Thanks guys, I will check that out. A little about myself: I am recently widowed, I live in the mid west in a 2 year old patio home. I have two friends in the development who keep me so busy, it's hard to find reading time. My main interest right now is traveling. I have been reading since the first grade teacher stopped reading books to the class. My favorite books are historical novels...not the romances. I just bought......and am re-reading the Outlander series. That's some heavy reading, about 800 pages per book and 6 in the series. I also like The Earth Children Series. I ran out of historical novels years ago and went to books about strong women, Danielle Steele's books for example. I like light reading most of the time. Books like The Little Lady Agency by Hester Brown, her second was Little Lady, Big Apple. I like Fern Michaels, they are such an easy read which helps at my age. I especially like her Sisterhood Series and Hey Goodlooking. Another one I like is Night Swimming by Robin Schwarz. The list goes on and on. If you don't mind I will hang in here for a while. There was another book I was interested in. If I remember right the title was "Under the ____ Tree". It was about a woman who's husband surprised her with a divorce, he gave her nothing except a house in a small town and kicked her out. In spite of feeling so alone, she makes a life for herself in her new environment. I am going to check out Ladder of Years, thanks again.

I tend to have runs on authors. I'll enjoy one of their books, and then try to get hold of lots more hoping that they'll be as good. Unfortunatly they seldom are. A good example is Iain Banks. I read "The Crow road", and enjoyed it - I then got "Whit", which is wonderful. After that, "Complicity" - which is pretty gory, but compulsive reading. I then worked through the rest of his canon in search of anything as good - but the only other one that came close for me was "Espedair Street". The rest fail, for me, for various reasons - "Song of Stone" is vile. (McCarthy's "The Road" reminded me of this), "The Business" seemed rather pointless, "Canal Dreams" belongs in a airport deparure lounge and nowhere else. His celebrated first book "The Wasp Factory" I found OK, but none of his other books have the same charm I found in the first three that I read. But I still buy them when they come out, in the hope.... I've not read any of his science fiction (Iain M Banks), perhaps that's one for the "irrational avoid despite" thread. Wodehouse never fails to disappont. I've read just about all of them (that I can find - I'm still missing a handful of rarities), and most at least twice. As Wodehouse only really wrote about three basic plots, and tirelessly repackaged them with his wonderful use of language, it doesn't really matter if you've read them before. I use them to punctuate more serious reading - or get me back into the habit of reading when I have a "dry spell".

What A Gentleman Wants, by Caroline Linden. I haven't read it, but your description gave me enough information to find it in a google advanced search, using the words "romance novel," "Marcus," and, "widow." I'll put a link below to the Amazon listing, with descriptions of the same plot you describe: Here is a link that might be useful: What A Gentleman Wants

Getting toward the end of GWTW and still enjoying the vivid portrayal of that time and place, but am very thankful that society's attitudes toward racial equality are different now than in the era portrayed. I recently listened to a very compelling nonfiction audiobook that shows positive moves in this area Gentle Giant of Dynamite Hill. It portrays Arthur Shores, who worked very hard to finance his law school education and who was one of the first black lawyers in Birmingham. He was involved in the civil rights movement and successfully pursued the rights of blacks through the court system. He persisted despite his family's fear when their home was bombed twice and, during this time, there was a bombing of a predominantly black-attended church in which several young girls died.