The Sinister Touch

Amaryllis Lark is one of the best psychic detectives on St. Helen's, the Earth colony recently cut off from the mother planet, yet not so very different from home. Lucas Trent, the rugged head of Lodestar Exploration, isn't keen on the prim type - and from her crisp business suit to her cool evaluation of his request to bust a corporate thief, beautiful Amaryllis is excruciatingly proper. But when a bold hunch heats up into a twisting murder investigation, by-the-book Amaryllis must let her guard down and break some rules.

While investigating a suspicious death, private inquiry agent Ambrose Wells finds himself on the grounds of Aldwick Castle - and in the midst of utter chaos. The ramshackle castle is in flames - and a beautiful woman and four young girls are taking flight on horseback. It turns out that the strong-minded Miss Concordia Glade and her four bright students are on the run from a notorious London crime lord who'll stop at nothing to destroy them.

In financial straits and on a sure path to spinsterhood, Venetia Milton thought her stay at the remote, ramshackle Arcane House, far from society's prying eyes, would be a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to engineer her own ravishment. She was there to photograph the relics and artifacts collected by a highly secretive organization, founded two centuries earlier by an eccentric alchemist.

On the outside, Dina Demille is the epitome of normal. She runs a quaint Victorian Bed and Breakfast in a small Texas town, owns a Shih Tzu named Beast, and is a perfect neighbor, whose biggest problem should be what to serve her guests for breakfast.

Life is tough these days for Lydia Smith, licensed para-archaeologist. Seriously stressed-out from a nasty incident in an alien tomb, she is obliged to work in Shrimpton's House of Ancient Horrors, a very low-budget museum. She has a plan to get her career back on track, but it isn't going well. Stuff keeps happening.

Lord Alaric Wilde, son of the Duke of Lindow, is the most celebrated man in England, revered for his dangerous adventures and rakish good looks. Arriving home from years abroad, he has no idea of his own celebrity until his boat is met by mobs of screaming ladies. Alaric escapes to his father's castle, but just as he grasps that he's not only famous but notorious, he encounters the very private, very witty Miss Willa Fynche.

Emma Grayson is a sharp-tongued, quick-witted woman who's employed - for the time being - as a lady's companion. Her presence is required at a tiresome country house party, where she encounters the legendary Edison Stokes! Then murder strikes, and Emma realizes the awful truth. Unless she and Edison devise a scheme to outwit the merciless killer, she could forever lose the man of her dreams - and even her very life.

Eclipse Bay has grown and flourished on the rugged Oregon coast, where the shore can be rocky and forbidding, full of sharp cliffs and hidden coves. But this small town is also filled with secrets as treacherous as the landscape - and rivalries as fierce as an ocean storm.... Their grandfathers hated each other. Their fathers hated each other.And as the next generation of Hartes and Madisons, Hannah and Rafe are expected to hate each other too. But Hannah Harte - a successful wedding consultant with a skeptical view of marriage - remembers the long-ago night on the beach....

She's known as the Wicked Widow, for rumors abound that she dispatched her husband to the next world. But Madeline Deveridge has a more vexing problem than her scandalous reputation. Her husband's ghost is haunting her! She must exorcise him, and turns to Artemis Hunt for aid. Owner of London's favorite pleasure gardens, Artemis is no stranger to the exotic and the mysterious. So he agrees to join Madeline in her unusual enterprise, never expecting to find himself in the thrall of true passion. But the ghost is a real menace - and intent on using Madeline for a deadly purpose.

The first kiss occurred in a dimly lit hallway on the upper floor of Elwin Hastings' grand house. Louisa never saw it coming....Of course, Anthony Stalbridge couldn't possibly have had romantic intentions. The kiss was an act of desperation, meant to distract the armed guard who was about to catch the pair in a place they most definitely did not belong.

Historical romance novelist Kate Inskip needs a break. Divorced, overworked, and completely stressed out, her writing buddies decide to surprise her with exactly what she needs - a vacation on a remote island that boasts a rich history and a crumbling castle built by an 18th-century pirate. But things don't go according to plan. A long flight, lost luggage, and a missed connection leave Kate wishing she'd stayed home. And a knife-wielding mugger is the last straw.

Devon Ravenel, London's most wickedly charming rake, has just inherited an earldom. But his powerful new rank in society comes with unwanted responsibilities...and more than a few surprises. His estate is saddled with debt, and the late earl's three innocent sisters are still occupying the house - along with Kathleen, Lady Trenear, a beautiful young widow whose sharp wit and determination are a match for Devon's own.

A broken promise reveals a terrifying legacy in this electrifying novel from the New York Times best-selling author of When All the Girls Have Gone. Seattle gallery owner Virginia Troy has spent years battling the demons that stem from her childhood time in a cult and the night a fire burned through the compound, killing her mother. And now one of her artists has taken her own life, but not before sending Virginia a last picture: a painting that makes Virginia doubt everything about the so-called suicide.

Lady Alice approached the fearsome Warrior who had swept into Lingwood Manor like a storm. Dark and forbidding, with hair as black as midnight and eyes of molten amber, Hugh the Relentless seemed aptly named. Yet to Alice, adept at driving off suitors and handling her insufferable relatives, Sir Hugh was not someone to dread, but the answer to her dreams. He had come for the mysterious green crystal, and would be greatly displeased to learn that it was no longer in her possession. But Alice was certain Sir Hugh could be coaxed into a deal that would benefit them both. In return for a dowry large enough to free Alice and her brother from the grasp of their conniving uncle, she would lend her powers of detection to Sir Hugh's knightly skills and together they would recover his treasured stone.With a tongue as sharp as a dagger, the flame-haired Alice filled Hugh with fury...and a growing fascination. He accepted her terms, with one alteration: Alice must agree to a temporary betrothal and spend the winter in Hugh's great stone fortress, Scarcliffe Keep.The bargain is struck and the adventure begins. But Sir Hugh's lifelong enemy is plotting against them, stirring up a whirlwind of treachery that threatens their fragile alliance.

Lissianna has been spending her centuries pining for Mr. Right, not just a quick snack, and this sexy guy she finds in her bed looks like he might be a candidate. But there's another, more pressing issue: her tendency to faint at the sight of blood . . . an especially annoying quirk for a vampire. Of course it doesn't hurt that this man has a delicious-looking neck. What kind of cold-blooded vampire woman could resist a bite of that?