Americana Dreaming
3 primary works
Romantic tales of shipwrecks, time travel, and adventure set in colonial America, land of dreams.
Book 1
'Tis better to have loved and lost . . . or is it?
To safeguard her future, orphaned Azalea's grandfather arranges her marriage—in name only, of course, as she is not yet of age—to the son of his oldest friend, Lord Glaedon. Azalea, however, falls head over heels in love with her handsome new husband with all the impetuousness and romanticism of her youth before he sails back to England mere days after the wedding. When she learns of his death at sea, she is devastated.
Six years later, Azalea honors her grandfather's dying wish by sailing for England herself to recover her inheritance. Once there, she is stunned to discover that Christian, the beloved husband she has believed dead all this time, is quite definitely alive . . . but seems to have no memory whatsoever of their marriage, or of her! Even worse, he is betrothed . . . to her cousin. Can Azalea possibly force Christian—now the illustrious Earl of Glaedon—to remember the truth? Or must she somehow win him away from her dazzlingly beautiful cousin to prevent him from committing bigamy—and breaking her heart again?
(Note: Readers who prefer their Regencies squeaky clean should be aware that this story is a bit spicier than the other books in the Hiatt Regency Classics collection.)
Book 2
Half a century before Titanic, another famous shipwreck captured the hearts and imagination of the world. In 1857, laden with gold and adventurers fresh from the California Gold Rush, the luxury sidewheel steamer SS Central America went down in a hurricane off the Carolina coast. Many were saved, many were lost, and lives were changed forever. Relive the experiences of her passengers, as told through the eyes of a fictitious couple who find love and danger on the high seas aboard this first “Ship of Dreams.”
On her own in wild, wicked, post-Gold Rush San Francisco, Della Gilliland has become a bit of a con artist, though a harmless one. Falsely accused of murder by a rival snake-oil salesman, she is forced to flee the lawless city’s vigilantes aboard an outbound steamer. Surely her quick wits—and tongue—can convince someone to help her until her pursuers are far behind.
Stuffy New York businessman Kent Bradford is shocked when a lovely redhead he’s never met suddenly introduces herself as his wife to an important business contact. Fearing a scene, he plays along . . . for the moment. But moments turn into weeks and growing attraction becomes something more. Then, only days out from New York, their ship encounters a hurricane that threatens not only their budding love, but their very lives.
Book 3
A switch in time!
Kathryn Monroe, busy activist and socialite, humors her mother by agreeing to attend her costume ball at the ancestral mansion in South Carolina. What she doesn't admit, even to herself, is that she actually looks forward to a break from the frenetic pace of her increasingly shallow lifestyle. She gets much more of a break than she anticipated when she passes the grandfather clock on the landing, on her way downstairs to the party, only to be transported to 1825, where she is mistaken for the girl who would become her great-great-great-great-great grandmother! Even more shocking, she finds herself falling for a man her counterpart despised.
Catherine Prescott feels increasingly trapped as her parents try to push her into an unwanted marriage and pile restriction after restriction upon her activities in their efforts to turn her into a proper young lady. But on her way downstairs to an important social function, she passes the grandfather clock on the landing and discovers herself in the twenty-first century, where it appears everything she ever dreamed of--and more--has come true. To make this amazing new world even sweeter, she seems to have found her soulmate in a man her identical descendant never cared for.
But will capricious Fate allow each to find happiness in another time?