A Highland warrior returns home in Never Kiss a Highlander by Michele Sinclair. After years away, Hamish MacBrieve heeds his brother’s call to return and protect the family holdings, even though painful memories reside there—the woman Hamish loved fell for his brother and married him instead. But once he returns home, another woman grabs his attention. Mairead MacMathain, whom Hamish only recalls as a little girl, has grown up and is a tempting distraction even for a man who believes himself incapable of falling in love again. Mairead knows her heart—and soon Hamish has it—but there’s danger for the clan if Hamish can’t vanquish a brutal enemy who wants Mairead for himself. Family meddling adds another layer of trouble for the pair, and there is more than one secret plan afoot. A Highland frolic starring a feisty heroine and a hero with brains and brawn, Never Kiss a Highlander is great fun.

FOUND FAMILY
A resilient pair meets with tribulations and triumph in Knight on the Texas Plains by Linda Broday. In 1880, grieving farmer Duel McClain finds himself encumbered with a baby girl and a woman in desperate need. Since he has no experience with caring for children, Duel and the mysterious Jessie Foltry make an agreement to travel back to his family together. Once they arrive in Tranquility, Texas, Jessie finds an ease she’s longed for. Although she’s ready to be a wife in name only, she marries Duel after sharing her darkest secret with him. They are working toward a productive and loving marriage when Jessie’s past catches up with them—in the guise of Duel’s own brother, a Texas Ranger. Now the new family is put to the hardest test of all, and while Jessie trusts her Western knight, she knows that fate isn’t always on the side of what’s right. Broday’s latest is a tender romance to touch the heart.

TOP PICK IN ROMANCE
Alisha Rai offers up an engrossing, hot-as-fire reunion romance in Hate to Want You, the first book in her Forbidden Hearts series. Nicholas Chandler and Livvy Kane were teenage lovers, and their relationship was strengthened by the closeness of their families, who ran a successful business together. But tragedy struck, breaking up the company, the families and, finally, the young couple. After a decade away, Livvy returns to their hometown. Her mother needs her, and Livvy needs to reconnect with her family, but she intends for her stay to be temporary. Businessman Nicholas can’t stay away from Livvy, and though he knows a future for them is impossible, he asks her for a single night—and then another. Tattoo artist Livvy knows this situation won’t end well, even though there is some relief in facing the past. But Nicholas confronts his own feelings and decides it’s time to make a change. Can that be done without alienating his family and the woman he’s never stopped loving? Old feuds, dark secrets and sizzling love scenes make Hate to Want You impossible to put down.

ALSO IN BOOKPAGE: Read our Q&A with Alisha Rai about Hate to Want You.

This article was originally published in the August 2017 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

Sinclair broadens her racy, spicy sixth 14th-century McTiernay romance (after Seducing the Highlander) by introducing a new and eminently swoonable hero, Hamish MacBrieve. Hamish's pacifistic younger brother, Robert, fell in love with Selah, the woman Hamish wanted to marry. Warrior Hamish left his castle, its lairdship, and Selah to Robert and rode off to join the McTiernays. After 12 years battling beside his adoptive brothers, Hamish's duty to Robert, who's being threatened by the scheming Ulrick, brings Hamish back to Foinaven where fate, in the form of Selah's sister Mairead, awaits him. Their torrid mating dance, which dominates most of this lush historical romance, is complicated by previous disastrous forays into courtship that have left them both wary. Hamish is torn between desire and distrust, and Mairead oscillates between being infuriated by his reserved attitude and being so captivated by his manly physique that she fears "drooling all over" the both of them. In steamy scenes, Hamish sears her senses (and the reader's) with "intimate aggression." This lengthy excursion into the Highlands contains enough plaid tossing, claymore brandishing, castle-bound conniving, and erotic adventuring to keep Sinclair's audience dreaming of kilts for weeks. (Aug.)