Laura Frantz

On a bitter December day in 1785, Silas Ballantyne arrives at the door of master blacksmith Liege Lee in York, Pennsylvania. Just months from becoming a master blacksmith himself, Silas is determined to finish his apprenticeship and move west. But Liege soon discovers that Silas is a prodigious worker and craftsman and endeavors to keep him in York. Silas becomes interested in both of Liege's daughters, the gentle and faith-filled Eden and the clever...

Sheltered since birth at her Kentucky home, Rowena Ballantyne has heard only whispered rumors of her grandfather Silas's vast fortune and grand manor in Pennsylvania. When her father receives a rare letter summoning him to New Hope, Rowena makes the journey with him and quickly finds herself in a whole new world--filled with family members she's never met, dances she's never learned, and a new side to the father she thought she knew. As she struggles...

After fleeing Virginia, Temperance Tucker and her family established an inn along the Shawnee River. It's a welcome way station for settlers and frontiersmen traveling through the wild Cumberland region of Kentucke--men like Sion Morgan, a Virginia surveyor who arrives at the inn with his crew looking for an experienced guide. When his guide appears, Sion balks. He certainly didn't expect a woman. But it is not long before he must admit that Tempe's...

Though Magnus MacLeish and Lark MacDougall grew up on the same castle grounds, Magnus is now laird of the great house and the Isle of Kerrera. Lark is but the keeper of his bees and the woman he is hoping will provide a tincture that might help his ailing wife conceive and bear him an heir. But when his wife dies suddenly, Magnus and Lark find themselves caught up in a whirlwind of accusations, expelled from their beloved island, and sold as indentured...

Lovely but tough as nails, Lael Click is the daughter of a celebrated frontiersman. Haunted by her father's former captivity with the Shawnee Indians, as well as the secret sins of her family's past, Lael comes of age in the fragile Kentucky settlement her father founded. Though she faces the loss of a childhood love, a dangerous family feud, and the affection of a Shawnee warrior, Lael draws strength from the rugged land she calls home, and from...

It is 1755, and the threat of war with France looms over colonial York, Virginia. Chocolatier Esmée Shaw is fighting her own battle of the heart. Having reached her twenty-eighth birthday, she is reconciled to life alone after a decade-old failed love affair from, which she's never quite recovered. But, she longs to find something, worthwhile to do with her life. Captain Henri Lennox has returned to port after a lengthy absence, intent on completing...

Selah Hopewell seems to be the only woman in the Virginia colony who has no wish to wed. True, there are too many men and far too few women in James Towne. But Selah already has her hands full assisting her father in the family's shop. And now she is in charge of an incoming ship of tobacco brides who must be looked after as they sort through their many suitors. Xander Renick is perhaps the most eligible tobacco lord in the settlement. His lands...

Bien à l'abri, depuis sa naissance, dans sa maison du Kentucky, Rowena «Wren» Ballantyne n'a entendu que de vagues rumeurs chuchotées sur l'immense fortune et le majestueux manoir de son grand-père en Pennsylvanie. Quand son père reçoit une lettre le convoquant à New Hope, Wren fait le voyage avec lui et se retrouve bientt dans un monde totalement inconnu: des membres de sa famille qu'elle n'a jamais vus, des danses qu'elle n'a jamais apprises...

En 1784, par un jour de décembre glacial, Silas Ballantyne se présente à la porte du forgeron de Liege Lee dans le comté de York en Pennsylvanie. Silas est résolu à terminer son apprentissage très vite pour partir vers l'Ouest. Mais comme il se révèle un ouvrier rapide en même temps qu'un artisan habile, Liege tente par tous les moyens de la garder à Lancaster, en faisant appel à une vieille tradition: l'apprenti doit épouser une des...