Archer can’t let another woman put him in her rearview mirror. Running is the only life Cheyenne knows. When their worlds collide, will romance take root?
Build a dynasty: that’s the five-year plan. Archer Schulz knows he’ll need a sophisticated mate by his side. Dating apps let you try on women for size, and find the perfect fit. So why does his heart yearn for the beautiful, outrageous blonde he met in a bar packing a pistol and a dark secret?
Love ‘em and leave ‘em is Cheyenne Townsend’s motto. But for once, she has a stable job, a house, and even a Siamese cat. Yet her stalker is out there, searching, plotting to make her pay for the sins of her mother. If she can stop looking over her shoulder, she’ll see the dashing self-made man falling at her feet. Can she take a chance on love without risking his life too?
If you love friends-to-lovers, opposites attract, alpha female vs beta male confrontations, or romantic suspense with DNA surprises, Lucky Genes is a perfect match for you.
Recent review of Lucky Genes https://www.authorsreading.com/book-reviews/claudia-j-severin/lucky-genes
He seems as noble as the American eagle tattooed on his pecs. She knows he’s an imposter.
After eight grueling years in the Marine Corps and college, Jace Lassiter welcomes a return to his Midwest roots. He’s walking in his grandfather’s footsteps wearing a badge. Next on his list: reform his promiscuous habits and find a wife. His radar lights up as soon as she is within range.
Leslie Hamilton races down the interstate fleeing the heartbreaking deceit of her best friend and former fiancé. Jace detains her speeding vehicle, but his square-jawed good looks and tenderness won’t derail her plans. She’s starting new in a small-town furniture store and building her interior design portfolio as a ticket to a promising job in a larger market.
He didn’t expect his missing brother’s drug cartel associates to hunt him down. When they do, can he protect himself and those he loves?
Leslie admires Jace’s concern for others almost as much as she admires his chiseled abs and roped shoulders. But once she learns his devastating secret, can she double-cross their nemesis before he carries out his threats?
Lost Genes is Book Two in the Romancing Our Roots series. Lost Genes is a find if you like contemporary romantic suspense with a touch of genealogical nostalgia, devoted family support against unseen enemies, small-town loyalties, and chemistry that crackles.
The DNA didn’t lie. Somebody did.
I put my family tree on online to help others. Little did I dream that ancestor hunters would arrive at my doorstep trying to taint my virtuous legacy. The sooner I could prove it was all nonsense, the better. The Schulz family wasn’t wealthy, but we’d all worked conscientiously to achieve the American dream.
My quest led to Dustin: a stranger living hundreds of miles away who shared unfamiliar forebears six generations back. As soon as our eyes locked, we knew we shared a burning attraction and bond rooted deep in our genes.
Will I be able to surrender my heart after my previous fiancée betrayed me? Can he overcome the torment left when his wife died leaving him to raise a precocious daughter?
The pull between us was undeniable. But a story that had begun nearly one hundred years earlier now felt like it was altering our lives at breakneck speed. How could we avoid the mistakes made by generations past? Or was this all-consuming love our destiny?
“Explore the captivating world of ‘The Love Genes’ and witness how the choices made by Anselm and Adelaide in the 1920s echo through the lives of their descendants, Darcy and Dustin, forging an unbreakable connection that defies all odds. A fusion of Historical and Contemporary Romance grows out of the same family tree.”
The Twirler Quartet series: I wrote the Twirlers as a tribute to the late sixties and the boomers who came of age during the turmoil of the Vietnam War, the rise of feminism, gay and civil rights, and the peak of teenage pregnancies. I hope that all generations will learn from our history.
Catch It Spinning
Head back to 1968 in this slice-of-life novel of a woman navigating friendship and love through high school and adulthood. Yvonne’s teenage life seems idyllic: twirling batons with her best friends in the school’s marching band, and plenty of boyfriends. But she soon learns that boys can wreak havoc on your long-term goals, when her friends start getting into trouble.
Ten years later, she finds herself married and ready for children. But once again, happiness appears elusive. Her plans are spinning out of reach just like that baton she once tried to master.
Based on the author’s experiences growing up in Lincoln, Nebraska, Catch It Spinning is the first book of the Twirler Quartet. Four friends come of age while the fight for gender and racial equality, the War in Vietnam, and the sexual revolution simmer in the background.
Twirling Fire
Debbie was always playing second-fiddle, or at least second clarinet. She’d spent her childhood in the shadow of her accomplished twin brother and her gorgeous best friend. She was never thin enough, smart enough, or talented enough to stand out. So, when a handsome young man with a budding Afro and magical dance moves turned his dazzling smile on her, she’d do anything to protect their relationship.
No one was immune to social unrest in the summer of 1968. But Robert had five siblings who could carry the torch for civil rights. His preacher father and teacher mother had taught him to be responsible, hard-working and ambitious. His future as an engineer was laid out as neatly as a chess board. He wasn’t about to let prejudice keep him from his new blonde girlfriend. Until they were both caught in a firestorm of using their friends, lying to their parents and taking risks that they’d never dreamed of.
Their romance couldn’t be kept secret for long.
Learning To Twirl
Two devout teenagers faced love amid tragedy circa 1969. An Army enlistment during the Vietnam Conflict promised career opportunities but tore their dreams apart.
As a Roman Catholic, Nancy knew better than to succumb to temptation. She was following the example of her two older sisters: one a nun, and the other a wife who’d had three children in quick succession. But when a sweet-talking devilishly-handsome boy began charming her, it wasn’t just her baton that was twirling. It was her heart.
Peter knew he shouldn’t resent his older brother, the golden boy. Terry excelled in sports, academics, and winning friends leaving Peter stuck at home milking cows. Their parents expected Peter to hold down the farm when Terry’s world was upended by an accident. Once Peter fell for a beautiful red-haired angel, he knew his prayers had been answered.
Later, while Peter performed his patriotic duty in Vietnam, he discovered his brother was ambushing him on the home front, about to steal his cherished wife and daughter. Did his devotion to the Army’s cause create an unbridgeable rift in his marriage?
Return to the mythical Capital High School in Lincoln, Nebraska, for the third in the Twirler Quartet series that delivers more heartbreak and joy at a time when naïve teenage boys were being drafted, surprised college students were being attacked at protest marches, and the president promised peace and love to the youth of America.
Spinning Sideways
Their love was like a twister, spinning sideways too fast to dodge. How could something so bewitching cause such destruction? Opposites attract in the final book of the Twirler Quartet.
Tom was the salt of the earth, straight off his family’s Sandhills ranch. His cocky grin accessorized his Stetson and boots. He was slightly older and wiser, yet charming and debonair. No girl in 1968 would dare ask for more.
Linda never meant to be traditional. Athletic. Impulsive. Assertive. Rebellious. Artistic. Daring. She believed lines were meant to be crossed. It was so comfortable finding happiness with Tom. Why was her tumultuous spirit pulling her toward new horizons?
He loved that she kept him on his toes. She loved that he made her feel secure. Their mutual reverence for family life gave them a common bond. But even their parents’ sheltered secrets made them question the power of enduring relationships.
As time went by, Linda and Tom grappled with trying to face their feelings honestly and openly. They couldn’t give each other what they needed most. Ultimately, they risked everything to find the path to true love.
The stories of Yvonne, Debbie, and Nancy contain a few more tidbits as the twirlers come together for a twenty-year reunion capping off their continued friendship.
More About Her Side of History: Finding My Foremothers’ Footprints
Author Claudia J. Severin took things into her own hands when her genealogy research seemed limiting. Follow her foremothers, four mothers plucked from her family tree. She reimagines the lives of ancestral families in this anthology. Ina, the tragic suffragette, traded her college degree and teaching career for a loving husband and children in the 1910s, in the shadow of the Great War, but things did not work out as she planned. Mary, a German immigrant, finds love with an Iowa farmer, and crosses the state in a covered wagon with his entire family to become a homesteader on the Nebraska plains in 1869. She didn’t know that Indian encounters, prairie fires and locusts would threaten her and her rapidly growing family. Nellie fell for the bad boy, the Good Time Charley who didn’t let a little thing like Prohibition stand in his way. She tries to control his drinking and spending, while supporting her family in times of calamity in the 1920s and 1930s traveling from Nebraska to Kansas and back again. Katie finds herself the sole heir to her father’s farm in southeastern Nebraska decades after the Homestead Act took most of the land ownership out of play. She enjoys playing the flirtatious games learned from her older half-sisters. But are her suitors interested in her or her inheritance?
About the author
I started writing historical fiction after spending a year compiling the stories of many generations of ancestors. I was delighted to discover that for those who lived in the twentieth and nineteenth centuries, there were often newspaper accounts to complement the family histories I’d received. From those outlines of their lives, I was able to recreate a narrative of how life might have unfolded if they were fictional characters. The research took me to cemeteries and courthouses in several states. Genealogy was the push, but the writing process hooked me.
Historical romance was intriguing, so I was motivated to preserve some of my youthful stories by writing about the tumultuous 1960s and 1970s. Much as it is hard for me to imagine my parents living through World War II, and my grandparents through The Great War, I wondered how my children could understand the War in Vietnam, the racial riots, anti-war protests, common teen pregnancy, the rise of feminism, closeted homosexuality, hippies, communes, and life in general without the internet or smartphones. My first series, The Twirler Quartet, is an ode to the baby boomer romance era.
DNA testing and evidence is another subject that has fascinated me, whether it involves finding lost relatives or using forensics to solve crimes. The Romancing Our Roots romance series examines the before and after of two generations living a century apart, solving a cold case using DNA samples, correcting misidentified parentage, and using DNA testing to reveal an anonymous but famous sperm donor.