Nancy Bartko

Focused on a career in medicine and not on romance, Willa Duvall is thrown slightly off course during the summer of 1865 when she discovers a never-opened love letter in a crack of her old writing desk. Compelled to find the passionate soul who penned it and the person who never received it, she takes a job as a nurse at the seaside Crestwicke Manor. Everyone at Crestwicke has feelings—mostly negative—about the man who wrote the letter, but he seems to have disappeared. With plenty of clues but few answers, Willa's search becomes even more complicated when she misplaces the letter.

Lady Madeline Matthews would rather shame herself than sacrifice her freedom. To avoid marrying an aging, lecherous lord, she seeks out the company of Logan Scott, for a torrid affair with the notorious womanizer would surely condemn her in the eyes of good society. In truth, Logan is an intensely private man tormented by past betrayals.

Longing to find true love, Kate Millington arrives in British Columbia on a bride ship. With countless men waiting to snag a bride, Kate has no trouble getting engaged. It's staying engaged that's the problem. After traveling to the remote mining town of Williamsville to marry her newest fiance, she finds herself single again. As the prosperous owner of a gold mine, Zeke Hart has everything he's ever wanted except for a wife. At Kate's arrival, he takes it upon himself to protect his childhood friend from the men clamoring to court her.

After three long years of scrimping and saving to buy tickets for their passage to America, Roald and Ingeborg Bjorklund, along with their son, Thorliff, finally arrive at the docks of New York City. It was the promise of free land that fed their dream and lured them from their beloved home high above the fjords of Norway in 1880. As they join the throngs of countless immigrants passing through Castle Garden, the Bjorklunds soon discover that nothing is as they had envisioned it.

Taryn McKenna believes she's easy to forget. Abandoned by her parents and left behind when her high school sweetheart joined the army, she vows to never love again and throws herself into her love for the outdoors and the pursuit of a college degree - something no one else in her family has ever accomplished. Her goal, as a young teacher in the hills of North Carolina, is to leave a legacy in the lives of the middle schoolers she teaches.