In mood to let you hair down? It is only Tuesday and I want to climb out the window!
Enjoy these Rapunzel Themed Romance Novels!
My lists are never in any particular order.
1. Zelle and the Tower by Rrebekah R. Ganiere
Sweet and naïve Rapunzelle possesses a dangerous and powerful magick. Her entire life has been spent in a mage tower built by her father, to keep her safe. Or so she's been told. Flint Gwyn has spent the better part of the last year wandering Fairelle, wanting nothing more than to wash away the pain of letting his family down. Between drinking and womanizing he plummets in to despair, with only Dax the werebear to keep him from getting himself killed. When Flint and Dax stumble into Zelle's tower while running from a dragon, she finds herself drawn to him in a way that awakens startling memories she cannot place. And the longer he stays, the closer she comes to losing her heart. Unable to control his feelings for the lonely maiden who brings him peace for the first time in his life, Flint fights to release her from her prison. But in doing so, he may very well bring down the wrath of an evil that's plagued Fairelle for a hundred years.
2. Tarnished Knight by Shiloh Walker
ne look at Jack Wallace and Perci knows he’s going to be trouble. Even surrounded by soul stealers, he’s a one-man wrecking crew. What does he need Grimm training for? He’s already hell on earth, a warrior bent on destruction. And something…more.
He’s too strong and fast to be a mere mortal. Even covered in blood, he makes her forget she’s only here to do a job and get out. It’s twisted. Sick. She hasn’t felt this alive in three centuries.
Born with a natural talent for killing unnatural things, Jack has always known things he shouldn’t. The fact that Perci is one of them glows all over her. Giving him an unholy urge to see just how far he can push her before don’t touch me melts into touch me there.
When they come together, it isn’t careful or cautious. It’s heaven and hell, exposing all their raw and wounded places to healing heat, resurrecting memories of a destined love from the distant past. But the evil that destroyed them once before has tracked them here, threatening their second and last chance at forever. Demanding a sacrifice no one—Grimm or human—should ever be asked to make…
3. Rapunzel in New York by Nikki Logan
Galloping up a crumbling tower block, he crashed into the chamber where she was imprisoned! The Maiden gasped and said – that she was perfectly happy, thank you very much, and certainly didn’t need saving, especially by a smug, designer-suited billionaire, and why had he just kicked in her front door?
It’s sometimes hard for a modern damsel in distress to admit she needs rescuing – but at least this heroine plans to rescue her hero right back!
4. The Chocolate Kiss by Laura Florand
The Heart of Paris
Welcome to La Maison des Sorcieres. Where the window display is an enchanted forest of sweets, a collection of conical hats delights the eye and the habitués nibble chocolate witches from fanciful mismatched china. While in their tiny blue kitchen, Magalie Chaudron and her two aunts stir wishes into bubbling pots of heavenly chocolat chaud.
But no amount of wishing will rid them of interloper Philippe Lyonais, who has the gall to open one of his world famous pastry shops right down the street. Philippe's creations seem to hold a magic of their own, drawing crowds of beautiful women to their little isle amidst the Seine, and tempting even Magalie to venture out of her ivory tower and take a chance, a taste. . .a kiss.
Parisian princesses, chocolate witches, pâtissier princes and sweet wishes--an enchanting tale of amour et chocolat.
5. Golden Stair by Jennifer Blackstream
A devil-may-care incubus with a ravenous appetite . . .
Adonis is a demon prince determined to bury his desire for love in the pleasures of the flesh. Bound by a vow to maintain his physical form, Adonis requires a great deal of energy just to live, energy he can only absorb through the carnal arts…more energy than any one woman could ever provide. Adonis knows he could never offer a woman the fidelity she would deserve as his wife, and so carries on with his wild ways, his cryptic smile hidden behind a puff of smoke. No woman can reach beyond the heat of his embrace to touch his heart. Not even the golden-haired maid whose lonely eyes keep wooing him back to her side.
A damsel in distress with the power to destroy him . . .
Ivy has lived in a tower, locked away from the rest of the world, for her entire life. Her mother, a witch who leads the resistance against the bloodthirsty kings of the five kingdoms, is her only company. Ivy knows that her battle-weary mother relies on the golden power flowing through her veins for the energy to continue the good fight, but she can’t completely smother the selfish yearning to see the world beyond the safety of their hidden valley…especially when her wildest fantasy almost literally falls into her lap. Despite their best intentions, they’re drawn together like phoenixes to flame—and if they’re not careful, they’ll both burn.
An incubus can only deny his nature for so long . . .
Long golden hair. A tower with no stairs. A witch with serious possession issues. Debilitating blindness. None of these are enough to keep a demon from climbing…the Golden Stair.
6. Cress by Marissa Meyer
Cinder and Captain Thorne are fugitives on the run, now with Scarlet and Wolf in tow. Together, they're plotting to overthrow Queen Levana and prevent her army from invading Earth.
Their best hope lies with Cress, a girl trapped on a satellite since childhood who's only ever had her netscreens as company. All that screen time has made Cress an excellent hacker. Unfortunately, she's being forced to work for Queen Levana, and she's just received orders to track down Cinder and her handsome accomplice.
When a daring rescue of Cress goes awry, the group is splintered. Cress finally has her freedom, but it comes at a higher price than she'd ever expected. Meanwhile, Queen Levana will let nothing prevent her marriage to Emperor Kai, especially the cyborg mechanic. Cress, Scarlet, and Cinder may not have signed up to save the world, but they may be the only hope the world has.
7. Rapunzel by Selena Kitt
Rachel runs Rapunzel’s, a high-end salon on the lower level of a downtown Chicago high rise and lives happily in self-imposed exile in an apartment at the top of the tower—that is until Jake Malden walks in with his teen daughter, Emma, and presents Rachel with a dilemma.
Young Emma is determined to defy her mother’s wishes and get her long, beautiful, untouched hair cut off so she can donate it to charity to honor a friend with cancer.
Rachel’s decision to cut the girl’s hair starts a snowball of drama, turmoil and hidden secrets rolling downhill on a course with destiny that no one is able to stop, one that ultimately threatens not only Rachel’s livelihood, but her slowly melting heart as well.
8. Braided Silk by Ella Drake
Rapunzel was made with technologically advanced hair. As a trained Mother agent, Zel can't escape the DNA that makes her a pawn in corporate espionage. Kidnapped and held in a tower on Gothel Island, she falls to the sexual allure of her captor’s son, Langley, a man whose every tantalizing touch makes her forget she wasn’t born human.
Langley Gothel protests the existence of creations such as Zel, but when faced with losing her, he sees the truth: Life is precious, whether born, modified, or shaped in a Petri dish. He does the one thing he's thought he'd never do. He has to give up Zel, or become a mod. But will that be enough to get them down from the floating islands and safely to ground?
9. The Crystal Heart by Sophie Masson
girl in a tower. An underground kingdom. A crystal heart split in two, symbolising true love lost . . .
When Kasper joins the elite guard watching over a dangerous prisoner in a tower, he believes he is protecting his country from a powerful witch.
Until one day he discovers the prisoner is a beautiful princess - Izolda of Night- who is condemned by a prophecy to die on her eighteenth birthday. Kasper decides to help her escape. But their hiding place won't remain secret forever.
Will they find their happily ever after?
10. Golden by Cameron Dokey
efore Rapunzel's birth, her mother made a dangerous deal with the sorceress Melisande: If she could not love newborn Rapunzel just as she appeared, she would surrender the child to Melisande. When Rapunzel was born completely bald and without hope of ever growing hair, her horrified mother sent her away with the sorceress to an uncertain future.
After sixteen years of raising Rapunzel as her own child, Melisande reveals that she has another daughter, Rue, who was cursed by a wizard years ago and needs Rapunzel's help. Rue and Rapunzel have precisely "two nights and the day that falls between" to break the enchantment. But bitterness and envy come between the girls, and if they fail to work together, Rue will remain cursed...forever.
Vote on my Goodreads list so the best retelling win: Rapunzel Themed Romance Novels .
The circumstances where I can accept not telling the father about a child are really limited and don't often come up in Romance Novels. The secret baby isn't my favorite trope but none the less there are some really good books out there with this theme.
I am defining the Secret Baby Trope as the hero and the heroine had a baby or became pregnant, but, due to circumstances, the hero only found out about the child some time later. The couple is the heroine who became pregnant and the hero who fathered the child.
Since the Series/Category Romance (Mills and Boon, Harlequin) has made an art from out of this theme, I thought it would be fun to look at the Best Secret Baby in Series Romance.
Here we go!
1. Rodeo Daddy by Marin Thomas
The day Hallie Sutton dreaded has finally come. Drew Rawlins has found out the secret she's been keeping—and he's spitting mad! But the rodeo is Drew's whole world and Hallie needs a full-time dad for their boy. Still, how can she deny the injured bronc rider the chance to get to know his son?
All Drew wants is to carve out a place in his son's life. Sorting out his feelings for Hallie isn't as simple. The emotion simmering between them is just as strong—so's the red-hot desire that got them into trouble five years ago. Winning the world championship is still number one on Drew's list. But he figures he can have it all. The title and the chance to prove he's the man Hallie and Nick need.
2. Marriage Material by Ruth Wind
FATHER MATERIAL…
Lance Forrest was the sexiest thing Tamara Flynn ever laid eyes on. Once, he'd hightailed it out of Red Creek, Colorado, on his wild reputation, leaving behind a string of broken hearts and a son he never knew about. A son Tamara raised as her own.
HUSBAND MATERIAL?
When he walked back into her life five years later, Tamara knew she could no longer deny Lance the knowledge of his son, or the joy of his company. But the more time the three of them spent together, the more Lance started to feel like family. Tamara had always thought Lance and marriage didn't mix…until now.
3. Everyday, Average Jones by Suzanne Brockmann
All her life Melody Evans has wanted to marry a plain, average man who didn't take risks. But when the foreign embassy where she works as an aide is taken over by terrorists and she's rescued by a daring navy SEAL, Melody blames the extreme circumstances for their ensuing passion. When it comes to ordinary, Harlan "Cowboy" Jones is anything but, and their encounter leaves Melody with a little more than just memories . . .
Seven months later when Cowboy pays Melody a visit, he's surprised to find her pregnant -- with his child. Now all he has to do is convince her that they are meant to be together. That he can be as ordinary as the next guy. The only problem is, once a hero, always a hero . . .
4. The Bride's Baby by Liz Fielding
The moment she first saw her best friend's fiancé, Tom, Sylvie could feel her heart rate rising. She quells those feelings and focuses on preparing her friend's wedding as the professional event planner that she is, but then the bride disappears right before the wedding! Sylvie ends up spending a passionate night with Tom, to comfort him during his time of loss. She then sends him a letter telling him that she's pregnant with his child, but when she doesn't hear back from him, Sylvie feels betrayed and unwanted. What are the chances that they'd be reunited by a magazine project to design her "dream wedding," which lands her in the role of the bride and him as the groom?
5. Hold on Tight by Serena Bell
Fighting for his country gave Jake Taylor’s life shape and meaning. Now as an injured war hero he struggles to find purpose, until he runs into the gorgeous woman he dated briefly—and disastrously—before being deployed eight years ago. Turns out Jake doesn’t just need to figure out how to be a civilian . . . he also needs to learn how to be a dad.
Eighteen, pregnant, and totally lost, Mira Shipley couldn’t track down the soldier who fathered her child, so she put college on hold and focused on making a good life for her son. Now she’s determined to be something more than Sam’s mom, her parents’ daughter, or Jake’s girl—as hot as she finds her old flame’s take-charge attitude in and out of bed. Soon Mira and Jake realize that their passion didn’t disappear when Sam was conceived—and that instead of running away, sometimes it’s better to hold on tight.
6. Her Secret, His Surprise by Paula Altenburg
Since being disowned by her strict father, Cass Stone has spent her adulthood trying to prove him wrong. Her drive has led to more success than her family ever thought she’d achieve, and life is looking great. Not even an incredible and mysterious one night stand that leaves her a single mom can trip her up...until the father of her baby stumbles back into her life, as sexy and unreliable as ever.
Logan Alexander hasn’t forgotten the night he spent with Cass two years ago, but he never expects to end up undercover as her assistant. His job saves lives—like it should have saved his brother—and he can’t afford complications. It’s difficult enough to maintain his cover as a carefree wanderer when he realizes his attraction to Cass hasn’t faded...and then he meets Cass’s daughter.
7. Their Newborn Gift by Nikki Logan
When Lea became accidentally pregnant she decided that she would go it alone. Rodeo star Reilly wasn't the sort of man who'd want to be tied down. But five years later she needs to tell him her secret....
Learning he's a daddy is bittersweet for Reilly, because his little girl is fighting to survive. Her only hope is a new brother or sister. Can he and Lea create a newborn miracle--and a future together?
8. The Billionaire's Baby by Leanne Banks
Garrett Winslow wants a woman to love him for himself, not for his family's money. So when he meets Haley Turner while on vacation in Mexico, he keeps his real name a secret. A family crisis abruptly ends their spring fling, and Garrett heads home, never knowing the night he spent with Haley has changed both of their lives forever...
9. The Secret Baby Bond by Cindy Gerard
But much had changed in the two years Michael Paige had been presumed dead. Though he still loved her, his wife now wore another man's diamond--and Michael had a son. A beautiful boy he'd never seen before. That changed everything.
Tara Connelly Paige thought she'd seen a ghost. But her husband was a flesh-and-blood male. One touch of his hands still stirred her desire.... But when he'd regained his memory, would he recall she'd asked for a divorce the day he'd disappeared? Tara wouldn't keep him from his son, but could they be the family Michael claimed he now wanted?
10. Marrying the Marshal by Laura Marie Altom
U.S. Marshal Caleb Logue walks into Judge Allie Hayworth's office to find the woman who wouldn't marry him—and the son he didn't know he had. Protecting them is his latest assignment, but Allie soon discovers Caleb's main priority is getting to know his little boy—and making her agree to his proposal.
After all these years, nothing has changed—she refuses to marry a man whose idea of fun is dodging bullets. Not after she lost her own cop father when she was just a girl. Allie would do anything to protect her son from that type of pain. Marrying the marshal is definitely out of the question…but how can Allie refuse, when two identical pairs of green eyes look up at her, wanting her to say yes?
Whatcha got? Let me know your favorite Secret Baby Romance in Series Romance!