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Monthly Archives: April 2014

In the comments, if you don’t mind, answer one or more of these questions:

1.  Name a few of your favorite historical romances. Books you’d want with you if you were stuck some place for a long time.

2. Are there types of stories you miss?

3. Duke. Pro or Con?

I’ll answer to get things started.

Mary Balogh’s A Summer To Remember is one of my all time faves. I loved Amanda Quick’s Ravished. I loved Karen Robard’s Loving Julia.

I miss the the big honking saga. I wish there were more Gothics. Once, I read a Regency-Set vampire book and I totally hated it. But now I wouldn’t mind. I can’t explain that.

Pro.

But that doesn’t mean I’m not open to non-dukes.

First, my apologies for missing two weeks in a row. The first time, I was just off by an  day. Last week, I just entirely forgot. Things have been crazy busy. I sent Book two of the Sinclair Sisters series — A Notorious Ruin — out for a first round read. Then I started writing a My Immortals novella, currently titled Dead Drop. It’s for a paranormal anthology and I have to write really really fast. I am on track so far.  But I have to keep to a very aggressive word count. Whew!

 

Covers

I’ve been thinking about covers lately. Looking at lots of images and covers and I’ve been thinking. In the traditional publishing world, if you were selling well enough, you might get a step-back cover. Where the front cover might be a little short width-wise but underneath is more cover and the two make a cohesive image. When you open the top cover, you see a bigger image. I liked step backs. Most of the time, they are very pretty and fun and the artwork is nice.

I’ve not seen anyone doing the equivalent in eBooks. There are a bunch of ways to deal with expanding out an images that’s probably more complicated than it’s worth — except, maybe not. In the hands of the right artist it could be neat. Plus, there’s always the simple thing of just adding another image. A super duper sexy one (if appropriate) or maybe just a beautiful illustration. I’m talking just about some extra bling in the book, not turning into an graphic novel or something.

So, I ask you, assuming you are not making an author-based decision, what kind of covers do you like? What are the things that appeal to you? Colors? Details? Couples? Just the guy? Just the girl? Potted plants?

Assuming an additional image(s) in an eBook didn’t pose a technical annoyance to you (slowing down the device or what have you), how might you feel about a second image inside the book — step-backish in that it’s kind of a cover enhanced? What if there were an illustration?

Let me know in the comments.

Oh! Hey! Also this!

If you are reading this on April 30, it’s my birthday! I’ll send a commenter a surprise thing. Not worth more than forty bucks US, because that’s my budget. It’s a surprise because I just realized tomorrow is my birthday and so I’m not prepared. International is OK.

No purchase necessary. Void where prohibited. Must be 18 to enter. My relatives are not eligible to enter. If I had employees they wouldn’t be eligible either. Winner chosen at random from among the commenters who comment BEFORE midnight April 30th, 2014 Pacific Time. This blog is in the Eastern Time zone, so technically you have until the blog says 2:59:59 AM May 1, 2014.

RoyalWeddingKissHappy Tuesday, everyone, from the gray, stormy, windy, allergy-ridden middle of the country!!!  I have been a bad blogger lately, but now I am back from a few days off and ready to jump back into the Elizabethan world of my WIP (Murder in the Queen’s Garden, book 3 of my Kate Haywood mystery series!).  I also have a little contest, for an apology and also to celebrate the wedding anniversary of the Cambridges. 🙂

Three years ago, on April 29, I got up super-early in the morning to turn on the TV and watch a grand royal wedding at Westminster Abbey (and also have an excuse for cake and champagne before noon!).  It was all so lovely, so elegant and regal, yet also romantic and touching.  I had fun this morning looking at all the images of Kate’s beautiful gown, the adorable little flower girls, the kiss on the balcony.

RunningTemptationCoverThis month also saw the release of my short story Running Into Temptation (part of my Bancrofts of Barton Park series!).  It also centers around a wedding, but a very different one from Kate and William’s.  Melanie Harding and Philip Carrington were sort of the “villains” of Running From Scandal, two fortune hunters who set their sights on the hero and heroine of that story.  But as I was writing about them, I somehow had an inkling that they weren’t as bad as all that.  Sure, their life circumstances had led them to some not-so-great behavior, but they wanted to be better, find their place in life–and they manage to find it in the most unexpected place, at Gretna Green, married to each other (of all people!!!).  I loved getting to spend time with them on their adventures over the border, and finding out who they really were….

So, for a happy anniversary celebration of my own, I will give away one copy of Running Into Temptation to one commenter!!!  What is your favorite royal wedding???

(for more info on the story, you can see it here at Amazon, or at my own website….)

Gretna Green, 1814

After narrowly avoiding scandal with a falsehearted rake, Miss Melanie Harding is sent to live quietly in the country. No balls. No parties. Certainly no flirting with dashing strangers whose dark eyes hint at all kinds of delicious wickedness.

All of Philip Carrington’s practical plans evaporate the moment he encounters Melanie. Is it foolishness to run away with her to Scotland, or the wisest thing he’s ever done? The lovely, impetuous Miss Harding kisses like an angel—and brings out the very devil in him. And together, they may discover the most passionate adventure of all….

 

Posted in Giveaways | 7 Replies

Based on last weeks blog, here’s my new list of Regency heroes (in no particular order):

(from my list)
Soldiers
Dukes
Rakes
Corinthians
Impoverished Lords

(from my brilliant blog readers and Elena)
Thieves/Highwaymen
Professor (bookish hero)
Unexpected Heir
Beau (stylish, clever, witty)
Rogue (makes his own rules)
Carla Kelly’s Beta heroes (as katie called them, in a class all their own)
Wellington (courtesy of the Wellington-obsessed Kristine Hughes of Number One London)
Beastly Hero (wounded man, angry at the world)

Any additions?

When I craft a hero, I don’t always know what type he will be. For my upcoming A Lady of Notoriety (read an excerpt here), I had already come up with the hero, Hugh Westleigh, for book one in the Masquerade Club series, A Reputation for Notoriety. In that book Hugh was a hot-head younger brother tending toward seeing the world in black and white. I was not thinking of him as a hero of book three, because, at that time, I thought I was writing a two book series.

Then I had the idea of a book for the heroine, the “lady” of the title–Lady Faville, the sort-of villainess of A Marriage of Notoriety.

220px-Sense_and_sensibilityI’m writing another series, this time about three sisters whose situation is very similar to the Dashwood sisters in Sense and Sensibility, but their scandalous solutions are quite different than the Dashwoods. This time the story ideas start with the heroines and I simply must come up with heroes who match them. This hero of book one seems to be an unexpected heir/rogue/beastly hero.

Next week I’m going to tackle Regency Heroine archetypes. Put your thinking caps on!

 

 

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