Love is Innocent

Wealthy, popular and famously handsome and dashing, Draco, the Duke of Atherstone has the world and most of its Society beauties at his feet. Yet, as his arrives on his yacht in Algiers he is dissatisfied. If only he could find the woman who would complete the other of him - as has his wise and supremely contented Russian friend, Nicholas Vlastov. Visiting what appears to be a slave market in the Kasba, the Duke notices that among the drugged girls being callously auctioned is a beautiful young waif who is utterly different from the rest - and when she whispers, 'save me!', he knows that she in English and that he must rescue her. So begins his and Selina's flight from the evil slavers to Monte Carlo, then from murderous kidnappers who hold them for ransom and then from the Society beauty determined to claim the Duke in marriage. Not once, but twice, the dashing Duke puts his life on the line to save Selina, as he falls wholeheartedly in love for the very first time. But how, Selina wonders desperately, can a noble Duke, possibly marry a girl he has found in a harem?

Barbara Cartland was the world's most prolific novelist who wrote an amazing 723 books in her lifetime, of which no less than 644 were romantic novels with worldwide sales of over 1 billion copies and her books were translated into 36 different languages. As well as romantic novels, she wrote historical biographies, 6 autobiographies, theatrical plays and books of advice on life, love, vitamins and cookery. She wrote her first book at the age of 21 and it was called Jigsaw. It became an immediate bestseller and sold 100,000 copies in hardback in England and all over Europe in translation. Between the ages of 77 and 97 she increased her output and wrote an incredible 400 romances as the demand for her romances was so strong all over the world. She wrote her last book at the age of 97 and it was entitled perhaps prophetically The Way to Heaven. Her books have always been immensely popular in the United States where in 1976 her current books were at numbers 1 & 2 in the B. Dalton bestsellers list, a feat never achieved before or since by any author. Barbara Cartland became a legend in her own lifetime and will be best remembered for her wonderful romantic novels so loved by her millions of readers throughout the world, who have always collected her books to read again and again, especially when they feel miserable or depressed. Her books will always be treasured for their moral message, her pure and innocent heroines, her handsome and dashing heroes, her blissful happy endings and above all for her belief that the power of love is more important than anything else in everyone's life.