Parris Afton Bonds is the New York Times best-selling author of more than 50 novels—most of them are historical fiction and historical romance. Join Parris as she reboots her classic romance novels as audiobooks.

Many of these spicy romances were originally published in the 70s, 80s, and 90s. The days of heaving bosoms, throbbing loins, and ripped bodices. He wanted to take her, and she wanted to be taken; but she wasn't going to tell him that! Travel back in time to the days of big hair, big shoulders, and big libidos.

As a child, a young girl with coltish legs and dusky skin, I spent many anxious hours prowling the low desert and the craggy foothills of southeastern Arizona's Huachuca Mountains—anxious hours not just because I was trespassing on the forbidden Cristo Rey land grant, but also because I was searching among the rocks and cactus-stubbled dunes for the Ghost Lady, hoping and praying I could get a glimpse of her and at the same time scared to death that I really would.

Some say she haunted that area of Cristo Rey because she was a tormented wraith looking for the lover denied her in life. And others say she rode the area, its barren deserts and rock-clad mountains and lush, grassy valleys, because her soul was condemned to wander Cristo Rey until the fifty thousand acres—and the Stronghold—were at last returned to her heirs.

Of course, I preferred to believe the latter . . . perhaps because at that young age my childish mind could not conceive of a love so great that it would transcend time and space. I had yet to taste of love’s binding passion. But in all likelihood I chose to believe that version of the tale because even then I knew, like my Ghost Lady, my soul would know no peace until I possessed what rightfully belonged to me . . . Cristo Rey.