Carla Kelly Books in Order

Orphaned after an epidemic, Maria Espinosa reaches colonial Santa Fe only to be rejected by her sister. A ranching family offers refuge, but romantic rivalry and the approaching Pueblo uprising threaten her search for security.

Marian Wynswich prefers chess and Greek to the prospect of falling in love. An unexpected Christmas visitor, a handsome English lord, challenges her convictions while her financially troubled family hopes the holidays will bring an advantageous match.

Left at the altar and reduced to earning her own living, Omega Chartley has little reason to trust Matthew Bering again. Their unexpected reunion forces her to weigh his explanation against the heartbreak she has carried.

Engaged to a respectable clergyman, Onyx Hamilton finds herself drawn to Major Jack Beresford. A visit to his isolated estate threatens social scandal, but her deepest concern is how strongly he makes her question her planned marriage.

Young widow Jeannie McVinnie accepts an invitation intended for an older namesake to supervise Captain Summers's ward during the London Season. Her practical approach unsettles his household, while attraction to the captain complicates her concealed identity.

Libby Ames nurses an injured stranger who claims to be a London merchant. He is actually a duke investigating her supposed wealth, and his deception complicates a romance also involving the country doctor who cares for her.

Denied the education she wants, Ellen Grimsley secretly undertakes her brother's Oxford assignments. Assistance from a seemingly poor student opens opportunities for scholarship and romance, but concealment and restrictions on women's learning threaten her unconventional academic career.

Impoverished Katherine Billings takes to the stage after escaping an unsuitable employer. Entanglement with Lord Grayson draws her into a mock marriage, where theatrical disguises and genuine attraction make her precarious new life still more complicated.

Quaker Hannah Whittier has definite ideas about her future husband until a shipwreck leaves her aboard a British frigate. Captain Daniel Spark meets none of her requirements, yet their clashes reveal qualities her list never considered.

Widowed Roxanna Drew moves her two daughters into a neglected cottage to escape her brother-in-law's advances. When the disreputable Lord Winn arrives during a snowstorm, his unexpected presence challenges her fears about shelter, safety, and love.

After Lord Ragsdale rescues Emma Costello from indentured servitude, she decides to repay him by reforming his reckless habits. Preparing him for marriage to a suitable society woman becomes difficult when Emma develops feelings of her own.

Her father's gambling leaves Susan Hampton forced to work as a companion to the reluctant Lady Bushnell. Attraction to the estate's capable bailiff David Wiggins crosses divisions of class and upbringing that neither expected to challenge.

Overlooked during the London Season, Lydia Perkins finds purpose nursing wounded soldiers. Major Sam Reed proposes a marriage in name only to protect his inheritance, but their journey north makes Lydia question the place she holds in his life.

Dependent on dismissive relatives, Jane Milton finds comfort caring for an orphaned boy whose inheritance is threatened. Her friendship with tradesman Mr. Butterfield encourages her to speak up, despite family prejudice and secrets surrounding them both.

Trying to recover from romantic disappointment, Benedict Nesbitt offers help to a stranded Spanish woman and her young son. Their arrival challenges the duke's assumptions and draws him toward a relationship shadowed by her painful past.

Nine stories depict women and men living around frontier army posts during the Indian Wars. Widows, laundresses, soldiers and surgeons endure isolation, prejudice and danger, revealing the love, endurance and occasional humor behind military life.

Shy army surgeon Jesse Randall marries Nell Mason to save her from a match arranged to settle her father's debts. During the retreat from Burgos, the newlyweds must protect abandoned patients while learning to trust each other.

Celebrated after surviving years on a deserted island, naval officer James Trevenen hides the psychological cost of his ordeal. Widowed Susannah Park offers understanding, but his unresolved secrets threaten the closeness growing between two outsiders to society.

Eleanor Massie lives in poverty after resisting her father's attempt to sell her as a mistress. Captain Oliver Worthy's visit to her inn begins as an investigation, but concern for her safety draws him into a deeper commitment.

Royal Navy surgeon Philemon Brittle falls for Lady Laura Taunton while she nurses wounded men. Her unhappy past has made her wary of marriage, leaving him to show that a shared future could offer healing rather than fresh pain.

Polly Brandon has long felt diminished by her illegitimate birth. Sailing to Portugal under Lieutenant Colonel Hugh Junot's protection, she begins to question that self-image as his attentive concern suggests feelings beyond the duties of an escort.

Penniless Sally Paul is spending her last coin when retired Admiral Charles Bright proposes marriage. Their practical agreement offers both a new start, but adjusting to married life brings emotional complications neither anticipated from the arrangement.

After ending her engagement, Julia Darling leaves Salt Lake City to cook for cowboys on a Wyoming ranch. Frontier work tests her resolve, while new relationships push her to develop faith and convictions independent of those she inherited.

Four Regency Christmas novellas follow people finding love amid grief, hardship and the aftermath of war. A scholar, a widowed marquis, a sea captain and a traveler in Spain each encounter an unexpected chance for companionship and healing.

Julia Darling and Paul face married life on a Wyoming ranch at the turn of the century. Religious hostility and lingering physical and emotional wounds test their endurance as Julia learns what partnership demands in a harsh environment.

Four Regency romances bring together military men, sea captains and noblemen with women who challenge their expectations. Love develops against the pressures of war and social convention, as the characters discover connections beyond the lives they anticipated.

An inheritance could rescue impoverished baker Grace Curtis, provided she marries her benefactor's imprisoned son. His dying request that she marry a fellow soldier instead leaves her navigating an unexpected marriage to a brash American stranger.

Della leaves Salt Lake City to teach children in a remote coal-mining camp. New connections offer the possibility of love, but the Scofield mine disaster transforms her life and the community in this historically based romance.

Arriving in Cheyenne without enough money to complete her journey, Susanna Hopkins accepts help from military surgeon Joseph Randolph. Their shared losses draw them together as they cautiously explore the possibility of starting over in a garrison town.

During the upheaval in Mexico in 1912, Ammon Hancock discovers his estranged wife has been left behind as Mormon settlers flee. Returning to rescue her, he faces a dangerous journey and the unresolved conflict within their marriage.

This nonfiction collection gathers Carla Kelly's Prairie Lite newspaper columns from her years in North Dakota. Essays explore war, moving, education, history, writing, and family life through personal observations drawn from everyday experience.

Brand inspector Marco Mondragón meets impoverished Paloma Vega in Spanish New Mexico in 1780. Suspicions about stolen livestock brands draw him into her family's affairs, while unrest on the colonial frontier threatens their developing relationship.

Marco and Paloma's life at the Double Cross ranch is threatened by an approaching smallpox outbreak. An English physician offers help on difficult terms, forcing Marco to weigh his family's safety against a dangerous bargain.

Lily Branson discovers that her father has gambled away his Wyoming ranch to cowboy Jack Sinclair. When severe winter storms threaten the cattle, she and Jack must work together, finding attraction amid the demands of survival.

Mary Rennie seizes the chance for adventure when her cousin's ring disappears into fruitcakes sent across the country. Widowed Captain Ross Rennie and his son join her search, opening unexpected possibilities for love and family.

Retired naval surgeon Douglas Bowden hopes to leave wartime suffering behind by establishing a country practice. Treating an injured boy brings him to a Scottish fishing village, where Olive Grant's kindness challenges his isolation and troubled memories.

Buying a woman's freedom leaves Marco Mondragón indebted to horse traders and facing a renewed threat from Great Owl. An uneasy group of allies joins the effort, while one trader's connection to Paloma complicates their plans.

Carrie McKay balances college ambitions with summer work in Yellowstone, leaving little time for romance. Veteran Ramsay Stiles has burdens of his own, but their growing connection makes both reconsider what they want from the future.

Six stories explore the lives of ordinary men and women connected to the nineteenth-century frontier army. Hospital workers, soldiers, wives and a laundress face hardship and loss while finding love, courage and ways to care for others.

Three Western holiday romances follow a stranded woman finding kindness on a ranch, a woman reunited with her former sweetheart, and a widowed sheriff drawn to a woman hiding a secret. Christmas offers each couple a turning point.

Five Regency Christmas stories follow holiday romances amid difficult journeys, household troubles, and unexpected kindness. The collection combines Season's Regency Greetings and Regency Christmas Gifts, including Let Nothing You Dismay, No Room at the Inn, and Faithfully Yours.

An official audit brings a troubled auditor and his daughter Catalina to Marco and Paloma's ranch. Catalina attracts Lieutenant Gasca's interest, but a kidnapping forces their circle to balance personal loyalties against colonial responsibilities.

Three Regency holiday novellas turn practical arrangements into romance: a captain escorts a governess under a pretend engagement, a woman advertises for a temporary fiancé, and former lovers face a marriage prompted by a mistletoe encounter.

After the Scofield mine disaster, Owen and Della Davis struggle to build a future together. Owen's need for work draws him toward mining again, while Della confronts family wounds and her longing for a child.

Sailing master Able Six begins married life with Meridee while teaching former workhouse boys mathematics and seamanship. His exceptional memory offers advantages, but class prejudice and the prospect of renewed naval warfare test the future they are building together.

Three Regency Christmas stories follow naval captains, a spinster and a lonely child through unexpected encounters. Homesickness, convict transport and ship repairs provide settings where people seeking duty or solitude instead find the possibility of companionship.

At a school training workhouse boys for the Royal Navy, friendship and love develop under the shadow of Napoleon's ambitions. Life in the surrounding seafaring town grows dangerous as the threat of an invasion of England intensifies.

In 1805, Able Six and his workhouse students return to naval service as Napoleon threatens England. Intelligence from spy catcher Angus Ogilvie and news of a mysterious Spanish count complicate Able's duties to his country and young family.

Elizabeth Everett persuades her wealthy family to vacation in Yellowstone National Park in 1877. When Nez Perce people fleeing the U.S. Army enter their tourist camp, her comfortable expectations collide with a conflict she never anticipated.

In thirteenth-century Spain, Santiago Gonzalez needs the army his bride's dowry can finance for his campaign of conquest. The marriage brings a woman whose intelligence and courage match his own, complicating a union initially shaped by military necessity.

Two World War II stories follow a young Army recruit separated from the man she loves and a widow confronting enemy prisoners near her Wyoming farm. Their experiences challenge expectations about service, grief and whom they can love.

Penniless Jerusha Langley secretly helps naval surgeon Jamie Wilson care for injured sailors. Her work threatens her reputation, and Jamie must weigh the dangers of his wartime service against a marriage that could protect her and fulfill his feelings.

Three Christmas stories follow a naval surgeon on an unwelcome escort assignment, a woman surprised by an inheritance, and a shop worker facing a suspicious shipbuilder. Each finds that kindness and unexpected connections can change an uncertain future.

Medical student Davey Ten is isolated by prejudice about his workhouse upbringing, so a fellow Gunwharf Rat joins him in Edinburgh. While offering support, Avon March investigates the disappearance of two military men from the Royal Infirmary.

Escaping a difficult life in Butte, Ellen joins the kitchen crew building Yellowstone’s Old Faithful Inn. A harsh winter tests the project while carpenter Charles Penrose and his young daughter offer her reasons to consider trusting others again.

In wartime Wyoming, café worker Abby Nicholls loves rancher Evan Harsch, who cannot enlist after losing an eye. An impulsive wish for something good to happen sets the stage for change in a town struggling with grief.

Called back to duty after Trafalgar, Captain John Beattie asks Anna Fontaine to care for his neglected young son. Rumors threaten her reputation, prompting a marriage offer that leaves her wondering whether she can become more than a convenient wife.