Darin Kadir had to protect American Rylie Hunt at all costs. Seeking answers, she'd traveled halfway around the world to find him. Now she is a target of his family's arch nemesis and must trust Darin in order to survive. Caught up in a covert war between two families, Rylie wants only to find her father's killers and bring them to justice. She doesn't want to fall in love. But the desire burning in Darin's eyes is unlike anything she's ever known. Will she surrender her heart—or become a casualty of a war across the ages?

Proud, imperious and leery of pretenders to the throne, Sheik Karim Abdullah saw Julia Gardner as just another gold digger. The American claimed to be carrying his dead twin's child, so the Dark Sheik decreed she remain his palace "guest" until paternity was established. But the rebellious Julia proved as dangerous to Karim as the assassins stalking him. Her fi erce need to safeguard her baby turned the sheik into a protective lover. And the wounded warrior vowed to savor the moment...then walk away before he jeopardized her safety....

A sexy sheik finds forbidden love in C.J. Miller's tale of international intrigue After an uncharacteristic night of passion, event coordinator Sarah Parker learns her mystery lover is Sheik Saafir, her new client—and the target of an assassination plot. But the darkly handsome royal has an appeal the sensible Sarah can't ignore, even when she's caught in the cross fire. Honor bound, Saafir has agreed to an arranged marriage to unite the feuding factions in his country…and then he kisses the surprising American. Now, dodging bullets is nowhere near as dangerous as the attraction that puts his sense of duty at war with his heart. But can he walk away from Sarah even to save his life…and hers?

"Waking up from a coma in a remote Wyoming cabin, Sheik Amir Khalid thought he was dreaming when he laid eyes on the woman he'd spent one steamy weekend with. Dr. Isabelle Andrews was every bit as gorgeous as he remembered--and nine months pregnant. But when shots rang out and it was clear their hideaway had been discovered, Amir's questions had to wait. Desperate to keep Isabelle and his unborn baby safe, Amir vowed to personally guard them 24/7. And as the independent beauty fought him at every turn, he knew it wasn't just royal protocol that made him want to keep her by his side. He'd give up everything that was expected of him if it meant protecting the family he'd only just met. Including his life"--Publisher.

Sheik Shakir Kadir, scarred by warfare and lost love, is ready for the ultimate confrontation. But his deadly mission to bring down his family's archenemy is compromised by the discovery that the princess who destroyed his heart is now a prisoner. Held captive in a war-ravaged country, Nikki Olivier has her own life-or-death task to complete: bring her kidnapped son home alive. Her only hope is Shakir, the man she's never stopped wanting. Royal obligation had forced her to hurt Shakir and keep the volatile secret that her missing child is also his. Once the truth is revealed, will they create their own family legacy—or will it be their destruction?

The Sheik—E. M. Hull’s best-selling novel that became a wildly popular film starring Rudolph Valentino—kindled “sheik fever” across the Western world in the 1920s. A craze for all things romantically “Oriental” swept through fashion, film, and literature, spawning imitations and parodies without number. While that fervor has largely subsided, tales of passion between Western women and Arab men continue to enthrall readers of today’s mass-market romance novels. In this groundbreaking cultural history, Hsu-Ming Teo traces the literary lineage of these desert romances and historical bodice rippers from the twelfth to the twenty-first century and explores the gendered cultural and political purposes that they have served at various historical moments. Drawing on “high” literature, erotica, and popular romance fiction and films, Teo examines the changing meanings of Orientalist tropes such as crusades and conversion, abduction by Barbary pirates, sexual slavery, the fear of renegades, the Oriental despot and his harem, the figure of the powerful Western concubine, and fantasies of escape from the harem. She analyzes the impact of imperialism, decolonization, sexual liberation, feminism, and American involvement in the Middle East on women’s Orientalist fiction. Teo suggests that the rise of female-authored romance novels dramatically transformed the nature of Orientalism because it feminized the discourse; made white women central as producers, consumers, and imagined actors; and revised, reversed, or collapsed the binaries inherent in traditional analyses of Orientalism.

Since the 1970s, romance novels have surpassed all other genres in terms of popularity in the United States, accounting for half of all mass market paperbacks sold and driving the digital publishing revolution. Romance Fiction and American Culture brings together scholars from the humanities, social sciences, and publishing to explore American romance fiction from the late eighteenth to the early twenty-first century. Essays on interracial, inspirational, and LGBTQ romance attend to the diversity of the genre, while new areas of inquiry are suggested in contextual and interdisciplinary examinations of romance authorship, readership, and publishing history, of pleasure and respectability in African American romance fiction, and of the dynamic tension between the genre and second wave feminism. As it situates romance fiction among other instances of American love culture, from Civil War diaries to Bob Dylan’s Blood on the Tracks, Romance Fiction and American Culture confirms the complexity and enduring importance of this most contested of genres.

Her protector proves he's much more than a cowboy spy in Dana Marton's first novel of her HQ: Texas series. Moses Mann didn't need to be in an interrogation room to be intimidating. Molly Rogers found that out the hard way. Her brother had been accused of smuggling and murder, and now Moses considered her a suspect, as well. But what type of dirty little secrets did he expect to find in a single mother's life? Moses was no ordinary agent poking around Texas border country. And he kept finding new reasons to bring his investigation to Molly's farm. Yet trusting him—especially around her son—came so easily. She finally had someone who would speak up for her. Even if he was an undercover agent with secrets buried deep in his soul….

My spy: "A mission gone wrong forced injured soldier Jamie Cassidy to start anew ... and run right into the path of deputy sheriff Bree Tridle. The sassy, sexy Texan was as determined to uncover a local money-laundering scheme as Jamie was to keep her safe from the stalker hot on her trail. But Jamie, now an undercover operative, was also on a covert mission of his own: track smugglers threatening to bring terrorists into the U.S. Could Jamie's and Bree's cases be related? When a deadly attack on Bree's home escalates the danger and their attraction, Jamie and Bree must face their enemies together to save not only their country, but their one chance at love"--Publisher.

Rancher Travis Chance has a soft spot for lost souls. Stranded and broke in Chance, Texas, Summer Wheeler ignites in him a fierce desire to protect her. Clearly the fragile beauty is hiding something. But despite his disastrous romantic history, Travis knows in his gut he can trust her. Summer comes to Chance looking for one of the men who devastated her life. Though she hates lying to him, Travis's job offer provides a means to her end. But she never counted on falling for the sexy rancher and his troubled little girl. Then "accidents" start happening at the family homestead. Has Summer brought danger to the two people who are teaching her to love again?