Showing results by author "Virginia Coffman" in All Categories

When Anne Wicklow is employed to care for a lonely girl in an castle set high on an Irish cliff, she little suspects that evil will walk beside her through the castle’s gloomy halls. To save her young charge, Anne must uncover a terrible secret—even if it means betraying the man she has come to love.

To Christie Deeth, desperate to forget a broken marriage, a humiliating lover, and the agonizing loss of her self-respect, Lucifer Cove seemed as good a place as any to start a new life. The spa was everything she had been told—beautifully verdant, sunny, nestled below a breathtaking cliff. But for reasons she couldn't explain, she sensed something wrong—a dark, otherworldly ambiance, an evil she couldn't define. And then she met Marc Meriden, the handsome, soft-voiced director of the spa. At first it bothered her when he seemed to know her secret thoughts, when he had answers before ...

What should have been a refuge soon became a nightmare... Still mourning for her young husband, widowed Anne Wicklow arrived in Venice during the carnival preceding Lent to assume the duties of housekeeper at the palace of ailing Mrs. Elvira Huddle. Under Anne's gentle ministrations Mrs. Huddle seemed to be recovering—until a sudden, unaccountable turn for the worse took the old lady's life. Convinced that her employer was murdered, Anne soon had reason to believe that she herself would be next, that danger lurked beneath the fragile facade of carnival gaiety. All the evidence pointed to ...

From the moment Nicholas Bertold first touched her, Alain Daviot knows her fate is sealed. The waves of desire she feels in his arms override her fears . . . including her haunting suspicions that Nicholas killed her brother.
 As Nicholas’s bride, Alain is swept from the English countryside to the gay salons of nineteenth-century Paris, and then to Nicholas’s home, the magnificent, imposing Chateau Bertold. There, she is powerless against her hunger for this man accused of an unspeakable crime. Does she really know the mysterious Nicholas Bertold—her lover, her husband—the man who...

Spirited young Anne Wicklow left her post as housekeeper at a fashionable girls school to look after the safety of one of her charges who was suddenly taken to gloomy Chateau Moura by her strange guardian. But once at Moura, the shadowy secrets, haunting legends and hostile inhabitants of that terror-filled mansion quickly enveloped Anne herself in a menacing situation that threatened her own life and sanity. At the center of this hidden danger stood the virile, surly master of Moura, Edmond, whose brooding good looks and irresistible fascination lured Anne ever deeper into a love that ...

In this classic “gaslight” tale of romantic suspense and adventure the setting is San Francisco, and the year is 1919—just thirteen years after the devastating earthquake and fire. The City, though, now pulsates with renewed life, as eighteen-year-old Merideth Hyde arrives after a long absence, anticipation mingled with foreboding, to dispose of valuable, inherited property and to search for her mother—who might or might not have died in the 1906 debacles. Before she can accomplish these tasks, her life is endangered by the plottings of imposters, fortune hunters, and deadly assault...

They call her "The Demon Lera," a name her beauty belies: Straight black hair, full sensuous lips, long aristocratic body. Opaque golden eyes. She is Countess Silvana Lera, mistress of an island fortress know as home to: Mrs. Stitch, the housekeeper, whose knowledge is worth more than her life. Benedetto, wily half brother to the Countess, who has two passionate obsessions. Zangari, the gypsy servant, whose eyes finally see one terror too many. Marc Antoine, son of the countess, accused madman and killer who in death wears the most unexpected mask of all. They are waiting for the honored ...

An evil presence is stalking the village of Maidenmoor. As Anne Wicklow seeks for answers, she uncovers the story of the Devil-Vicar, a man who was burned to death twenty years ago. His powers are apparently now reaching beyond the grave, as he brutally murders the villagers who were involved in the fire. But the more Anne discovers about the Devil-Vicar, the more she finds herself falling in love with him. Will her love be strong enough to overcome a ghost's hunger for vengeance?

Young, penniless Devon Howard's dreams of becoming an actress began when she joined Boston's Dantine Players at a time when the unrest against British rule seethed towards revolution. As the players toured the colonies, Devon found herself torn between Denis Varney, the company's leading man, and his half-brother Michael Dantine, and helplessly involved in their political intrigues. Enmeshed in a real-life drama of love, hate and tragic death, Devon was hurled from confusion to despair before she could find true happiness.

Children of Darkness When lovely young Livia Roy was sent by Captain Nicholas Brandon to the isolated manor of Blue Mire, she was warned that the two Brandon children might seem strange, their minds still affected by the mysterious violent death of their beautiful mother. But nothing could have prepared Livia for the hate in youthful charge’s eyes—or the growing signs they were in league with the evil that seemed to haunt this accursed mansion where so many already died. Could these angelic-looking children be spawns of Satan? And if they were, what kind of man then was their father, ...

From the author of Pacific Cavalcade comes the saga of a new generation of Lombards--a uniquely American family, born into San Francisco's landed aristocracy but soon irrevocably caught up in the troubled waters of war-torn Europe and the Pacific. From Pearl Harbor through the McCarthy era, the seemingly indomitable Lombards not only survive but prevail. There's Tony Lombard, heir to the Lombard fortune and to the fierce competition between father and son that is also the family legacy; his actress wife Eden, torn between family and career; Randi and Steve, who together head the Lombard ...

Elisa Carlisle, a celebrated nineteenth-century London actress, struggles with the memories of a painful, poverty-stricken childhood and a host of enemies, who want to destroy her, certain that Lord Jeremy holds the key to her future happiness....

When young Anne Wicklow took a temporary post in the distant village of Upshed, high on the bog-ridden moors, she hoped to see again handsome, mysterious, cynical Marc Branshaw. But she soon learned that the superstitious villagers believed Marc to be the evil reincarnation of their infamous Devil Vicar, who had died under eerie circumstances almost twenty years before. Now someone—or something—was stalking the isolated village, wantonly murdering everyone involved in the earlier accident. Was the cruel killer indeed Marc Branshaw, whom Anne had learned to love? Was Anne, who was coming...

A TIMELESS EVIL WILL NOT REST UNTIL ANNE WICKLOW AND ALL SHE LOVES ARE DESTROYED. When Anne WickLow returns to Moura, the home she had shared with her late husband, it is as housekeeper for the mysterious Maitre Stavko and his daughter, Tyra. They have turned Moura into an academy for young ladies, girls innocent of the strange and terrifying events going on about them. Despite her constant battle with the memory of her love, Anne soon realizes what the schoolgirls do not: that Moura is pervaded by an evil so powerful, so dedicated to destruction that survival seems impossible. At the heart...

It was Jean Benedict’s missionary zeal that had brought her to the Cove—that, and a message from a friend who had cried out to her in torment. But what was Lucy Schallert's plight? Here, at the coastal resort, a cure was offered for lost romances and early sorrows, a renewed chance to live as freely, as vibrantly, as one wished—a chance, even, to call on occult powers which offered excitement and balm for the soul...but at a terrible price. Jean Benedict wanted only to help her friend. But when she met the mysterious and fascinating Marc Meridon, she knew her fight was not for her ...

One by one the lost and lonely women came to Lucifer Cove, each searching for personal happiness…only to meet with disaster, as they encountered the handsome and sinister Marc Meridon. Now it was Maeva Wells’ turn. Because her niece: Jenniver, had been hurt in an accident and taken to the Cove, Maeva was forced to stay there overnight. And when morning came, Jenniver was curiously reluctant to leave. Would Maeva be able to free Jenniver from the alluring spell of Marc Meridon and the Cove? Or would the spell overcome Maeva…and claim her immortal soul?

LOVE DEFIANT... Every inch the heiress to the proud legacy of the magnificent Gaynor clan, Dinah Faire flaunted the conventions of her day when she gave her body--and her soul--to a dashing gambling man, Nick Corrigan. LOVE IMPERILED... Dinah discovered many things standing between their love...like Nick's passions for cards and danger...like her own indomitable family...and especially her beautiful aunt Shelley Wychfield, who usually got what she wanted. And now she wanted Nick. LOVE TRIUMPHANT... In the ultimate gamble, Dinah watched Nick risk his life and his love aboard a San Francisco ...

IT STARTED on the ship. Claudia, a bride of a few days, was ecstatically happy as she sailed to join her new husband in their exotic Hawaiian home. Then she began to hear the rumors… OBVIOUSLY, they weren't true. But privately, she had to admit that Stephen was an enigmatic man, although irresistibly attractive. He did not even try to conceal the fact that there were strange secrets in his past… BUT HE had not told her what those secrets were. And she could not begin to guess how they would blight her happiness and alter her life!

Lucifer Cove lay a few miles south of San Francisco. When the sun shone it looked like a picture postcard--a beautiful, green spa where people could take a luxurious, memorable holiday. But shrouded in the fog that drifted in from the sea, it became a harbour for the lonely and the lost, an evil world huddled at the foot of a cliff ... a temple for Satan. Nadine Janos came to Lucifer Cove seeking not love, but power; not sunshine, but the twilight of false hopes. Nadine was a strong woman who always got what she wanted until she met Marc Meridon, the handsome, gentle director of the spa. ...

Tana Maguire, a fiery Irish beauty, is led to believe that, at twenty-two, she is already an old maid, for she has spurned all of her family’s chosen suitors. Her sole intent is to honour her heart: she will marry only for love. Deserting her Cuban homeland, Tana sets out for the whirlwind life of New York and meets the notorious Cuban insurrectionist, Juan Diego. Sympathetic to the rebel cause, yet still deeply loyal to her Spanish heritage, Tana faces the decision of her life: a choice between the man she loves, and the birthright she has sworn to never renounce…