FICTION
Catch a Falling Star
Crimson Romance/Simon & Schuster
Brianna Daniels has a younger sister, a stepsister, though she’s never really thought of her that way. A sweet, loving, kind stepsister who has battled a rare disease her entire life, and deserves one good thing. One magic wish.
She wants to go to the ball.
It’s the Cooper-Renfield Museum’s annual fundraising gala, and all the city’s elite will be there, wearing beautiful clothes, making sparkling conversation, and dancing under the stars. Brianna tells Natalie that she’ll find a way to make it happen. And she does. And wouldn’t you know, Natalie meets her prince.
The problem is, Brianna is in love with the prince. But what kind of wicked step-sister would begrudge a sweet, loving, kind young woman’s one shot at happiness?
The Achilles Project
Crimson Romance/Simon & Schuster
Former NYPD detective Meghan McCafferty is finished taking chances. Safety first, that’s her motto these days. But one day she happens to walk into the same coffee shop as Marcus Bixil, a man who closes deals for the powerful Kozlova Group. To her, Marcus is a charming man with quirks. He makes her forget the importance of staying safe.
Oops.
Only after a black-ops government agency tries to permanently retire her does Meghan realize that Marcus isn’t a charming man with quirks: he’s something else entirely. But what?
Along with her friend Danny Yi, and against adversaries ranging from Marcus’s employer to a freelance operative whose allegiance shifts like sand, Meghan races to discover the secret of Marcus, knowing only that revealing it will protect her – but not knowing the price she’ll have to pay to learn it.
A Certain Kind of Magic
Crimson Romance/Simon & Schuster
When NYPD police detective Morgan Reilly discovers the lamp and frees the djinn, she thinks she’s hallucinating. After all, she’s just back on the job after a high-speed chase left her with a head injury, and it’s not the first visual hallucination she’s had since the auto accident.
But freeing the djinn brings Mere, an exiled merman, charging into her life. He and his sidekick, Lynell, an elf, failed in their duty to protect a dragon’s hoard that was stolen centuries ago. All this time they have sought to get it back.
Because Morgan can see him although other humans can’t, Mere must enlist her help in finding the hoard before the human sorcerer into whose hands it has fallen can learn its secrets. But first he must convince her that he’s real.
Inventing Sin
Crimson Romance/Simon & Schuster
When English professor Gabriella Kurtz is dumped by her ho-hum boyfriend because she doesn’t have the energy to do the breaking up herself, she knows a drastic change is in order. But she’s not counting on just how drastic the change is going to be . . . .
While she’s reinventing herself as a hot sexy chick, Gabriella imagines her perfect man. Big and masculine but gentlemanly, he’s going to take one look at her and then it’ll be mind-blowing sex all weekend. That’s what she wants. That’s what she tells her colleagues she . . . already has. Because she just can’t stand the fact that everyone knows she’s been dumped by a boring academic colleague. What’s wrong with an imaginary boyfriend to shield her from the worst of the humiliation?
And that’s when Duncan Sinclair, Sin to his friends, enters the picture. Ex-military, now working for an oh-so-secret government agency, he’s on the hot seat. Take out an undercover terrorist posing as an accomplished academic, his boss tells him. Sin gets the game plan: the terrorist will be giving a talk at a big Midwestern university.
When Gabriella’s colleagues mistake Sin for her imaginary boyfriend, he thinks she’s set up the situation to provide him cover, which means she must be a deep-cover asset. Brilliant deductive reasoning. Except it’s wrong…
Children of the Wolves
Crimson Romance/Simon & Schuster
Coming out of suspended animation one by one, the survivors of a global disaster must try to make sense of the world they live in now. When they’re newlyborn, they have no memory of the lives they left behind. As they awaken, they remember parts of the lives they lived before the disaster, discover what they can contribute, and become full members of the tribe.
But sometimes they don’t awaken. Those are the soulless ones. So the Elders say.
Jelena has been unawakened for seven years – long past the time she should have. Her protector, Michael, does not complain, but she knows that she is just another burden to him. Everything she does, from befriending the wolves that terrify the rest of the tribe to challenging the decrees the Elders lay down, puts her in conflict with the tribe – and thus with Michael.
Jelena and Michael must find a way beyond custom and fear to live – and love – as equals.
Ruby’s Reward
(Crimson Romance/Simon & Schuster)
Ruby Rendell is a talented artist. Can she help it if people sometimes mistake her work for that of Renoir or Titian? Her vindictive ex, Ian McElroy, certainly thinks so. In fact, he’s convinced that she has kicked it up a notch and is actively involved in the illegal trade of stolen artworks and antiquities.
This would not be a problem, ordinarily. She knows how to deal with Ian, an investigator for Interpol. It’s his young sidekick, Raphael Gianetti, with his angelic face and his devilish body, who’s going to bring her down – without meaning to. When she finds out he’s been lusting after her as long as he’s known her despite their age difference, she does the one thing she promised herself she’d never do again: she lets her body outwit her brain.
As the investigation gets hotter, so does Ruby’s affair with Raphael, even though he’s taking orders from her worst enemy. When she realizes their playful fling has turned into something deeper and more profound, she has to decide whether she can trust Raphael with her secrets. Because if she doesn’t, he’ll never trust her again.
Date with the Devil
(Crimson Romance/Simon & Schuster)
Victoria Everett runs a martial arts school and lives an ordinary life. She doesn’t want to return to the dangers of her past – a past that cost her the ultimate price: her daughter’s life. So when the man she blames for all of her problems saunters back into her life asking for help, she refuses to play.
But her refusal doesn’t stop this rogue FBI agent – who has his own reasons for recruiting her. Entering a world she thought she’d left behind years before, Victoria must confront her past in order to solve a murder, protect her family, and make her peace with the devil.
Sadie’s Story
(Crimson Romance/Simon & Schuster)
When businessman Jordan Blaise walks into Sadie Rose Perkins’s bookstore, she’s hoping to sell a book, but she’s ready for anything, including an adventure.
Or so she thinks.
Then he asks her to pose as his wife-to-be so that he can convince his dying mother that he’ll have the happily ever after she has always wanted him to have. Even Sadie isn’t prepared for the adventure falling in love turns out to be.
Acts of Faith
Crimson Romance/Simon & Schuster
When Emma’s brother Paul dies in a car accident, everyone assumes it’s just that – an accident. But then Linda, a friend of Paul’s, tells Emma it was no accident and asks Emma to meet her.
When Linda is brutally murdered and Emma is threatened, there’s only one person Emma can turn to for help – her ex-husband, a cop who never wants to see her again.
Night Blooming Jasmine
Crimson Romance/Simon & Schuster
Every time psychologist Jasmine Zehr thinks she’s outwitted her stalker, she discovers that he’s found her again. This time, though, she’s playing for keeps. She holes up in a desolate area of the southwest, armed and ready for him. When he attacks, she shoots him point-blank.
But he doesn’t die. He doesn’t bleed. He doesn’t even flinch.
More terrified than ever, Jasmine runs, her stalker in close pursuit. This, she knows, is their final act, and one of them won’t make it out alive.
For many years, Rhianen has followed the traditions of the Brotherhood, an ancient order whose members have always served as demon-hunters. In contemporary society, they must cloak their purpose, but they never fail in it. On the morning when Jasmine runs from her stalker for the last time, Rhianen is assisting one of his brothers and discovers Jasmine, unexpected and in need of help. Acting on instinct, he grabs her and the two outrun his pursuers – only to confront her stalker. When Jasmine describes his evil, Rhianen knows that he is a demon in human form, and the only way to kill him is with the specially-forged sword all members of the Brotherhood carry.
Jasmine doesn’t understand quite what happened – and Rhianen doesn’t think she’s ready to hear about demons in human form – but the two of them acknowledge their attraction. As Jasmine is snared deeper into the life of the Brotherhood, she must decide if she can embrace the future Rhianen believes is her destiny – or if she should return to the only life she’s ever known.
Enlisted by Love
Crimson Romance/Simon & Schuster
When ex-Army officer Matthew Blake starts a new career, he comes up against the most challenging obstacle to his happiness he’s ever encountered: Greta Ferguson, the interior designer who’s supposed to be making his life easier.
He’s used to giving orders and having them obeyed; she’s a determined business woman who’s not used to be challenged.
Sparks fly – sparks Greta is determined to squelch, not caring to repeat the mistakes of her past. But with a little help from a little sister, they both learn how to give up control to find love.
The Matchmaker Meets Her Match
Crimson Romance/Simon & Schuster
Rilka Árpád inherited her name and her job from her grandmother. She doesn’t mind her name; it’s her job she can’t stand. Working as a matchmaker has exposed her to all the downsides of human behavior – in her opinion, it’s a wonder anyone can stand each other long enough to get through a date, let alone cherish each other forever.
She makes herself a promise: if she can just get through her current client list in the next three months, she’ll go on sabbatical. And maybe never come back.
Her new client, war veteran Jeremy Ford, ends up being everything Rilka has come to expect (and dislike) about her work when he announces that he just wants to get laid. At least he’s honest.
Or so she thinks. It turns out that Jeremy wants a lot more than a one-night stand, and he wants it from Rilka. But the only way they can get to forever is if Rilka learns to trust her heart.
Crimson Romance/Simon and Schuster
In the fall of 1053, Lady Imma has one loyalty: to help her uncle, the king of Wales, win his war against the English. Lord Robert, the steward of Wessex, has one loyalty as well: to keep his beloved Wessex safe from enemies.
When she is forced to seek shelter in his keep, they must decide if they can listen to their hearts – or if they would be wiser never to trust each other.
Keeping the Peace
Crimson Romance/Simon & Schuster
Small town sheriff Adam Steele has one goal: keep the peace in his town – and in his life. When writer Charity Malone drifts into town – with every intention of drifting back out again – he has no intention of getting involved with someone who will so surely upset the peace.
Charity Malone has made peace with the past – peace of a kind. As long as she keeps moving, the past doesn’t catch up.
Charity and Adam can’t deny their mutual attraction, but when their strictly no-strings-attached affair turns into something deeper, Charity and Adam have to learn whether they can risk the peace in order to win a much greater prize.
Earlier Novels
Several of my early novels which you may still be able to hunt down include Second Acts; Cold Hands, Warm Hearts; and Love by Design, all written as Jenny Jacobs, plus Then Will Come Night and Darkness, under my own name.
MEMOIR
Whenever anyone says, “I read your story,” this is the one they mean.
The Improbable Adventures of a Middle-Aged Woman
Beyond the Bucket List
When her daughter was born with a devastating medical condition, Jennifer Lawler set out to make a good life despite the circumstances. She wanted the story to be “kickass mother of a special kid hangs on to her dream of being a writer no matter what.”
But life takes its toll, despite our best intentions. At the start of this story, our intrepid heroine wakes up in middle age, disillusioned and discouraged; her dream has gotten a little dusty and holding on to it is not as rewarding as she had expected. Grit and determination feel more like grinding routine, especially since her beloved daughter, now eighteen, still needs round-the-clock care. Goals and to-do lists have turned into just another kind of jail.
Recognizing this as the onset of a midlife crisis, Jennifer does what anyone would. She makes a bucket list, then sets out to reawaken her spirit by doing all the things she ever wanted to do: reconnect with her Irish roots, live on a houseboat in the Florida Keys, learn guitar from a session player in Nashville. There are only two snags: life has limits, and her funny, challenging, brilliant daughter is almost always in tow.
Teetering on the edge of a cliff in Ireland, searching fruitlessly for a place to stay during a wild summer storm in the West Highlands, getting lost in Munich, talking to the one person in Eastern Europe who’ll admit to missing communism, and, finally, confronting the fact that her daughter isn’t nearly as interested in guitar-playing and house-boating as she is, Jennifer discovers that happiness has nothing to do with lists.
Of all the things I thought I might find myself asking someday, the question “Do you know anyone who can translate the phrase ‘ventriculoperitoneal shunt’ into Italian?” is not one of them.
NONFICTION
Jennifer Lawler is the author of numerous nonfiction titles, including many about the martial arts. Dojo Wisdom (reissued by Wish Publishing) and Dojo Wisdom for Writers (reissued by Lawler and Daughter Publishing) are still popular among readers many years after their original publication.