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King's Girl #2
The Winter Husband
She wants no husband. He wants no wife.
Jailed for crimes unbecoming a lady, Marie yearns for liberty even as she refuses the one choice that will set her free: An arranged marriage with a frontier stranger. Then a brawny ex-soldier offers a more dangerous proposal. Spend one winter as his wife in name only, and come spring he will set her free…
Jailed for crimes unbecoming a lady, Marie yearns for liberty even as she refuses the one choice that will set her free: An arranged marriage with a frontier stranger. Then a brawny ex-soldier offers a more dangerous proposal. Spend one winter as his wife in name only, and come spring he will set her free…
371 pages, Kindle Edition
Published March 31, 2022
88 people are currently reading
53 people want to read
About the author
Lisa Ann Verge
31 books110 followersLisa Ann Verge was a PhD candidate in organic chemistry when she began writing emotionally-intense romances about hot men and dangerous women and, as Lisa Verge Higgins, penning life-affirming, critically acclaimed women’s fiction. Published worldwide in eighteen languages, Lisa has earned a Bean Pot and a RITA nomination and is the winner of three Golden Leaf trophies and five RT Book awards. When not writing, she hunts wild mushrooms, studies Turkish, and keeps tabs on the antics of her three wild-and-talented daughters.
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Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews
May 21, 2024
DNF at 45%
I really loved the first book in this series. This one just isn't hitting the same notes for me.
I really loved the first book in this series. This one just isn't hitting the same notes for me.
October 29, 2025
2.75⭐️ Kinda cute but also kinda boring.😅
April 3, 2022
The Winter Husband
King’s Girls #2
Lisa Ann Verge
The Winter Husband, #2 in Lisa Ann Verge’s King’s Girls series is an awesome historical romance, an action-packed tale of strength and determination. It’s based on the real Filles du roi, or King’s Daughters when between 1663 and 1673 King Louis XIV sent almost 800 women complete with a dowry to help settle down his rowdy inhabitants and settle his new French settlement of Quebec. Many of these female ancestors to modern day Canada were orphans like Lisa’s heroine Marie.
A Seventeenth Century Quebec prison is no place for a lady but that’s exactly where French born Marie Suzanne Duplessis finds herself. To get out she’s told she must trade this prison for the prison of an arranged marriage, but Marie has other ideas and is determined to deny all suitors until she can find a way back to her Paris orphanage. Then a giant of a man makes her an offer she can’t refuse.
Captain Lucas Girard is haunted by ghosts from the past and the only solace he has is a small cabin by the banks of the St. Lawrence river deep in the Canadian wilderness. To get it he must first get a wife, a wife he doesn’t want. A wife who if will agree to his terms will be free after spending one winter with him.
Will these two tortured souls survive a brutal Canadian winter without killing each other, or will they give into their powerful attraction instead?
No one can bring a novel to life like the master storytelling of Lisa Ann Verge and that fact is very evident in The Winter Husband where she has no trouble escorting her audience back to the mid seventeenth century and the wilds of a Canadian winter where the Northern Lights glow and game and predators roam the vast wilderness. The narrative is vivid and flowing and ripe with emotion and her characters are all unforgettable especially her standout stars Marie and Lucas. Marie especially is representative of the strong women who first settled Quebec, she’s tough yet cultured and literate and not afraid to face whatever the Canadian winter can throw at her. Lucas is the classical tortured warrior who suffers from what we now know is PTSD yet with all his handicaps is still an honorable man. Fans of this author, historical romance and the novels of Eloisa James and Julia Quinn will devour this unputdownable tale.
Merged review:
The Winter Husband
King’s Girls #2
Lisa Ann Verge
The Winter Husband, #2 in Lisa Ann Verge’s King’s Girls series is an awesome historical romance, an action-packed tale of strength and determination. It’s based on the real Filles du roi, or King’s Daughters when between 1663 and 1673 King Louis XIV sent almost 800 women complete with a dowry to help settle down his rowdy inhabitants and settle his new French settlement of Quebec. Many of these female ancestors to modern day Canada were orphans like Lisa’s heroine Marie.
A Seventeenth Century Quebec prison is no place for a lady but that’s exactly where French born Marie Suzanne Duplessis finds herself. To get out she’s told she must trade this prison for the prison of an arranged marriage, but Marie has other ideas and is determined to deny all suitors until she can find a way back to her Paris orphanage. Then a giant of a man makes her an offer she can’t refuse.
Captain Lucas Girard is haunted by ghosts from the past and the only solace he has is a small cabin by the banks of the St. Lawrence river deep in the Canadian wilderness. To get it he must first get a wife, a wife he doesn’t want. A wife who if will agree to his terms will be free after spending one winter with him.
Will these two tortured souls survive a brutal Canadian winter without killing each other, or will they give into their powerful attraction instead?
No one can bring a novel to life like the master storytelling of Lisa Ann Verge and that fact is very evident in The Winter Husband where she has no trouble escorting her audience back to the mid seventeenth century and the wilds of a Canadian winter where the Northern Lights glow and game and predators roam the vast wilderness. The narrative is vivid and flowing and ripe with emotion and her characters are all unforgettable especially her standout stars Marie and Lucas. Marie especially is representative of the strong women who first settled Quebec, she’s tough yet cultured and literate and not afraid to face whatever the Canadian winter can throw at her. Lucas is the classical tortured warrior who suffers from what we now know is PTSD yet with all his handicaps is still an honorable man. Fans of this author, historical romance and the novels of Eloisa James and Julia Quinn will devour this unputdownable tale.
King’s Girls #2
Lisa Ann Verge
The Winter Husband, #2 in Lisa Ann Verge’s King’s Girls series is an awesome historical romance, an action-packed tale of strength and determination. It’s based on the real Filles du roi, or King’s Daughters when between 1663 and 1673 King Louis XIV sent almost 800 women complete with a dowry to help settle down his rowdy inhabitants and settle his new French settlement of Quebec. Many of these female ancestors to modern day Canada were orphans like Lisa’s heroine Marie.
A Seventeenth Century Quebec prison is no place for a lady but that’s exactly where French born Marie Suzanne Duplessis finds herself. To get out she’s told she must trade this prison for the prison of an arranged marriage, but Marie has other ideas and is determined to deny all suitors until she can find a way back to her Paris orphanage. Then a giant of a man makes her an offer she can’t refuse.
Captain Lucas Girard is haunted by ghosts from the past and the only solace he has is a small cabin by the banks of the St. Lawrence river deep in the Canadian wilderness. To get it he must first get a wife, a wife he doesn’t want. A wife who if will agree to his terms will be free after spending one winter with him.
Will these two tortured souls survive a brutal Canadian winter without killing each other, or will they give into their powerful attraction instead?
No one can bring a novel to life like the master storytelling of Lisa Ann Verge and that fact is very evident in The Winter Husband where she has no trouble escorting her audience back to the mid seventeenth century and the wilds of a Canadian winter where the Northern Lights glow and game and predators roam the vast wilderness. The narrative is vivid and flowing and ripe with emotion and her characters are all unforgettable especially her standout stars Marie and Lucas. Marie especially is representative of the strong women who first settled Quebec, she’s tough yet cultured and literate and not afraid to face whatever the Canadian winter can throw at her. Lucas is the classical tortured warrior who suffers from what we now know is PTSD yet with all his handicaps is still an honorable man. Fans of this author, historical romance and the novels of Eloisa James and Julia Quinn will devour this unputdownable tale.
Merged review:
The Winter Husband
King’s Girls #2
Lisa Ann Verge
The Winter Husband, #2 in Lisa Ann Verge’s King’s Girls series is an awesome historical romance, an action-packed tale of strength and determination. It’s based on the real Filles du roi, or King’s Daughters when between 1663 and 1673 King Louis XIV sent almost 800 women complete with a dowry to help settle down his rowdy inhabitants and settle his new French settlement of Quebec. Many of these female ancestors to modern day Canada were orphans like Lisa’s heroine Marie.
A Seventeenth Century Quebec prison is no place for a lady but that’s exactly where French born Marie Suzanne Duplessis finds herself. To get out she’s told she must trade this prison for the prison of an arranged marriage, but Marie has other ideas and is determined to deny all suitors until she can find a way back to her Paris orphanage. Then a giant of a man makes her an offer she can’t refuse.
Captain Lucas Girard is haunted by ghosts from the past and the only solace he has is a small cabin by the banks of the St. Lawrence river deep in the Canadian wilderness. To get it he must first get a wife, a wife he doesn’t want. A wife who if will agree to his terms will be free after spending one winter with him.
Will these two tortured souls survive a brutal Canadian winter without killing each other, or will they give into their powerful attraction instead?
No one can bring a novel to life like the master storytelling of Lisa Ann Verge and that fact is very evident in The Winter Husband where she has no trouble escorting her audience back to the mid seventeenth century and the wilds of a Canadian winter where the Northern Lights glow and game and predators roam the vast wilderness. The narrative is vivid and flowing and ripe with emotion and her characters are all unforgettable especially her standout stars Marie and Lucas. Marie especially is representative of the strong women who first settled Quebec, she’s tough yet cultured and literate and not afraid to face whatever the Canadian winter can throw at her. Lucas is the classical tortured warrior who suffers from what we now know is PTSD yet with all his handicaps is still an honorable man. Fans of this author, historical romance and the novels of Eloisa James and Julia Quinn will devour this unputdownable tale.
April 5, 2022
Step back in time when life was harsh and lands were being settled in the Canadian wilderness.
Master storyteller Lisa Ann Verge weaves a tale of two strangers who are brought together, and forced to marry due to their circumstances. He wants the land and she wants to be free of jail and go back to France.
What neither bargains for is the attraction that blooms, as much as they both try to deny it. But being alone in the wilderness with four months until spring....
A wonderful story of survival, adventure, secrets held, determination and a love that will last a lifetime. If only they can withstand the journey to find it!!
Such wonderful descriptions and characters that bring this story alive and will leave you will a sigh as you turn the last page! Don't miss it and any stories by this author!
Master storyteller Lisa Ann Verge weaves a tale of two strangers who are brought together, and forced to marry due to their circumstances. He wants the land and she wants to be free of jail and go back to France.
What neither bargains for is the attraction that blooms, as much as they both try to deny it. But being alone in the wilderness with four months until spring....
A wonderful story of survival, adventure, secrets held, determination and a love that will last a lifetime. If only they can withstand the journey to find it!!
Such wonderful descriptions and characters that bring this story alive and will leave you will a sigh as you turn the last page! Don't miss it and any stories by this author!
February 26, 2023
I didn’t love this one as much as the first, partly because the h Marie had such a chip on her shoulder. I wasn’t feeling the tension and buildup between these characters like I was in the first novel. I hope things work out for Cecilia!
I sure am intrigued by this time in history though. These people were badass! I am looking for some good documentaries. Anyone know of any?
I sure am intrigued by this time in history though. These people were badass! I am looking for some good documentaries. Anyone know of any?
August 25, 2023
Canadian wilderness and kings brides nice reading
April 2, 2022
Winter Husband
By
Lisa Ann Verge
SYNOPSIS
She wants no husband. He wants no wife.
Jailed for crimes unbecoming a lady, Marie yearns for liberty even as she refuses the one choice that will set her free: An arranged marriage with a frontier stranger. Then a brawny ex-soldier offers a more dangerous proposal. Spend one winter as his wife in name only, and come spring he will set her free…
REVIEW
She was in a prison, but not one of shackles and bars. It was one that went far deeper. It trapped her very soul. It was one of her own making and there was no key to unlock the door to freedom. Looking like she belonged in the salons of Paris, she found herself in the wilds of the Canadian wilderness, with a cold desolate winter coming on. On top of that, she was trapped in a marriage with a mountain of a man in a remote cabin, locked in by snow and bitter weather till the spring thaw.
Lisa Ann Verge has always been able to take a simple story and turn it into an epic tale that leaves her readers yearning for more with each turn of the page. She might be listed as a romance author, but in truth her stories are wonderful tales of the long ago that are filled with masterful tellings of times and places long forgotten. She paints them with such clarity that the settings are as vivid as the best of the HBO movies we sit down to on a Saturday evening. Her characters burst from the page in full fury as they clash their way across the wilderness or ride the rapids down the unexplored rivers. She leaves you little chance to breathe, no matter whether you are in the woods or in the bedroom.
At the same time, she allows you to see the ”human” side of even her most hardened rouge or silent hero. Yes, even heroes cry.
One of the masterful twists in the telling and viewpoint of Winter Husband was the introduction of the heroines of the other two books in the series. Portions of the story was from the viewpoint of the residents in the local village, versus the outlying remote wilderness areas. “Factual” information about characters from “Heaven In Your Arms”, the first novel, and opinions held by the local residents in “Winter Husband”, didn’t always line up with what we had read as having actually happened in the first novel. This was a fantastic tool to show how information and opinions were scewed in an age when information and facts did not travel fast nor accurately. If one was not paying attention, you would not have realized the continuity of the characters between book one and two.
I find Winter Husband a first rate book and Lisa has once again knocked one out of the park for writing a page turner that only wanted more when it came to the end. I am looking forward, already to the third book in this series.
AUTHOR
Lisa Ann Verge is the critically acclaimed RITA-nominated author of eighteen novels that have been published worldwide and translated into as many languages. She started her career writing emotionally intense romances about hot men and dangerous women, and now she also writes life-affirming women's fiction under the name Lisa Verge Higgins. A finalist for Romantic Times' book awards five times over, Lisa has won the Golden Leaf and the Bean Pot, and twice she has cracked Barnes & Noble's General Fiction Forum's top twenty books of the year. She currently lives in New Jersey with her husband and their three daughters, who never fail to make life interesting.
To get a free Lisa Ann Verge novella - THE O'MADDEN - sign up for her mailing list at http://eepurl.com/bSaaDz
You can also connect with her at:
Website: www.lisaannverge.com
Facebook: www.facebook.com/lisaannverge
Twitter: @lisaannverge
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/LisaAnnVerge
Pinterest: http://www.pinterest.com/lisaannverge/
By
Lisa Ann Verge
SYNOPSIS
She wants no husband. He wants no wife.
Jailed for crimes unbecoming a lady, Marie yearns for liberty even as she refuses the one choice that will set her free: An arranged marriage with a frontier stranger. Then a brawny ex-soldier offers a more dangerous proposal. Spend one winter as his wife in name only, and come spring he will set her free…
REVIEW
She was in a prison, but not one of shackles and bars. It was one that went far deeper. It trapped her very soul. It was one of her own making and there was no key to unlock the door to freedom. Looking like she belonged in the salons of Paris, she found herself in the wilds of the Canadian wilderness, with a cold desolate winter coming on. On top of that, she was trapped in a marriage with a mountain of a man in a remote cabin, locked in by snow and bitter weather till the spring thaw.
Lisa Ann Verge has always been able to take a simple story and turn it into an epic tale that leaves her readers yearning for more with each turn of the page. She might be listed as a romance author, but in truth her stories are wonderful tales of the long ago that are filled with masterful tellings of times and places long forgotten. She paints them with such clarity that the settings are as vivid as the best of the HBO movies we sit down to on a Saturday evening. Her characters burst from the page in full fury as they clash their way across the wilderness or ride the rapids down the unexplored rivers. She leaves you little chance to breathe, no matter whether you are in the woods or in the bedroom.
At the same time, she allows you to see the ”human” side of even her most hardened rouge or silent hero. Yes, even heroes cry.
One of the masterful twists in the telling and viewpoint of Winter Husband was the introduction of the heroines of the other two books in the series. Portions of the story was from the viewpoint of the residents in the local village, versus the outlying remote wilderness areas. “Factual” information about characters from “Heaven In Your Arms”, the first novel, and opinions held by the local residents in “Winter Husband”, didn’t always line up with what we had read as having actually happened in the first novel. This was a fantastic tool to show how information and opinions were scewed in an age when information and facts did not travel fast nor accurately. If one was not paying attention, you would not have realized the continuity of the characters between book one and two.
I find Winter Husband a first rate book and Lisa has once again knocked one out of the park for writing a page turner that only wanted more when it came to the end. I am looking forward, already to the third book in this series.
AUTHOR
Lisa Ann Verge is the critically acclaimed RITA-nominated author of eighteen novels that have been published worldwide and translated into as many languages. She started her career writing emotionally intense romances about hot men and dangerous women, and now she also writes life-affirming women's fiction under the name Lisa Verge Higgins. A finalist for Romantic Times' book awards five times over, Lisa has won the Golden Leaf and the Bean Pot, and twice she has cracked Barnes & Noble's General Fiction Forum's top twenty books of the year. She currently lives in New Jersey with her husband and their three daughters, who never fail to make life interesting.
To get a free Lisa Ann Verge novella - THE O'MADDEN - sign up for her mailing list at http://eepurl.com/bSaaDz
You can also connect with her at:
Website: www.lisaannverge.com
Facebook: www.facebook.com/lisaannverge
Twitter: @lisaannverge
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/LisaAnnVerge
Pinterest: http://www.pinterest.com/lisaannverge/
dnf
November 17, 2022DNF at 45% in. The unusual setting (18th century Canada) of this historical romance intrigued me, but the romance between French King's Girl Marie and soldier Lucas fell flat for me. Both have backstories but not much in the way of personalities, and nothing much happens to foster a relationship besides forced proximity.
September 8, 2024
First book I've read by this author, and I loved it! The prose and description are lovely and not overwhelming. Just the right amount of historical detail. I was a little disappointed by the conflict 2/3 of the way through. Not real enough, or a bit weak. I still enjoyed it and will definitely read more Lisa Ann Verge novels!
June 12, 2025
A good story
This story is a good read. I liked the characters and the plot. The whole story moves at a good pace and it is steamy at times. I look forward to the next book in this srties.
This story is a good read. I liked the characters and the plot. The whole story moves at a good pace and it is steamy at times. I look forward to the next book in this srties.
July 14, 2023
Good love story
I liked this book because they were a good couple. The strength of the heroine in the cabin was great and her.
I liked this book because they were a good couple. The strength of the heroine in the cabin was great and her.
Read
April 14, 2024KU
September 19, 2025
I enjoyed this book much more than the first one. The chemistry between the characters, the setting, the steam, it all came together nicely. Did I mention it was steamy?
January 18, 2026
Loved the nature descriptions, the slice of life moments at the cabin, and the growing bond between Marie & Lucas.
May 16, 2023
Marie gets her HEA!
We meet Marie in the first book of the series. Now released from jail, she needs to find a husband. Lucas chooses her and off they go to claim his land. I like that Lucas has a bit of a mysterious background. I like seeing him and Marie learn more about each other and allow themselves to fall in love. A sweet, slightly spicy, action packed story!
We meet Marie in the first book of the series. Now released from jail, she needs to find a husband. Lucas chooses her and off they go to claim his land. I like that Lucas has a bit of a mysterious background. I like seeing him and Marie learn more about each other and allow themselves to fall in love. A sweet, slightly spicy, action packed story!
October 16, 2025
I absolutely loved this book! Character driven and man do those characters have some electrifying chemistry! Marie and Lukas are perfect for each other! He is such a sweetheart!
April 13, 2022
A soft 3. Didn't live up to the first book. Sad. 😥
Displaying 1 - 17 of 17 reviews