SARAH GORMAN

Claire Keegan continues her outstanding work with this new collection of quietly wrenching stories of despair and desire in modern-day Ireland. A writer awarded a stay to work in Heinrich Böll's old cottage has her peace interrupted by an unwelcome intruder whose ulterior motives emerge as the night progresses. A priest waits at the altar to perform a marriage—and battles his memories of a love affair that led him to question all to which he has dedicated his life. And a man seeks solace at the bottom of a bottle as he mourns both his empty life and his lost love.

After saving Robert the Bruce's life, Cameron Campbell finds himself rewarded with an enemy's castle. His first act as laird is to release the wretched prisoners in the dungeon, one of them no youth but a flame-haired beauty on the brink of death. Alas, though Cameron is known as a fearsome warrior, he suffers a secret affliction that has made him avoid the fairer sex since boyhood. Still, he vows to do his best to nurse Aislinn back to health. Although if he thought her helpless, he couldn't be more wrong.

To settle a feud, Dominique Beauchamp was resigned to wed in order to heal their injured lands. Offered in marriage by her brother to the lord of Drakewich, she came to take the d'Lucy name... but never counted on losing her heart to the brother of her betrothed - the Black Dragon. Blaec d'Lucy mistrusted her from the beginning, believing her to be part of her brother's endless perfidy, but he was powerless to resist the fiery-haired vixen that rode so proudly into their midst. Their love was sealed... once upon a kiss.

After being framed and stripped of his title, Sir Jacob Quincey vows revenge against the High Sheriff of Durham who ruined his life and stole his lover. With no family, title, or lands to his name, Jacob takes to the forest to live as an outcast. But after three long years, he's managed to assemble an army, teaching commoners how to fight. Now is the time for justice to be served, but one lady stands in his way.

Of all the dukes in England, Jered Marcus Benton, the Duke of Bradford, was the wealthiest, most handsome — and most arrogant. And of all London’s ladies, he wanted the tender obedience of only one — Caroline Richmond. She was a ravishing beauty from Boston, with a mysterious past and a fiery spirit. Drawn to the powerful duke, undeterred by his presumptuous airs, Caroline was determined to win his lasting love.

After calling Ireland home for six months, Boston expat Maura Donovan still has a lot to learn about Irish ways - and Sullivan's Pub is her classroom. Maura didn't only inherit a business, she inherited a tight-knit community. And when a tragedy strikes, it's the talk of the pub. A local farmer, out for a stroll on the beach with his young son, has mysteriously disappeared. Did he drown? Kill himself? The child can say only that he saw a boat.