Synopsis
Abducted from her convent school at 17, headstrong Scottish beauty Jennifer Merrick does not easily surrender to 29 year old Royce Westmoreland, Duke of Claymore. Known as "The Wolf"; his very name strikes terror in the hearts of his enemies. But proud Jennifer will have nothing to do with the fierce English warrior who holds her captive, this handsome rogue who taunts her with his blazing arrogance. Boldly she challenges his will... until the night he takes her in his powerful embrace, awakening in her an irresistible hunger. And suddenly Jennifer finds herself ensnared in a bewildering web... a seductive, dangerous trap of pride, passion, loyalty, and overwhelming love.
Westmoreland Series:
A Kingdom of Dreams (Westmoreland, #1)
Whitney, My Love (Westmoreland, #2)
Until You (Westmoreland, #3)
Miracles (Westmoreland, #3.5)
The following Contain "Miracles" (Westmoreland, #3.5):
Simple Gifts: Just Curious / Miracles / Change of Heart / Double Exposure (Westmoreland, #3.5)
A Holiday of Love (Westmoreland, #3.5)
Characters from the Westmoreland Dynasty Saga universe appear across the Sequels novels. If you'd like to read in order:
A Kingdom of Dreams (Westmoreland, #1)
Once and Always (Sequels, #1)
Something Wonderful (Sequels, #2)
Almost Heaven (Sequels, #3)
Whitney, My Love (Westmoreland, #2)
Until You (Westmoreland, #3)
Miracles (Westmoreland, #3.5)
The following Contain "Miracles" (Westmoreland, #3.5):
Simple Gifts: Just Curious / Miracles / Change of Heart / Double Exposure (Westmoreland, #3.5)
A Holiday of Love (Westmoreland, #3.5)
Recommendations
Flame and the Flower, The
by Unknown
Woodiwiss pioneered the historical romance formula that McNaught perfected, and this 1972 novel has that same intoxicating blend of kidnapping-turned-passion and enemies navigating genuine class divides. Where McNaught gives you the psychological complexity of her characters' resistance, Woodiwiss leans into the sensory richness of period detail—you'll feel the ship's timbers and taste the salt air while watching two people circle each other with equal parts fury and desire.
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Shadow of the Wind
by Carlos Ruiz Zafon
This is the curveball recommendation, but hear me out: like McNaught, Zafón builds entire worlds through the intensity of romantic obsession, and his Barcelona is as much a character as Jennifer or Royce. The mystery of a hidden author mirrors the mystery of who these people really are beneath their pride and circumstance. It's got that same gothic atmosphere—secrets, old houses, the weight of the past—but filtered through literary mystery rather than pure romance.
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Devil's Bride
by Stephanie Laurens
Laurens writes Regency romance with the same architectural precision McNaught uses for her medieval settings—every glance carries weight, every conversation is a negotiation of power. Her hero is equally commanding and dangerous, but what makes this sing is how she writes the heroine's internal resistance: she doesn't just fall, she argues with herself about falling, which gives the eventual surrender real stakes.
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The Bronze Horseman
by Paullina Simons
Simons takes the McNaught formula—two people from opposing worlds, impossible circumstances, overwhelming chemistry—and sets it against the siege of Leningrad, which means the external conflict is as brutal and unforgiving as the internal one. The romance doesn't exist in a bubble of historical adventure; it's tested by actual survival, actual loss, which gives Jennifer and Royce's journey a kind of moral weight that lingers long after you finish.
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The Dating Game
by Kate William
A completely different era (contemporary) but the same DNA: two people who are absolutely certain they despise each other, locked in proximity, discovering that contempt and attraction are closer cousins than they thought. Thorne writes the verbal sparring with the same precision McNaught uses for physical tension—every insult is foreplay, every argument is a dance. It's lighter in tone but equally addictive.
View bookAbout Judith McNaught
J
Judith McNaught
Born 1944
Judith Spaeth was born in May 10, 1944 in San Luis Obispo, California, USA, and grew up all over the country, the oldest of three children of an appliance-store franchiser and a housewife. Before majored in Business at Northwestern University, Judy married with a dentist from St. Louis, Missouri, and they had two children, a daugther, Whitney (b. 1967), and a son, Clay (1969). But the marriage didn't work out, and at 25, she became a divorced mother to two. She worked as comptroller of a major trucking company and was the first female executive producer at a CBS radio station. In 1974, while working as an assistant director on a TV-commercial film crew in St. Louis, she met an advertising director at General Motors, Michael McNaught, a divorced father of five. The pair married later that year and moved with her children to a Detroit suburb. Judy devoted herself to homemaking and slowly went little crazy. She started to read in her spare time, and she bought by accident her first romance: "The Flame and the Flower" by Kathleen E. Woodiwiss, and she loved it. With her husband encouragement, who buying her a new typewriter, she decided to try writing a novel herself in 1978. She wrote her first manuscript, "Whitney, My Love", a historical novel with the names of her childrens as protagonist, but she cannot found a publisher. She decided wrotre a contemporary romance, "Tender Triumph" and she sold in January 1982, the next month her sister Debbie died of an allergic reaction to medication. In June 19, 1983, her husband Mike, a hunter, was killed in an acciden while cleaning his guns, he died in her arms. The next day, the cover art for "Tender Triumph" came in the mail, but she had lost the interesting in write. She and her children moved to Dallas, Texas, close to friends. Her books "Double Standards" and "Whitney, My Love" had been published, and after two years lost to mourning, she began writing again. She remarried a third time with Don Smith, a engineer and professional golfer, and moved to Friendswood, but the marriage ended friendly after three years in May 1993. Judy lives in a white-columned waterfront mansion near Galveston, Texas. Her children have grown up, her daugther was now a teacher, and her son an accounts manager.
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