A Lady Divided

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Releases August 28, 2025
House of Fire
Book 1

Just when she thinks she’s defeated the past, it returns with a vengeance.

Fighting to keep her late husband’s dream alive and her land-grabbing neighbors at bay, Laurel Tillman longs for a peace she knew before the war. But when her skill with a rifle saves a stranger from a mountain lion attack—a man whose life she once wouldn’t have hesitated to take—wartime memories rush back.

While raising her daughter and taking responsibility for the stray women who work on her sheep ranch, Laurel can’t wait to get the injured Yankee out of her house. Getting him out of her heart is an entirely different matter.

Quinn Spencer, a former Union cavalry officer, owes Laurel a debt, but his career as a new lawyer in town comes with a warning to stay away from the unconventional women of La Casa del Fuego. Then, with the discovery of a dead man on Laurel’s ranch, Quinn must choose between his career and justice for a woman who can’t bear the sight of him.

As they battle an unknown adversary who sets out to destroy Laurel, will she join forces with her former enemy? Or will she allow the past to overcome any chance of a truce between them . . . and, possibly, something more?

Meet the women of La Casa del Fuego—House of Fire—as circumstances compel them to live their lives outside the bounds of accepted femininity.

Grounding us skillfully in the post-Civil war era, Sandra Ardoin weaves a story that is filled with romance, mystery, and authentic characters readers will cheer on until the last page. I loved the motley crew that make up La Casa del Fuego ranch in A Lady Divided, and I eagerly await the rest of this series!

~ Heidi Chiavaroli, two-time Carol award-winning author of The Orchard House and Hope Beyond the Waves