Marc Huntington needs to protect his ancestral estate when he discovers it's being sold out from under him. Luckily, keeping an eye on the main competition is no Torie Sands is as beautiful as she is secretive….
Torie grew up as the butler's daughter on the Huntington estate and she's back to clear her family name—not to fall for enigmatic Marc all over again! How will she gain the trust of this hard, suspicious man, whose years as a navy SEAL have left him wounded and wary?
Helen Conrad was born on April 11, 1945 in Pasadena, California, U.S.A. and grew up between Holland, Guam, and California, and spent a few years in Washington, D.C. as well. She obtained a B.A. in English Literature.
Helen was working toward a Master's in Library Science when she dropped out to have her first son. "One look into those baby blue eyes and I knew it was going to be a long time before I went back to school. But with young ones, you do have time to read, and the more I read, the more I learned about writing". She started writing because she felt guilty about spending so much time reading. "Through writing I figured I could still immerse myself in the stories I love, but I could actually claim I was working! The amazing thing was when I sold my first book and the excuse was justified. Dreams really do come true!"
After years of writing romantic suspense in the style of Mary Stewart and children's books in a lot of styles, she finally sold a romance to Jove's Second Chance at Love and there was celebration all around-at least in her ever-patient family of husband and four boys. She published four more romances for Jove under the name Jena Hunt, then began writing Silhouette Desires. A few sales to Bantam Loveswept and Harlequin Romance, Temptationand SuperRomance under the name Helen Conrad followed, as well as to Harpers, Dell Ecstasy, Mills & Boon, and even an historical with Zebra. Today, she is concentrating on Silhouette Romance, completely captivated by the breezy fun and touching poignancy of their compact, to-the-point form. She feels the perfect "quick read" should make the reader smile, sigh and put the book down feeling better about the state of love in the world.
Now, she lives in the Los Angeles area now with Nick, her geologist-computers cientist husband and the two of her four sons who still live at home."Having the boys around helps keep me up on the current trends," she says with a laugh. "But writing helps keep me in touch with the romance that weaves through the everyday lives we all live.
Contemporary romance with echoes of an Agatha Christie story - the group of odd couples at the isolated setting, smuggler caves, missing Spanish treasure, etc. A fun read, though the couple's past demons are dark.
There is a lot going on in this one - secret pirate treasure that the heroine's father, butler to the hero's family, was falsely accused of stealing, resulting in his suicide and the heroine's desire for revenge ... which lasts until she discovers the hero is very hot. And the hero used to be a SEAL, because no one ever runs away to the military and becomes an infantryman in a novel. Lots of details, plot points, and stock characters that never really come together.