High on love

March’s bluster can be kept at bay with four sizzling reads that include everything from western legends to the reanimated dead. Snuggle under a blanket and escape to times and places where lovers meet and endings are happy.

From the first page, danger drives the suspenseful plot in Pamela Clare’s Naked Edge. Navajo journalist Kat James meets handsome park ranger Gabe Rossiter when he saves her life while hiking. Fate conspires to throw them together again when he’s one of the law enforcement officers involved in the raid of a sweat lodge. While their attraction is immediate, Kat makes it clear she’s saving herself for a man who wants to be a husband and have kids. That’s not what risk-taker Gabe plans for after a tragic and hurtful past romance. But when death comes to someone close to Kat, followed by threats on her life, he can’t stay away. Appointing himself her personal bodyguard puts them both in danger as they investigate recent events on sacred Native American land. Fast-paced, with fiery love scenes as well as interesting glimpses of both extreme mountain sports and Navajo culture, this romance will keep readers’ hearts pumping.

Dark fears

A female cop, a Cajun soldier, a mad doctor and a team of zombies keep the action moving in Bianca D’Arc’s Once Bitten, Twice Dead. Police officer Sarah Petit is out on a call when the “drunks” she encounters reveal themselves to be something much more dangerous. Though she’s able to call for backup, the creatures manage to do damage, including biting her. She thinks she’s going to die . . . and she should. When she wakes up, she discovers a Green Beret by her bedside, Captain Xavier Beauvoir, who has an incredible story to tell. A team of military scientists accidentally created a substance that reanimated dead soldiers, who then started attacking others. A few victims survived, like Xavier and Sarah, to discover they have remarkable healing abilities. The “zombies” and their unscrupulous makers need to be stopped, and Xavier wants Sarah to join the team. As partners, they spend their nights investigating the latest violent outbreak and their days exploring an explosive attraction. This story offers earthy love scenes, scary bad guys and a premise that will leave readers grabbing flashlights before venturing into the dark.

A Duke’s dilemma

A warm woman who gave up her heart’s desire upon her mother’s death and a cold man who believes marriage is a duty and love a myth meet in An Impossible Attraction by Brenda Joyce. The two chance upon each other just as Alexandra Bolton’s drunken father has insisted she save the family by marrying the local elderly squire. But how can she, when she feels this tempestuous passion for Stephen, the Duke of Clarewood? The powerful peer is not willing to make her decision an easy one, and he presents quite another kind of proposal to the beautiful but impoverished woman. It takes passion and tears for the cold and autocratic Stephen to discover that he doesn’t always get what he wants—but what he does get might be better than he ever dreamed. Dramatic emotions and wrenching choices keep the pages turning in this satisfying historical novel.

Golden dreams

Former lovers reunite in an appealing western romance, Montana Legacy by R.C. Ryan. The first in a trilogy, this story sets up the legend of missing gold and introduces the three cousins now working the Lost Nugget ranch. Though the enterprise is successful, the family patriarch has recently died and Jesse McCord must come to grips with the return of his two cousins. He’s further surprised when Amy Parrish, the woman he’d loved with all his heart, returns to town. Though her father has sworn an enmity to the McCords, his animosity didn’t stop Jesse from pursuing Amy before and it won’t this time either. Amy doesn’t understand how their former love fell away, but her feelings for Jesse and her curiosity about that long-missing treasure keep drawing her back to his ranch. And when they finally succumb to their feelings, they are faced with new threats trying to keep them apart. The modern ranch setting combined with the Old West legend create a captivating start to a new series.

Christie Ridgway writes contemporary romance from her home in Southern California.