An Impossible Attraction. Brenda Joyce
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Praise for
Brenda Joyce
“Joyce’s latest is a piece of perfection as she
meticulously crafts a tender and emotionally
powerful love story. Passion and pain erupt from the
pages and flow straight into your heart. You won’t
forget this beautifully rendered love story of lost
souls and redemption”
—RT BOOKreviews on The Perfect Bride
“Joyce’s characters carry considerable emotional
weight, which keeps this hefty entry absorbing, and her
fast-paced story keeps the pages turning.”
—Publishers Weekly on The Stolen Bride
“An emotionally sweeping tale of heartache,
redemption and rebirth, The Stolen Bride lives up to this reader’s high expectations for a Perfect 10 read.”
—Romance Reviews Today
“The latest from Joyce offers readers a passionate,
swashbuckling voyage in her newest addition to the de
Warenne dynasty series. Joyce brings her keen sense
of humour and storytelling prowess to bear on
her witty, fully formed characters.”
—Publishers Weekly on A Lady at Last
“The latest in the de Warenne series is a warm,
wonderfully sensual feast about the joys and pains of
falling in love. Joyce breathes life into extraordinary
characters – from her sprightly Cinderella heroine and
roguish hero to everyone in between – then sets them in
the glittering Regency, where anything can happen.”
—RT BOOKreviews on A Lady at Last
The Masquerade “dances on slippered feet, belying its heft with spellbinding dips, spins and twists.
Jane Austen aficionados will delve happily into heroine
Elizabeth “Lizzie” Fitzgerald’s family…Joyce’s tale
of the dangers and delights of passion fulfilled will
enchant those who like their reads long and rich.”
—Publishers Weekly
“Joyce brilliantly delivers an intensely emotional and
engrossing romance where love overcomes deceit,
scandal and pride…An intelligent love story with
smart, appealing and strong characters. Readers will savour this latest from a grand mistress of the genre.”
—RT BOOKreviews on The Masquerade
An Impossible
Attraction
By
Brenda Joyce
Brenda Joyce is the bestselling author of more than thirty novels and novellas. She wrote her first novella when she was sixteen years old and her first novel when she was twenty-five – and was published shortly thereafter. She has won many awards and her first novel, Innocent Fire, won the Best Western Romance Award. She has also won the highly coveted Best Historical Romance award for Splendor and the Lifetime Achievement Award from Romantic Times. She is the author of the critically acclaimed Deadly series, which is set in turn-of-the-century New York and features amateur sleuth Francesca Cahill. There are over eleven million copies of her novels in print and she is published in more than a dozen countries. A native New Yorker, she now lives in southern Arizona with her husband, son, dogs, cat and numerous Arabian and half-Arabian reining horses. For more information about Brenda and her forthcoming novels, please visit her website at www.brendajoyce.com.
Previous novels by the same author:
DEADLY ILLUSIONS
DEADLY KISSES THE MASQUERADE
A LADY AT LAST
THE STOLEN BRIDE
THE PERFECT BRIDE
A DANGEROUS LOVE
Brenda Joyce is the bestselling author of more than thirty novels and novellas. She wrote her first novella when she was sixteen years old and her first novel when she was twenty-five – and was published shortly thereafter. She has won many awards and her first novel, Innocent Fire, won the Best Western Romance Award. She has also won the highly coveted Best Historical Romance award for Splendor and the Lifetime Achievement Award from Romantic Times. She is the author of the critically acclaimed Deadly series, which is set in turn-of-the-century New York and features amateur sleuth Francesca Cahill. There are over eleven million copies of her novels in print and she is published in more than a dozen countries. A native New Yorker, she now lives in southern Arizona with her husband, son, dogs, cat and numerous Arabian and half-Arabian reining horses. For more information about Brenda and her forthcoming novels, please visit her website at www.brendajoyce.com.
Previous novels by the same author:
DEADLY ILLUSIONS
DEADLY KISSES THE MASQUERADE
A LADY AT LAST
THE STOLEN BRIDE
THE PERFECT BRIDE
A DANGEROUS LOVE
For Sue Ball, one of the most generous and caring
spirits I have ever known. My heartfelt thanks for so
many years of kindness, friendship and support to me and my family.
Prologue
THERE WAS SO MUCH LIGHT, and Alexandra hesitated, confused.
“Alex…andra?” her mother whispered from the bed.
Gold-and-burgundy wallpaper adorned the walls, and dark draperies were closed over the bedroom’s two windows. The bureau was a dark, rich mahogany, as was the bed, and the bedding was wine and gold. The room’s single armchair was a dark, intense red. Yet the light within almost blinded her. “I am here, Mother,” she whispered back.
And then, because Elizabeth Bolton was dying and would not last another night, because she had wasted away from the cancer eating at her, because she was so frail and weak now that she could barely see, much less hear, Alexandra hurried forward. She held back the tears. She hadn’t cried, not even once, not even when her father had told her that her mother had a terrible and fatal disease. It hadn’t been a shock. Elizabeth had been fading away before Alexandra and her younger sisters’ eyes for months. Being the eldest—all of seventeen—meant she had to hold the family together now in this crisis.
Alexandra rushed to her mother’s side, her heart clenching as she looked at her gaunt, unrecognizable face and frame. Elizabeth had been so beautiful, so lively, so alive. She was only thirty-eight years old now, but she looked ninety.
Alexandra sat, reaching for her thin, frail hands. “Father said you wished to see me, Mother. What can I get you? Do you want a sip of water?”
Elizabeth smiled wanly, lying prone on the large bed, dwarfed by the pillows behind her,