Showing results by author "Rosalind James" in All Categories

Three best-selling sweet and steamy New Zealand rugby romances: Just This Once (Audie nominee in Romance, 2015), Just Good Friends, and Just for Now.

Meet a big-city cop trying to run her twin’s small-town lingerie shop and milk her goats, an Australian actor/professional werewolf who’s getting pretty bloody tired of hearing his tagline quoted back to him, an American businessman terrified of water who’s forced to wade into the Australian surf in his shirt and tie, and much more.

Paradise, Idaho, may not be the largest town, but for newly minted professor Zoe Santangelo, it's the first step on the path to her big break. After teaching in a small Idaho school, her next stop is the Ivy League, and no one is going to stand in her way. She'll do what it takes to move up, to protect her students from a creepy campus stalker - and to protect her heart from Cal Jackson, the hot, hunky cowboy who keeps coming to her rescue.

Rhys Fletcher is not in love with his sister-in-law. That would be a very, very bad idea, and he doesn’t entertain bad ideas. He also doesn’t lie to himself. Both of those things can’t be true, so he’ll do what he’s done since the long-ago night when his brother, Dylan, turned up in an Auckland bar after a brutal rugby match between their two teams, and introduced his new girlfriend - a dark-eyed, much-too-young girl named Zora. He’ll lie. Now, his brother’s gone, and Rhys is back in New Zealand and settling into his new job as the head coach of the Auckland Blues

Mira Walker is hoping that competing on a "living history" reality show will give her what's missing from her real life. Maybe she'll get closer to her boyfriend, who hasn't been all that nice to her lately. Get fired up about her job again. Who knows, she might even win a million dollars. Gabe Kincaid and his brother, Alec, are after that million, too, though. Mira and Scott are no threat at all, not when everybody involved is going to want to kill Scott after the first day. And there's no bond stronger than a twin's. What could possibly go wrong?

You don’t find many too-pretty rich boys in the New Zealand Defense Force. Turns out there’s a reason for that. Fortunately, you can find your true self in the oddest places. Of course, you can lose yourself in those places, too - at least some pieces of you. Since I was back home with a new leg, some facial alterations, and time on my hands, I might as well help out my sister. Showing a buyer around New Zealand’s ecotourism sites, having a few adrenaline-fueled adventures? Fine. It wasn’t like I’d never been camping, unlike the walking tornado that was Miss Karen Sinclair.

Breathe, smile, and move on. When you’re writing the next chapter in your rags-to-riches-to-rags story, you need about a million quotes like that. I might have been short on inspiration, but I had determination. That was it, except for a very young cousin and a very old campervan, but I was all about starting over. Nobody knew me in New Zealand other than a series of café and motel managers, and anonymity suited me fine. Manlessness suited me even finer.

What happens in Fiji stays in Fiji. Except when it doesn't. Emma Martens and Nic Wilkinson have no history together except one perfect week. Nothing in common anymore except the most important thing of all. Getting together again would be messy. Complicated. Scary. And, just maybe, worth every risk....

Rosalind James brings her sports-romance chops to three tales of football, family, and fantasy of the steamy variety. There’s more than one way to play the game, and there’s definitely more than one way to win. Meet a bossy retired quarterback with a bad knee, a coveralls-wearing, house-painting stained-glass artist who’s nobody’s pushover, a lawyer who schedules her own breakdown, a single mom who knows the cheapest cut of every meat, prize bull Marble Hill Ranch No. 11, and more.

Kate Lamonica isn't Koti James' type. Too small. Too dark. And heaps too much work. So it's an easy bet that he can be her friend for six weeks without making a move on her, no matter what his mates would have said. Kate can't believe she's made the bet at all. New Zealand had seemed like the perfect escape from the stalker who'd threatened first her peace of mind and then her life. She certainly doesn't need any more trouble. Why on earth has she agreed to spend time with a Maori rugby player who's far too handsome and charming for his own good - and knows it?

Marko Sendoa isn't a beach man. He's not an Auckland man. He's a hard man. Born Basque, raised in the heart of New Zealand's Southern Alps, and bred on hard work, discipline, and getting the job done. It's not easy for a rugby flanker to make it to age 32 at the top of his game, but he's done it. Next year is the Rugby World Cup, and he'll do whatever it takes to be on the field in the black jersey when the anthems are sung. He doesn't need a kitten. He doesn't need a pregnant cousin. He definitely doesn't need a too-short, distractingly curvy, totally unimpressed Maori barista.

Eight smoking-hot rugby players. Eight partners. Seventeen kids. Beaches and barbecues and beer, salt and sand and sea. Family and good mates and no worries. December in New Zealand. One very pregnant, very tired Hannah Montgomery Callahan is playing hostess to it all, doing her best and wondering if her best is good enough. And one legendary All Black captain is willing to do whatever it takes to show her that when he promised to be there for her forever, he meant it.

State of my professional life: Brilliant, if counted in terms of sales of eight Poppy Cantwell children's books starring my often-confused blue hippo, Hazel; the very substantial proceeds from selling my Kiwi Adventures New Zealand glamping business; and any number of glossy magazine articles about my charmed existence. Of course, I couldn't seem to write or draw anymore, but that would pass. Surely.

Kayla Chambers knows what love is - and what it isn't. When her boyfriend turns abusive, she and her son escape to a new life in a place where he'll never find them. The idyllic town of Paradise, Idaho, has everything she needs to get back on her feet. Survival is her only goal, and the last thing she wants is another man in her life.

When discipline is your life, structure’s a good thing, and Owen Johnson’s got plenty of both. An All-Pro NFL center who’s also a cattle rancher? Yeah, that’s structure. His marriage didn’t work out, but then, he picked the wrong woman. A Wyoming ranch doesn’t look nearly as romantic up close. Not to a model, anyway. Next time, he’ll choose better. Not, for example, a 19-year-old ball of fire like Dyma Cardello, who’s just starting on her own journey. To become an astronautical engineer. After about five years of schooling. Which she’s focused on like, well, a rocket.

Everyone needs to be rescued sometimes. Everyone but Hannah Montgomery, that is. She just needs a vacation. Three weeks in New Zealand to sort out her life, figure out what she wants, seems just right. Oh, and to relax. She should definitely put that on the agenda. She certainly isn't looking for a fling with a professional rugby player, no matter how attractive he is. Hannah doesn't do casual. But maybe just this once.…

Kevin McNicholl may be a brutal force on the rugby field, but off the field, the star New Zealand All Black is a famously nice guy. His new tenant, though, arouses more than his protective side. She sets him on fire. Pity he's evicting her. Every woman deserves her dreams. Chloe Donaldson can't afford dreams, though, so she's given them up. Marriage, her ballet career, and now, her beautiful tower apartment with its view of the sea. Her new landlord is kicking her out, along with her three-year-old son, Zavy.

Will Tawera doesn't do commitment, except on the rugby field. Moving to Las Vegas to become a kicker for the NFL would be a big change from New Zealand rugby, but then, he's ready for a change. And when he's asked to do a little modeling on the side? Thousands of dollars to hold a beautiful blonde while looking dark, dangerous, tattooed, and Maori? He could do that.

I never asked Hemi Te Mana to rescue me. It was true that I had a lousy job. Not to mention a lousy apartment and too much responsibility, although it was a responsibility I wouldn't have given up for the world. That still didn't mean I needed rescuing, if that was what you'd call the situation I ended up in. And anyway, I knew that a multimillionaire Maori CEO with too many muscles, a tribal tattoo, and a take-no-prisoners attitude was way, way out of my league.

There's that phrase, though. "How's that working out for you?" The answer, when it came to Hope Sinclair, was, "not so well". She might be little, she might be sweet, and she might be young, but if I'd thought she'd be compliant anywhere but in bed, I'd learned my lesson. To keep her, I had to let her go. To hold her, I had to turn her loose. To have her in my life, I had to accept that she was 9,000 miles away in New Zealand.