Books like Devil's Desire

Devil's Desire by Laurie McBain reads as passionate, adventurous. These 12 books share its genome — matched by how they actually read, not just their shelf label.

What Devil's Desire is like to read

A stormy forced-marriage historical romance driven by clashing wills, jealousy, and slow-melting passion between a rakish lord and an innocent bride. Best for: readers who love 1970s bodice-ripper historicals with forced-marriage tropes and an emotionally guarded rake.

So Worthy My Love

Kathleen E. Woodiwiss · 1950

An Elizabethan captor-captive romance where revenge politics and courtly intrigue tangle with a slow-burning battle of wits between two evenly matched adversaries.

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Surrender to Love

Rosemary Rogers · 1982

A passionate, continent-spanning romance in which a spirited heroine navigates dangerous passion and desire while torn between two men and her own need for independence.

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Skye O'Malley

Bertrice Small · 1980

A sweeping, globe-spanning historical romance following a bold seafaring heroine through passion, peril, and political intrigue across Elizabethan Europe and North Africa.

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Bold Conquest

Virginia Henley · 1983

A swashbuckling 1980s bodice-ripper romance where a Norman conqueror and his captive noblewoman spar their way to love amid war's aftermath.

guaranteed HEAhigh heatdeep cut

Fires of Winter

Johanna Lindsey · 1980

A captive-and-captor Viking romance built on defiance and reluctant attraction, playing the era's bodice-ripper conventions of forced proximity and shifting power straight.

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Brazen Ecstasy (Gray Eagle, 4)

Janelle Taylor · 1983

Shares the romance + vornate thread

Tears of gold

Laurie McBain · 1979

A sweeping historical romance of abduction and unlikely passion between a Scottish heiress and Viking warlord, driven by McBain's signature intense romantic drama and intimate character stakes.

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Devil's Embrace

Catherine Coulter · 1982

A bodice-ripper of captivity and coerced desire set against 18th-century Italy, driven by a stormy, non-consenting-to-consenting power dynamic between an abducted heroine and her aristocratic captor.

guaranteed HEAhigh heatcliffhanger

A Kingdom of Dreams

Judith McNaught · 1989

A sweeping medieval captor-captive romance where pride and loyalty collide before passion; the enemies-to-lovers heat builds through defiance and forced proximity into overwhelming love.

guaranteed HEAhigh heatcomplete story

Whisper to Me of Love

Shirlee Busbee · 1991

A lush, old-school historical romance built on rescue, hidden identity, and simmering desire between a wild orphan and her wealthy protector — melodramatic, passionate, and plot-driven toward a guaranteed happy ending.

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