On Sale Today: February 28, 2012

Some Tuesdays are packed with new releases that deserve to be added to our TBR stacks. Today is one such Tuesday. If you haven’t pre-ordered these five novels, be sure to visit your favorite brick-and-mortar or online bookstore to add them to your TBR stack.  Each of the five offers readers something special, and I recommend them all. Click on the title of the book to read my full review.

Redwood Bend, Robyn Carr

The eighteenth novel in Carr’s popular Virgin River series, Redwood Bend features Katie Malone, sister of the hero in #17 Hidden Summit, and Dylan Childress, a former teen idol who is still star material.  Neither is looking for a long-term relationship, but the heart againg proves wiser than the head. Other VR characters show up, of course, including brother Conner and Leslie, the woman in his life. This is a solid addition to one of the series responsible for the popularity of small-town contemporaries.

Rainshadow Road, Lisa Kleypas

Last year was a Kleypasless year, but 2012 will give fans two books in this author’s Friday Harbor series, which was introduced in 2010 with Christmas Eve at Friday Harbor. Rainshadow Road is on my best of 2012 list. This story introduces Lucy Marinn, a glass artist, and returns Sam Nolan, a former geek, who is passionate about his vineyard. Lucy and Sam’s story is filled with heat, heart, and humor with a bit of magic as a bonus.  I loved it, and I am counting the days until August 7 and the third Friday Harbor book, Dream Lake.

Blame It on Bath, Caroline Linden

Gerard de Lacey needs a rich wife before a family scandal makes one difficult to find. Wealthy widow Katherine Howe needs a way out of the marriage she’s being pressured to make. She proposes to him, he disposes of her boring and determined suitor, and what begins as a marriage of convenience becomes something altogether different. If you like marriage of convenience stories or plain heroines who are true treasures, you’ll love Blame It on Bath. It’s the second in Linden’s The Truth About the Duke series.

A Rogue by Any Other Name, Sarah MacLean

Lady Penelope Marbury, the woman Simon Pearson jilted to wed Juliana Fiori in Eleven Scandals To Start to Win a Duke’s Heart (2011), is the heroine of this first book Maclean’s new Rules for Scoundrels series. She is paired with Michael Lawler, Marquess of Bourne, the light-hearted companion of her youth whom betrayal and the thirst for revenge have transformed into a dark hero who has lost his humanity. Penelope is a wonderful heroine, one with the strength and tenacity to work a transformation of her own. Darker than Maclean’s other books, A Rogue by Any Other Name has the same emotional punch.

Between the Duke and the Deep Blue Sea, Sophia Nash

It’s been two years since Secrets of a Scandalous Bride, Nash’s last book, but her new series, the Royal Entourage, which is being described as The Hangover meets the Regency, is worth waiting for. Between the Duke and the Deep Blue Sea features a new duke exiled from London for excessive partying, a countess who was a commoner and the survivor of an “accident” that almost claimed her life, and disguises, villains, and derring do enough to delight the hearts of historical romance fans everywhere. The second in the series, The Art of Duke Hunting, will be released March 27. They are both winners.

What's on your to-be-bought list for this week?