Love Through the Ages Series

The Virgin Conquest; A Contemporary Romance Novella Vol. 1 of Love Through the Ages Harvey Holloway and Wanda McFalls were among life's social misfits. Both were high school seniors nearing their 19th birthday. Neither had ever had a date. Both were virgins. For years, Wanda fantasized about being intimate with a boy. Harvey had similar fantasies about girls. Wanda finally got a chance to make her fantasy a reality when Harvey mustered his courage and asked her to be his date at their senior graduation dance and party. Wanda, to prove to herself she was a virgin heroine, gathered her courage and said yes. Because neither Harvey nor Wanda could dance, and really had no interest in it anyway, they made an obligatory appearance at the dance, then headed straight for the party. More precisely, they headed for the back seat of Harvey's car, where, despite their fear of the unknown, things were heating up nicely until … Shots were fired and the police swarmed the party venue, a wooded area just outside of town, and Harvey and Wanda's dreams were abruptly shattered. It was only the first of a series of obstacles Harvey and Wanda ran into, but a funny thing happened on the way to their post-high-school, post-virginity world. They started to fall in love. Days after the shooting, the determined pair lost their virginity in a grassy clearing on the banks of the Missouri River. The brief hilarity that ensued – "jumping for joy" – ended badly when Harvey broke his ankle. The broken ankle was bad enough in itself, but over the weeks and months it led to tragic consequences for the couple, and eventually they split up. But Harvey lost a lot more than the young woman he once loved. He was no longer the young man he used to be. Could the couple repair the damage that had been done? Could Wanda once again muster her courage, as well as her strength and perseverance, in an effort to restore what once held such promise? The Virgin Conquest is Vol. 1 of Love Through the Ages, a five-book bundle of contemporary romance fiction love novellas. Love Through the Ages is not an ordinary series. Each book is a stand-alone. The setting for each book is the same, the fictitious city of Neehawk, Nebraska. But the characters in each book are different, and they are older in each succeeding book – thus "love through the ages." The characters in The Virgin Conquest are 18-20 years old. The characters in Vol. 5 of the bundle are in their 70s. But love is the same throughout.

Love Without Ceasing; A Contemporary Romance Novella Vol. 2 of Love Through the Ages Samantha Tate could smell him before she saw him. She scrunched up her nose, and when she heard a man's voice call her name, she turned around, and there they stood, facing each other almost within touching distance, she in black pants topped by a black vest over a unisex white shirt with half-inch pleats, her shirt with a black satin band around the collar and black stud buttons, her makeup, her nails, her long dark hair and her perfume perfect, everything about her immaculate, as if she had been chosen to work a state dinner at the White House, he with long dark hair, a bushy beard and dirty fingernails, his clothes and his bulky brown backpack covered with the road dust of a thousand miles, he with a body odor powerful enough to gag a gorilla. Thus did Samantha – "Sam" – a single mother and a waitress in a posh, upscale restaurant in Neehawk, Nebraska, meet Austin, a mysterious character from who knows where, who found her missing wallet in a dumpster and returned it to her with all of its contents intact. Sam was so grateful she ignored his B.O. and offered to make him a latte. Before she could do that, however, the restaurant manager kicked "the bum" out. Undeterred, Sam went out on the street and pleaded with Austin to wait. Minutes later she brought a latte out to him, and their relationship began to build from that point on. Enter Veronica Voss, owner of the restaurant. Veronica was tall, beautiful, willowy and, according to the Neehawk grapevine, willing. So willing, in fact, the word was her rich cattle rancher husband Vern bought the restaurant for her for the sole purpose of keeping her busy and out of other men's bedrooms. If that was his purpose, it was a strategy that had scant success. When Veronica saw what a hunk Austin was after Veronica cleaned him up – the beard was gone, the hair was cut and the clothes were clean – she made designs to have Austin for her own. Meanwhile, Sam was trying to figure out who Austin was. She knew little about him, only that she had fallen in love with him. Then, in a long evening heart-to-heart, Austin told Sam of an episode in his life that left her stricken, scarcely able to breathe. Austin and Sam were an unlikely couple who had an inauspicious beginning; Sam fell in love with him in spite of it; Austin wanted to fall in love with her. Before they could live happily ever after, however, they had to answer a question: Is there love after death? Love Without Ceasing is Vol. 1 of Love Through the Ages, a five-book bundle of contemporary romance fiction love novellas. Love Through the Ages is not an ordinary series. Each book is a stand-alone. The setting for each book is the same, the fictitious city of Neehawk, Nebraska. But the characters in each book are different, and they are older in each succeeding book – thus "love through the ages." The characters in The Virgin Conquest, Vol. 1 of Love Through the Ages, are 18-20 years old. The characters in Love Without Ceasing are 26 to 29 years old. The characters in Vol. 5 of the bundle are in their 70s. But love is the same throughout.

"Sometimes the universe is chaos, and sometimes it's kind.  If we are meant to be together, we shall be."   It's 1897, and fresh from Oxford University, William Owens returns to Maryland to find his mother has planned his entire future.  His law practice, his home, and his wife.     Unable to stand up to her, William resigns himself to living the life she's created.   Then one day the blind writer, Theodore Renard, stumbles into his life and changes everything.  William must find the courage within himself to stand up to his mother and take his destiny into his own hands.  But none of that comes without a price.     Facing heartache and tragedy, William must learn to navigate through the chaos of time and the tide.

"Sometimes the war created monsters out of men, and sometimes men from the monsters. Sometimes that line between the two was blurry and difficult to tell which was which, but no matter how it turned out, there was always hope." August Owens was born as the world recovered from the First World War. Labeled strange and inclined to the immoral, he suffers at the hands of vicious prejudice against the men who raised his father. By four he learned the meaning of the word abomination, and by ten he knew because of his differences, he would never have unconditional love from his mother. When things come crumbling down, August is whisked across the United States by his father, Noah, to live with his grandfathers where he can truly feel at home. But that peace and love comes with a price. Heavy loss and injury plagues his young teenage life, and he's forced to navigate the world with a violent scar across his face, and never-ending looks of pity. Then comes the Second World War, and everything changes. Half-blind and left for dead on the shores of Omaha Beach, August is taken in by Frenchman with a past full of shadows. As he's nursed back to health, August learns to accept that he deserves to be seen for who he is, and not for the scars he bears.

Love One, Then Another; A Contemporary Romance Novella Book 3 of a 5-Book Series Evan Hatch and Emily Moore lived next door to each other and grew up together in the mid-sized city of Neehawk, Nebraska. They became best friends almost as soon as they learned to talk, and you seldom saw one without seeing the other. They started dating officially when they were freshmen in high school. They were smart, beautiful, personable and deeply in love. Everyone, including Evan and Emily, assumed they would eventually get married and live happily ever after. All was not well in the Moore household, however, a dark secret that Emily kept hidden from everyone, including Evan. Emily's father was a disturbed, angry man who regularly beat his wife and who sexually abused Emily for years, starting when she was 5 years old. Shortly after Evan and Emily graduated from high school, Emily's father got up in the middle of the night, took a gun and blew his wife's brains out as she slept. He was found guilty of murder and sentenced to 40 years in prison. The day after her father's guilty verdict came down, Emily disappeared, leaving only a cryptic note for Evan, telling him she was fine and not to worry about her. The years went by, and Evan wound up in Seattle, where he became a free-lance writer and fell in love with Jane Martin, an editor who helped him with his writing. Meanwhile, although he got used to life without Emily, he never quite got over her. Then, 17 years after Emily's disappearance, Evan's mother died. He flew to Nebraska for the funeral, and on the flight back to Seattle an incredible piece of serendipity gave him a clue to Emily's whereabouts. The search for her began and was focused on the arid reaches of southeast Oregon – "The Big Empty" – and even Jane pitched in to help. Would they find Emily? Why did she leave Evan with scarcely a word? Would he fall in love with her all over again? Or would he remain true to Jane? The answers lay hidden in the Oregon desert.

Beholden Vol. 4 of Love Through the Ages, a 5-Book Bundle of Contemporary Romance Novellas By R. J. Will One week after Clare graduated as the valedictorian of her high school senior class, her parents were killed in a horrific car crash. The tragedy set Clare adrift, and she ended up canceling her plans to go to college. Instead, she stayed home and married Henry, her high school sweetheart. The early years of Henry and Clare's marriage, when their two children were growing up, were happy years. Clare suffered from empty-nest syndrome after the kids were grown and gone, but in time she got over it. Or thought she did. Now in her mid-50s, she had developed a growing dissatisfaction with being what she called a "stay-at-home wife." She wanted to be more than that. She wanted to "do something of worth" before she died. The empty-nest syndrome had not disappeared; it had merely morphed into a burning desire to work outside of her home. Henry, who described himself as "old school," was fiercely against the idea, and their marriage started to unravel. Enter Steve, a classmate of Henry and Clare's who had been a big-city banker before he returned to his hometown to manage the local bank. Steve had a shock of silver hair and a silver tongue to match. He reconnected with Clare and offered her what she considered a dream job – running the food bank he wanted to set up. But there was a catch. Steve made it clear he expected certain favors from Clare in return for giving her the job. Somehow, somebody would have to give in.