Desert Prince, Defiant Virgin


Book Description

As heir to the throne, Prince Tair Al Sharif is driven by duty to his country, and indulges in women on a mistress-only basis. Beige-wearing, bespectacled Molly James is certainly not the kind of woman he usually beds. But Tair is outraged to be told that dowdy Molly is actually a seductress in disguise! She needs to be stopped! Taking her as a captive to the desert, he discovers this Miss Mouse is innocent—in every way. Now Tair wants her…as his bride!




Desert Prince's Defiant Bride


Book Description

Julieanne Howells entertains with this passionate desert romance in her stunning debut for Harlequin Presents! A royal ruse… …or a royal wedding? A pretend engagement to the future king of Nabhan wasn’t part of Lily Marchant’s plan for proving her brother’s innocence, but brooding Crown Prince Khaled is quite insistent. The simmering chemistry they share makes playing his fiancée in public easy—and resisting temptation in private nearly impossible! Impetuous Lily couldn’t be further from appropriate as a desert bride! Even so, Lily makes Khaled feel more alive than he’s felt in years. And the thought of a real dutiful marriage grows less attractive with every moment he spends in her intoxicating presence… From Harlequin Presents: Escape to exotic locations where passion knows no bounds.




The Prince's Waitress Wife


Book Description

A playboy prince pays the price for bedding a beautiful waitress—a baby and a wedding—in this classic contemporary romance. When virgin waitress Holly is thrown into the playboy prince’s arms, he lives up to his wicked reputation by bedding her—then casting her aside! Holly is pregnant! Casper is furious; Holly’s just a scheming gold digger, but royal protocol demands he make her his bride! Innocent Holly has the wedding of her dreams—and Casper knows her first duty as his convenient wife will be on their wedding night. . . . Originally published in 2008.




Snowbound in His Billion-Dollar Bed


Book Description

There’s no escaping their chemistry when the Italian count and the violinist are stranded in this intense forced proximity romance from Kali Anthony! Outside a snowstorm is raging Inside the temperature is rising… Ousted from Italian high society, Count Stefano Moretti has locked himself behind his castle walls. He’s determined to right the wrongs that ruined his family’s name. The arrival of beautiful Lucy Jamieson at his door is a distraction he can’t afford! Running from heartbreak, violinist Lucy is attempting to return a precious heirloom. Caught in a bitter snowstorm, she’s forced to seek shelter in Stefano’s castle, where she finds herself longing to unravel the truth behind his disgraced reputation…and to discover the searing heat promised in his bed! From Harlequin Presents: Escape to exotic locations where passion knows no bounds.




Desert Passions


Book Description

The Sheik—E. M. Hull’s best-selling novel that became a wildly popular film starring Rudolph Valentino—kindled “sheik fever” across the Western world in the 1920s. A craze for all things romantically “Oriental” swept through fashion, film, and literature, spawning imitations and parodies without number. While that fervor has largely subsided, tales of passion between Western women and Arab men continue to enthrall readers of today’s mass-market romance novels. In this groundbreaking cultural history, Hsu-Ming Teo traces the literary lineage of these desert romances and historical bodice rippers from the twelfth to the twenty-first century and explores the gendered cultural and political purposes that they have served at various historical moments. Drawing on “high” literature, erotica, and popular romance fiction and films, Teo examines the changing meanings of Orientalist tropes such as crusades and conversion, abduction by Barbary pirates, sexual slavery, the fear of renegades, the Oriental despot and his harem, the figure of the powerful Western concubine, and fantasies of escape from the harem. She analyzes the impact of imperialism, decolonization, sexual liberation, feminism, and American involvement in the Middle East on women’s Orientalist fiction. Teo suggests that the rise of female-authored romance novels dramatically transformed the nature of Orientalism because it feminized the discourse; made white women central as producers, consumers, and imagined actors; and revised, reversed, or collapsed the binaries inherent in traditional analyses of Orientalism.




DESERT PRINCE, DEFIANT VIRGIN


Book Description

Molly is from England, visiting the desert kingdom of Zarhat to meet her step-brother, Prince Taliq, for the first time. Unsure of what to expect, Molly meets another prince at the airport, falling in love at first sight while gazing into his blue eyes. Prince Tair is from a neighboring kingdom?and is also Taliq’s cousin. Tair falls in love with Molly, as well, but not knowing her relationship with Taliq, he mistakenly assumes the two are intimate after finding them alone together. Devastated, he devises a plot to break up the two?by kidnapping Molly and taking her deep into the desert…




Representing Difference in the Medieval and Modern Orientalist Romance


Book Description

This book, the first full-length cross-period comparison of medieval and modern literature, offers cutting edge research into the textual and cultural legacy of the Middle Ages: a significant and growing area of scholarship. At the juncture of literary, cultural and gender studies, and capitalizing on a renewed interest in popular western representations of the Islamic east, this book proffers innovative case studies on representations of cross-religious and cross-cultural romantic relationships in a selection of late medieval and twenty-first century Orientalist popular romances. Comparing the tropes, characterization and settings of these literary phenomena, and focusing on gender, religion, and ethnicity, the study exposes the historical roots of current romance representations of the east, advancing research in Orientalism, (neo)medievalism and medieval cultural studies. Fundamentally, Representing Difference invites a closer look at medieval and modern popular attitudes towards the east, as represented in romance, and the kinds of solutions proposed for its apparent problems.




The Sheikh And The Virgin


Book Description

I can’t believe I fell for him at first sight! One day, Beatrice is saved from a mugging by a handsome man who exudes a refined aura that makes her heart pound. She is surprised to learn that the man is Tariq, the crown prince of the kingdom of Zaharat! Beatrice stumbles over her thank-you as her heart races, but her words are met with a cold response. “I need you to break up with my younger brother Hareed immediately,” he says while offering her a fat check. He’s mistaken Beatrice for the awful woman who’s tricking his younger brother!




An Imperialist Love Story


Book Description

A curious figure stalks the pages of a distinct subset of mass-market romance novels, aptly called “desert romances.” Animalistic yet sensitive, dark and attractive, the desert prince or sheikh emanates manliness and raw, sexual power. In the years since September 11, 2001, the sheikh character has steadily risen in popularity in romance novels, even while depictions of Arab masculinity as backward and violent in nature have dominated the cultural landscape. An Imperialist Love Story contributes to the broader conversation about the legacy of orientalist representations of Arabs in Western popular culture. Combining close readings of novels, discursive analysis of blogs and forums, and interviews with authors, Jarmakani explores popular investments in the war on terror by examining the collisions between fantasy and reality in desert romances. Focusing on issues of security, freedom, and liberal multiculturalism, she foregrounds the role that desire plays in contemporary formations of U.S. imperialism. Drawing on transnational feminist theory and cultural studies, An Imperialist Love Story offers a radical reinterpretation of the war on terror, demonstrating romance to be a powerful framework for understanding how it works, and how it perseveres.




Claiming His Virgin Princess


Book Description

When their two worlds collide, the result is their passion! USA TODAY bestselling author Annie West enchants with this royal romance. A sheltered princess… And the man who could set her free! Hounded by the paparazzi and pitied by the public after two failed engagements, Princess Ilsa of Altbourg escapes to Monaco. She’ll finally let her hair down in private. Perhaps self-made Australian billionaire Noah Carson can help her do that… Women like Ilsa have always scorned Noah’s humble roots. So when an inferno sparks between them, he’s cautious, even while whisking Ilsa away on his lavish yacht! It’s clear opposites do attract…but if Noah claims her, can he be sure they can bridge the gap between their different worlds? From Harlequin Presents: Escape to exotic locations where passion knows no bounds. Read all the Royal Scandals books: Book 1: Pregnant with His Majesty's Heir Book 2: Claiming His Virgin Princess