the love that, like a rainbow, awaits.

After her shop in Italy is destroyed by a stranger and she becomes the target of a blackmailer who turns up dead, Lavinia Lake joins forces with Tobias March, a private investigator hired by a secret employer, to uncover the truth, save her reputation, and find the sole surviving member of a dangerous criminal gang.

British actress Lucy Waring believes there is no finer place to be "at liberty" than the sun-drenched isle of Corfu, the alleged locale for Shakespeare's The Tempest. Even the suspicious actions of the handsome, arrogant son of a famous actor cannot dampen her enthusiasm for this wonderland in the Ionian Sea. Then a human corpse is carried ashore on the incoming tide ...

Carly Linton is hell-bent on starting over. After a bruising divorce, she moves back to her tiny hometown of Benton, Georgia, to start up a bed-and-breakfast in the old house she inherited from her grandmother. The whole town remembers her as the proverbial good girl, but Carly is tired of being good -- she's ready to walk on the wide side, and she knows exactly where she wants to start. Matt Converse, the town's former bad boy, is now the local sheriff and a pillar of the community. But he hasn't forgotten his wild days, or the magical night of the senior prom he shared with Carly years ago. When Carly's dog unearths a dead body on her property, Matt is forced to spend time there, and Carly decides to use her newfound wiles to seduce him.