#17: Duty or Desire by Brenda Jackson

 A Colorado sheriff takes in his niece upon the death of her parents, but a beautiful nanny throws an additional wrinkle into the mix, in Brenda Jackson's Duty or Desire.

Jackson is a popular African-American romance writer whose "Westmoreland Saga" features an extended family of lawmen, ranchers, cowboys, Navy SEALS, and sometimes a combination of one or more of these.  They are typically avowed bachelors who fall in love with a Harvard PhD, a prominent magazine editor, or a Hollywood star (just to mention some of the characters from other novels who appear here).

The romance aspect is never in doubt, but the setting is faintly sketched in (the nanny has a father who is a "business tycoon", but what his business is never gets mentioned) and the tension is mild (the top cop in Denver's most serious case is finding out who is trying to spook an old lady into selling her house).

But that's not what these novels are read for, and Jackson is a top writer in her field.  

I listened to this on audiobook from the Henry County-New Castle Public Library in New Castle, Indiana.

#36: His Secret Son by Brenda Jackson

A Navy SEAL and an art student meet in Paris over the holidays, and have a brief romance; a few years later they are reunited, and have a surprise son in the mix, in Brenda Jackson's His Secret Son.

Directly after their long weekend in Paris, the SEAL is captured in Libya and presumed dead; when he is rescued, he starts the hunt to find his previous love, now a famous New York artist.  How they eventually reunite, and rekindle their romance, is the center of pretty low-level tension in this story.

But the characters and situations are interesting throughout thanks to Jackson, who is notable in the romance world for being a writer of color and for writing stories featuring various racial backgrounds.

I listened to this on audiobook, on loan from the New Castle-Henry County Library in New Castle, Indiana, which was given a very good read by Pete Ohms.

#34: Classified K-9 Unit Christmas by Lenora Worth and Terri Reed

The stalwart FBI agents at at K-9 training center in Billings, Montana take on various bad guys in this pair of novellas by Lenora Worth and Terri Reed, Classified K-9 Unit Christmas.

In the first, an agent and her dog stumble across a hired assassin targeting college girls.  She teams with a handsome U.S. marshal to figure out what is going on, which ends up reaching up into the highest levels of state government.  In the second, a K-9 and his handler, who specialize in arson, investigates a series of blazes, beginning with a homeless shelter at Christmas.  When the arsonist targets a pretty baker and her family, the agent and his dog have additional motivation.

This was a decent but undemanding pair of connected stories, with religious undertones and value added with character and setting.  This is part of a series Harlequin released about K-9 officers and features characters from other stories.

I got this one from a big lot of Harlequin romances on eBay and read it quickly.

#33: Montana Royalty by B.J. Daniels

A woman tries to hang on to her failing ranch, even as a royal family from a hazy European nation tries to buy up all the land; but a passionate night in a line shack with a royal horseman ups the stakes for both in B.J. Daniels' Montana Royalty.

Daniels does a mash-up of  the ranch romance story and the royal romance story, and doesn't leave any stone unturned.  There is a hidden birth certificate, two surprise pregnancies, two murders, two attempted murders, a masquerade ball, and a climactic blizzard.

This one has a little something for everyone who enjoys romance novels and was helped by a good audiobook read by Abby Craden.

I checked this out from the New Castle-Henry County Public Library in New Castle, Indiana.