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April # H 1

After a move several years back, I lost a romance novella (candle light or harlequin type) I would so love to find again. A young woman marries a duke. Jealous relatives of him try to sabotage the marriage. First they find his bastard children in the hopes this would shock the woman into leaving her husband but she is very kind and welcomes them in their home. When the woman is pregnant, she wants to write her husband a love letter but she can’t read and can’t write. She takes lessons with two teachers. The jealous relatives find out and bribe the teachers into drugging the young woman and undressing her, in which state her husband finds her.

Positive that his wife cheated on him, he demands a divorce. On the way to court people throw stones at the woman in disgust. The love letter turns up and is shown to the husband and he stops the divorce. The woman nearly dies in childbirth because she is convinced her husband will take her child away and leave her so she fights the contractions.

In the end they live happily ever after of course

SOLVED! A reader says this is TO CATCH A COUNTESS by Patricia Grasso, and it's the same book as H #15 this month.. The second paragraph sounds like POTENT PLEASURES by Eloisa James.

April # H 2

A marquise with a title but no money marries a young mousy woman for her fortune. She’s a great painter and there’s a childhood friend who’s in love with her. The marquise sees through her mousy appearance and falls in love with her.

SOLVED! A reader thinks this is THE HEIRESS by Jude Deveraux. Another reader says it could be GOLDEN GIRL by Joan Wolf.

April # H 3
The hero is the usual aristocratic rake who comes to the country to take a few days off from his usual pursuits. He goes riding and he spots two young men (what he perceives to be young me) duelling. He tried to stop them but he's late and the young man does in front of him. This is actually the heroine pretending to die and he's fascinated with her from this moment onwards and wants to marry her however she is not interested in matrimony.He is forcibly marries her and but she's afraid of sex because of she's a victim of childhood rape. He's unaware of this and tries to abduct her and have sex with her. It's all very strange. All her childhood memories come back and she's terrified. I don't really remember everything but somehow they end up together.

SOLVED! This sounds like THE REBEL BRIDE by Catherine Coulter. Another reader suggests THE GIFT by Julie Garwood.

April # H 4
I am having a difficult time trying to locate a book I read in the late 1970's or early 1980's. I remember very little about it other than one bit:

A young, dark-haired girl admires a handsome gentleman who spurns her. She is completely upset at his set down and takes on an illness that leaves her with a small streak of white along her brow area of hair. A short time later, she sees the gentleman in town, but he no longer recognizes her due to her change of looks from the illness. She has vowed revenge and after the man woos her, she agrees to marriage, planning to reveal AFTER the wedding who she is and to, in turn, snub him!

I thought it might be an ALICE CHETWYND LEY or BARBARA CARTLAND story as those were the ones I concentrated on back in 1976-1982 or so, yet I am still unable to locate the specific book.

April # H 5
I 'm looking for a book, it's historical and I 'm 90% certain it's set in Scotland. The hero and heroine of course have oodles of problems, he's not taking to the marriage well. She's ordering the cook to do something, but the cook doesn't and spits in the food, I think she tries to tell the hero and he shushes her or ignores her, so she lets everyone eat the food, then afterward tells them what happened, the hero is disgusted, and does something to cook, let's him go or something similar. That's really all I remember, I do believe the cook ends up being one of the villians in the book though.

SOLVED! Try THE MARRIAGE CONTRACT by Cathy Maxwell.

April # H 6
I 'm trying to find a historical romance by plot. The setting is either Scotland or Ireland. An Englishman inherits an old property with a ghost. She haunts the house and the tree she's buried under. He has to solve some sort of mystery or problem. At the end of the novel the tree gets struck by lightning and reveals the girl alive in the tree roots. Please help!

SOLVED! Try THE PHANTOM BRIDE by Lisa Cach.

April # H 7
About 5 years ago, I read a book and now I am having trouble finding the book. I do not remember the writers name nor the book title. The only thing I can remember from the book is in the prologue of the book, there is a father, mother and child. the mother dies when the daughter was around the age of 7 or 8 (I think). the father remarries and has more kids with his now wife. in chapter one the daughter(heroine on the book) is taking care of her step brothers and sisters. I don't remember if it was by the kings order or not, but there is a lord that is come to marry. he offers his hand in marriage the heroine of the story. but the stepmother says no because she is an important to the family and then offers her oldest child to him.

SOLVED! Try CHARMING THE PRINCE by Teresa Medeiros.

April # H 8

I first read this book when I was a Senior in high school so around 2005 to 2006 (i think). All I remember from the book is in the prologue the lord's son and a girl from a convent (she is there for school) are sitting together talking. he tells her that he has to go away but he will be back for her. in chapter one he comes back. she thinks he does not remember her, because she remembers him and the promise he gave her. In the end they get married.

April # H 9
Mail-order bride themed historical romance. Mother has died and the girl is left living with her stepfather. He was abusive with the mother before she died, but now no one is there to step in when he starts to hit his stepdaughter. A friend of hers has giving her a clipping from a catalog asking about mail-order brides. I believe the friend was interested in answering an ad herself but wanted to help her get away from her stepfather. When she is about ready to leave, he gets drunk and starts looking for her but she hides in the cellar with her bag. She runs when he falls and passes out. I believe she may have even seen some blood .

April # H 10
I don't know when this book was released. But I borrowed it from eNYPL just a few months back. This book has sort of Cinderella plot in the beginning because heroine is a slave with an evil aunt and cousins. The story started with the hero digging a grave, for the heroine's father. The heroine who was underage at that time, was put in guardianship of her aunt but kept as slave for her dowry. The heroine stole a paste jewel from her aunt's shoe. This later on became the reason why heroine was thrown in jail. Several years later, hero comes back to check on her and can't find her because heroine's aunt changed her name. Hero finds out, and ends up marrying her to take her out of situation. Hero has a twin brother who is in a wheelchair, after a childhood riding accident which hero blames himself for. Due to this disability, hero doesn't want to have a child because he feels his twin should inherit his title. This brother lives with them. Hero also has dog/s (I believe there are two, maybe corgis) who became heroine's companions during her morning strolls. She drew a sketch of the dogs as a birthday gift to her husband (or maybe the brother).

SOLVED! This might be two books mixed together. The evil aunt/cousins sounds like AN OFFER FROM A GENTLEMAN by Julia Quinn. Twin brother with bad limp and dogs sounds like HIS LADY MISTRESS by Elizabeth Rolls.

OR, try BEFORE THE SCANDAL by Suzanne Enoch, which could be it.

April # H 11
I read this book in 2010/2011. The heroine lived in an orphanage and was adopted by a lady at a very young age(8-10 years). The lady had a daughter of the same age who had just died. The heroine and the daughter had very similar features and that was the reason she was adopted by the lady. The only distinct physical difference was the colour of their eyes. The lady's daughter had been betrothed to the hero who was from a rich and powerful family and that family used to support the lady and her daughter financially. The lady did not want that family to know about her daughter's death and hence the adoption. The heroine and the lady had a very good relationship and were like mother and daughter. The heroine grows up and falls in love with some guy but on the "mother's" deathbed, she promises to marry the hero so that his family does not know of her mother's deception.They have a rocky marriage from the start and it gets worse when the hero finds out that the heroine had been dating someone before their marriage. Later in the book, the hero's sister and nephew come in.The hero realizes that he has been deceived when he remembers that the daughter he had been betrothed to had eyes of a different colour which he had noticed on the one occasion he had met the real daughter.

April # H 12
I read this book in the 80s or 90s. This was a medieval romance book. the heroine had a white streak in her hair and they said she was cursed because all her previous husbands would die on the wedding night or soon after being married to her. She could also shoot a bow and arrow.

SOLVED! This might be THE PENWYTH CURSE by Catherine Coulter. A reader says everything rings true except the white streak.

April # H 13
I read this book years ago. I would say it is a historical Romance, probably based in the 1800's or something.

I remember it started with this woman waiting for a carriage to pick her up to take her to her intended...Out through the window she could see a strange dressed man, dressed outrageously. He always wore funny colored 'suits' and hats, looking ridiculous. He saw her looking at him and took of his hat and bowed towards her. She giggled and curtsied down at him.

(By the way, this man, though he acts a fool, is an undercover "spy". He has to play the fool to find what he's looking for.)

This woman is taken to her intended and her intended is a "clean freak". I remember during the story he wore gloves in his own home. On his wedding night he came to her wearing white(cotton) gloves. He was a germ phobe, I guess.

Her and the "fool" ended up having an affair and all. Her husband finds out about it and it turns out her husband is the man the Spy is looking for--he is committing treason to take down the Crown.

Near the end of the book, I remember him taking his wife, blind folding her and tying her up behind a half built wall in the Home that no one knew was not finished. Her Lover(Spy) happened to find her--somehow--intuition after killing her Husband.

I think it was set in England. I don't THINK there was a war going on. Something else I remembered, was that the man she married had murdered his previous wife because she cheated on him. Near the middle or so of the story the husband finds out his new wife was 'cheating' too, he gave the woman something to rid her of a baby IF she was pregnant, and she told him that if she was, it was HIS, not the other mans because he was too careful...(The husband is a bastard who gets what he deserves in the end.)

April # H 14
Unfortunatley I don't remeber much about this book-- it is a regency and all I keep thinking about is the ending.
The female lead character is tricked into going to some wooded are or park the person who did this is a stepsister
or cousin I can't remeber correctly. This stepsister/cousin is set to kill her and blame it on her other true sister(she does end up killing her own sister) because she wants to mary the female lead characters husband. She thinks when the husband finds his dead wife she will be able to console him and he then will want to marry her. She is the type that is always soft spoken and nobody would have thought that this is something she would be able to do. The female lead ends up in the lake she can't swim her husband and his brother do end up in the same place and he saves his wife. I think that they got married because they had to, it was not a love much. The other thing I remeber is that there is another man that comes from the country and I think he wants the lead female character and tries to stop her from getting together with the lead male character. He ends up seducing one of the sisters the ou tgoing one so that she may help him with his agenda.

April # H 15
It's a historical romance series about sisters. The book I'm looking for the sister marries a noble man, but he doesn't know that she can't read. She takes private reading lessons and hopes to surprise him by writing him a letter, but someone is trying to sabotage their relationship and drugs her so when he comes to find her she is passed out on the bed and he thinks she has been cheating on him. He takes her to court for a divorce and while she is on the stand she ends up reading him the letter.

SOLVED! A reader says this is TO CATCH A COUNTESS by Patricia Grasso, and it's the same book as H #1 this month..

Readers, if you have any answers for these questions, please email TRR, and be sure to include the month and the question number so we can list them accurately! As always, thanks for your help!