Lara Temple: Why do I love Romance? The Women!

Why do I love romance? It’s simple – the women! Ever since I became a published Harlequin M&B historical romance author a little over a year ago I’ve been surrounded by women – my editors, my fellow authors, and almost all my readers (well, aside from my ever supportive husband). Just this weekend I was at the annual Romance Novelists Association’s annual conference. From the moment I arrived to the moment I left I was laughing, talking, listening, learning – totally engaged. Sounds like love to me. The women are amazing – intelligent, funny, deep, and endlessly fascinating. After a full day of lectures and workshops we gathered in the shared kitchens and descended from the sublime to the ridiculous over tea, wine, and chocolate. We talked about everything – family, work (many of us do have other jobs), writing, publishing, our past and our future. The kind of discussions you usually have with your best friends after a glass of wine (yes, wine is heavily featured at romance conferences).

5 of the 9 Unlaced Book Club ladies at the RNA 2017 conference last week

Wearing my author hat I spend most of my time alone, happily transferring tales from my head into my laptop, agonizing over my character’s conflicts and needs and delighting in their transition from pain to love (and sometimes back again a few times). My main points of interaction with the world in this new profession come from contact with readers and other authors on social media, my amazingly prescient editor, and perhaps twice a year at events like the RNA conference.

I’ve been to umpteen business conferences but this is different – this is pure, unadulterated fun. It feeds back in to my writing – I can feel it filling out, gaining color and warmth, thanks to the women who are constantly amazing me with their intelligence and generosity. This isn’t just theoretical – we are putting it into practice all the time – imagine the kind of collaboration required for nine women to write a short story together simply by passing it from one to the next, each on adding her twist – this is precisely what I have recently done with eight of my wonderful fellow Harlequin Historical authors (members of the Unlaced Book Club on Facebook – check out our ‘Captive at Cragdale Hall’ on the Blossom Twins blog at http://bit.ly/2u14Txf).

The Unlaced Book Club ladies - my alternative family of mad, bad, glad and stunning gals

This sense of wellbeing at being surrounded by women isn’t just my gut feeling, apparently – it’s also science. A Stanford University professor was discussing longevity and he noted the usual point about married men statistically living longer than unmarried men. When a woman from the audience asked for the comparable statistics about women he said with perfect seriousness – women who spend time with other women tend to live longer. In other words – being around women, interacting with women, tends to release those feel-good and intimacy hormones serotonin and oxytocin. This is precisely what I feel after this marvelous weekend – even squashed on the train to London with not a spare seat in sight and finally tucking myself onto a corner of the corridor between trains, I was still full of the pleasure of having spent a weekend with that not just women but that most wonderful breed of women – lovers of Romance.

I hope my romance affair with romance never ends.

Check out the Unlaced Book Club on Facebook at: https://www.facebook.com/groups/TheUnlacedBookClub/

Sneak peek at my Wild Lords book #1: Lord Hunter’s Cinderella Bride (November 2017)

‘I think I might actually enjoy this,’ Nell whispered, and Hunter was surprised to see her eyes brimming with laughter

‘Enjoy what?’ He asked, fascinated by the way her lips warmed to peach.

‘Flirting. I think I’m starting to understand how it works.’

A slap might have been more painful, but no more sobering. For a moment he had actually forgotten why he was doing this.

‘That is good. Feel free to experiment. Despite my name, I don’t mind being hunted.’

‘I’m not sure how. I don’t think I could ever do what Lady Melkinson does.’

He caught the hopelessness in her voice.

‘You won’t know until you try,’

Her silver irises glimmering through her lashes as they sank to half-mast.

‘Like this?’ Her voice husky, she leaned towards him, the tips of her fingers just brushing his sleeve. Then her lips parted and the tip of her tongue touched her lower lip, drawing it in gently and letting it go. As far as seductions went it was very mild, as hesitant as a girl dressing in her mother’s finery. There was no reason it should feel like the blood was reversing course in his veins.

Book Links:

Amazon: getbook.at/TheDukesUnexpectedBride

Harlequin: http://bit.ly/2n53GkT

Kobo: https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/the-duke-s-unexpected-bride

Author Contact Links

Twitter: @laratemple1

Website: www.laratemple.com

Facebook Author Page: www.facebook.com/LaraTempleAuthor

Facebook: www.facebook.com/LaraTemple1

Amazon author page: http://amzn.to/2mWin9R

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/LaraTemple

Lara Temple: Why writing is like swimming except you don’t need a towel (or do you?)

Before I thought of trying to become a published writer I admit I regarded writing as a bit of a mystical inspiration-driven revelation spilling out like a Roman fountain. Well, that fiction was soon tossed onto the dust heap. A year and a bit after my first book has been published I am at least clear on one thing – writing is a process like any other in our life, riddled with pleasure and pain and predictable obstacles, and I go about it just like I go about other processes, for good and for bad. I write the way I work, the way I parent, even the way I shop. Sad but true. Now I discovered I write the way I swim.

I love swimming – with two little kids and two careers I don’t get to do much of it any more but I love it. While trying desperately to finish the second book in my Wild Lords series which starts in November I escaped to the pool to try and get some perspective and drown out desperation. I went through my usual breaking points:

(1) The first is getting into the water in the first place. I mean – it’s cold! And I’m as close to coldblooded as it gets this side of a lizard. But I curse and weep inwardly and take the plunge, literally, knowing that within four or five laps that at least will be behind me. The same with writing – there are endless ideas for a book but you have to take the plunge and commit to one of them, ready to take it all the way.

(2) The real breaking point comes one third into my swim. I hit fifteen minutes or so and realize – that was only one third? I have two do this twice again? No way! What was I thinking? What am I doing here with all these svelte thirty year old metrosexual men and women skimming through the water in the neighboring lanes, I should just face the middle aged facts and find a more appropriate way of trying to stay fit and sane than torturing myself each time in the freezing waters when I just want to go sit in the Jacuzzi and maybe pray for a margarita.

With my writing this is the 25k word count point – I often love what I have so far but wonder how on earth with so much already fully formed of this story am I going to manage another 50k words? The story is so large in my mind it seems absurd that it is only a third of the way done. I already have HEAs and epilogues bursting the seams of my gray matter but I still haven’t actually written the darn book! I begin to flounder, worrying perhaps this is the one time I really won’t have enough breath to make it all the way. Doubt sets in, dragging all other doubts with it – I don’t have what it takes amongst all those amazing writers out there who are smoother, funnier, smarter than I. I begin to sink.

 This is where I grit my teeth and begin pounding at my keyboard, making gnashing noises as I try to drown out that inner critic until it actually works and then I’m sailing again…These are the great moments because they come after you vanquish doubt.

(3) Somehow I get past this point and then the strangest thing happens when I hit my appointed fifty minutes – I don’t want to stop. There is something wrong about stopping. I OWN this pool. I’m faster than the guy swimming in the other lane. I’m Wonder Woman  gone aqua. Once I stop I’ll just be me again and have to face reality…I don’t even have to explain the analogy. I hate writing The End and saying goodbye to my fictional lovers.

We each have our own writing style and our own way of coping with challenges and pitfalls and joy and our whole life reflects them. At least that’s what I think. I’d be curious to hear if other writers think they write the way they live – or not.

Sneak peek at my Wild Lords book #1: Lord Hunter’s Cinderella Bride (Nov. 2017)

‘I think I might actually enjoy this,’ Nell whispered, and Hunter was surprised to see her eyes brimming with laughter

‘Enjoy what?’ He asked, fascinated by the way her lips warmed to peach.

‘Flirting. I think I’m starting to understand how it works.’

A slap might have been more painful, but no more sobering. For a moment he had actually forgotten why he was doing this.

‘That’s good. Feel free to experiment. Despite my name, I don’t mind being hunted.’

‘I’m not sure how. I don’t think I could ever do what Lady Melkinson does.’

He caught the hopelessness in her voice.

‘You won’t know until you try,’

Her silver irises glimmering through her lashes as they sank to half-mast.

‘Like this?’ Her voice husky, she leaned towards him, the tips of her fingers just brushing his sleeve. Then her lips parted and the tip of her tongue touched her lower lip, drawing it in gently and letting it go. As far as seductions went it was very mild, as hesitant as a girl dressing in her mother’s finery. There was no reason it should feel like the blood was reversing course in his veins.

Book Links:

Amazon: http://amzn.to/2lXdgUZ

Harlequin: http://bit.ly/2n53GkT

Kobo: https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/the-duke-s-unexpected-bride

Author Contact Links

Website: www.laratemple.com

Facebook: www.facebook.com/laratemple1

Twitter: @laratemple1

Amazon author page: http://amzn.to/2mWin9R

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/LaraTemple

Lara Temple: Dreaming up books …Or how realizing my dream squished my daydreams

Last spring my first book was published by Harlequin Mills&Boon. This month my third book, The Duke’s Unexpected Bride, has hit the shelves and I still can’t quite believe it. Becoming a published writer has changed my life in quite a few ways, mostly for the better.

First off, I’ve cut back (drastically) on my other career and now spend an obscene number of hours at the kitchen table, writing. I have a work study but in my mind that is associated with my other job and doesn’t do much for my creative juices. My kitchen overlooks the garden and the fruit trees and the green and quiet are perfect for writing.

Then there’s the internal/external image change. When people ask me what I do, I no longer tell them about my ‘other’ job. I actually say – I write books. Would you hazard a guess if that evokes a different response than ‘business consultant’? Whether the response is positive or negative (yes, there are those, of course), it’s never neutral.

But those are just surface changes. The real changes are internal. I’ve had a few careers in my life but only one vocation – I’ve always known I love writing stories, but I never really believed I would be published or do it for a living (the latter part is still pending – writing, like many creative professions, is financially challenging).

There is always a danger in dreams coming true - they lose the shiny haze of the Potential and take on the hard, elbow grease glaze of the Actual. Writing is just like any profession – it is very hard work, a chunk of which has nothing to do with the creative process. The joys of creation far outweigh the slog, but it is a constant balancing act. Even once you are published you can obviously still fail at any point. Now the stakes are higher than they ever were – if the dream is no longer a potential but an actual, failure would be actual too.

But being a business consultant, I was at least prepared for that part of The Change. What I wasn’t prepared for was a completely different loss – my daydreams.

Until I became a published author a large part of my creative process was daydreaming dreaming. Some people need to read a book before they go to sleep, I needed to write one – or at least imagine one.

Sometimes when I was stuck on a hard project at work I would take a few minutes, make a cup of tea, and daydream away. My mind would slip into an alternate world and all my worries and woes and tensions would melt and fade and so would I. Every night I could sail off in the arms of another of my wonderful heroes into a new adventure, commitment free.

Here is a quote on dreams from the English Patient I knew was ‘written about me’ when I read it: “Moments before sleep are when she feels most alive, leaping across fragments of the day, bringing each moment into the bed with her like a child with schoolbooks and pencils. The day seems to have no order until these times, which are like a ledger for her, her body full of stories and situations.”

But now everything is different – every ounce of my creative juice is conserved for my writing. I don’t intend it to be that way, but I am living and breathing my novels and the moment I close my eyes I am deep in them, tangling with tales, wrestling with plot twists, and milking every second of creative time to refine and deepen my writing. There is a different kind of beauty in these moments – the characters in my novels become dear to me, or frustrating, but always important, and I can’t treat them casually like I used to once indulge in my day-dreams. I miss my no-strings-attached daydreams but accept that they will never be quite the same again.

Maybe it is part of growing up as an author – our dreams mutate with us.

So I will end on another quote, this time from Neil Gaiman: “A book is a dream that you hold in your hands”. I’m holding three dreams in my hands now, all mine, and my head is filled with many more, simmering on the boil and waiting their turn with varying degrees of impatience. So even if my daydreams have been overtaken, it is a small price to pay for living my dream. 

Excerpt from The Duke’s Unexpected Bride (May 2017)

'May I have my sketch back, please?’ Sophie asked.

Something in Max’s dark grey eyes as they moved over her face increased her already significant discomfort. Then his mouth relaxed, bringing to the surface the amused warmth she had glimpsed before.

'Would you consider giving it to Hetty?’ he asked. ‘I think she would love to have it. She is not my wife, by the way, but my sister, hence the resemblance.'

Sophie’s face heated with a sudden burning blush.

'Oh dear, I’m so sorry. I always say more than I ought. Of course you may give it to her. Here.'

She held it out to him, wishing the blush would fade.

He reached for it just as Marmaduke awoke with a snort and she started and the sketch slipped from her grasp. The pug, his eye catching the fluttering page, readied himself to leap but she managed to capture it just as he grabbed for it as well. His hand closed half on the page, half on her bare hand and she drew back, shocked by the heat of his touch. It had only been a second but her skin retained the imprint of his fingers and her body tingled as if it had been dipped in hot water.

Book Buy Links:

Amazon: http://amzn.to/2lXdgUZ

Harlequin: http://bit.ly/2n53GkT

Kobo: https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/the-duke-s-unexpected-bride

Author Contact Links

Website: www.laratemple.com

Facebook: www.facebook.com/laratemple1

Twitter: @laratemple1

Amazon author page: http://amzn.to/2mWin9R

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/LaraTemple

Lara Temple: Serious issues with fairy tale endings

One of the things I love about writing romance is that I can write about serious issues but still slip back into the comforting hold of a Happily Ever After. It’s not that I’m making light of these issues, quite the opposite – writing about heroes and heroines with survivor’s guilt or those who suffered abuse or bullying is my way of ‘discussing’ those issues with myself without letting them overpower me.

In my third book just out this month, The Duke’s Unexpected Bride, the hero Max is plagued by guilt about his part in the death of his fiancé. In my next book will be out in November, Lord Hunter’s Cinderella Heiress, the hero is also suffering from guilt at his failure to prevent his younger brother, a war veteran, from committing suicide. Suicide among veterans (and among active soldiers) is a real and growing problem.

Today at least there is awareness about PTSD, the impact of battle, the difficulties of reintegrating into civilian life, and the costs incurred by families of veterans and especially those whose loved ones commit suicide. But imagine how it would have been two hundred years ago after decades of war around the globe: thousands of veterans returned to England, Scotland, Wales, and Ireland, often damaged in body and mind, without income or the ability to find employment. There were some hospitals dedicated to caring for soldiers ‘broken by age or war’ (the most famous was the extensive Royal Hospital Chelsea established by King Charles II in 1681 and built by Sir Christopher Wren), but they were a drop in the ocean and didn’t address the difficulties so many had trying to rebuild their lives after years at war. 

18th century engraving of the impressive Royal Hospital Chelsea from the Thames. To the right was the famous rotunda of Ranelagh Gardens (demolished in 1805).

Even those who were lucky enough to have families who cared for them, there was no understanding of the horrific impact of battle on the psyche. They were called heroes and expected to return to normal and to shed their nightmarish experiences as easily as they did their uniforms.

A scene from William Sadler II’s Battle of Waterloo 1815

It is no wonder there were cases of suicide among men who experienced the horrors of war, many of which were not be reported as such for religious reasons or because of family pride or simply because they weren’t ‘clear’ cases of suicide.

In my story, Lord Hunter’s brother has been brutally tortured and suffers from acute pain. It is never clear whether the overdose of laudanum which kills him is an intentional suicide, though Lord Hunter is as certain as he can stand and is haunted by what he considers her failure to help his brother out of his tortured shell. Like many members of families who are affected by suicide of a loved one, his guilt at failing to protect his adored younger brother becomes a driving force in his life and very nearly prevents him from opening himself to his own thirst to live and to the healing power of love.

All fairy tales carry within them a core of painful reality. Happily Ever Afters are much more potent when hard earned. So out of the ashes of this very serious topic I wove my own fairy tale - luckily Hunter’s Cinderella heroine Nell (who has a few scars of her own, but that’s another story) is not easily dissuaded from pursuing her imperfect prince…

Here’s an excerpt from the first of my Wild Lord’s series which starts with Lord Hunter’s Cinderella Heiress in November 2017:

‘Here, this will keep you warm.’

Nell turned. Hunter was behind her, holding a glass of cider, its coil of milky steam carrying all those smells upwards, encompassing all the joys of the fête in a single receptacle. For a moment all the agony of unrequited love and impending loss fell away – right now Hunter was with her, a smile beginning to form in his eyes as he looked down at her. She took the glass, breathing in the scent of the cider, and sighed.

‘It’s just cider,’ he said with a laugh, his expression losing the remainder of its uncharacteristic grimness. ‘You look as if I am offering you the elixir of the gods.’

She shook her head and tasted it. In all her years attending the fête with her father she had never been permitted to taste this hedonistic brew and it had achieved mythical proportions in her mind. It didn’t disappoint – it slid down her throat, evoking a thoroughly sensual response like stepping into a warm spring swirling amber and amethyst and gold. She closed her eyes to let the taste spark those colors, surrounding her and fading away at the end, leaving just the fundaments of apple and cinnamon and a hint of clove. She opened her eyes with another sigh, letting it go.

‘That was my first time.’

As the silence stretched and with the glow of the bonfires lighting the same colors in his eyes she might have believed she had conjured Hunter from the same pagan spring in her mind. It took her a moment to even realize her words might be grossly misconstrued.

‘My first cup of Wilton cider,’ she explained.

‘You have an interesting way with firsts, Nell,’ he remarked, and the spirits in the cider, which had been tumbling through her quite leisurely, chose that moment to expand in a rush of heat that spread through her like the birth of a sun. 

Book Buy Links:

Amazon: http://amzn.to/2lXdgUZ

Harlequin: http://bit.ly/2n53GkT

Kobo: https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/the-duke-s-unexpected-bride

Author Contact Links

Website: www.laratemple.com

Facebook: www.facebook.com/laratemple1

Twitter: @laratemple1

Amazon author page: http://amzn.to/2mWin9R

Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/LaraTemple

Lara Temple: Unconventional Heroines in Art

In every corner of the Regency world I always come across some amazing women. While doing research for my third book with Harlequin, The Duke’s Unexpected Bride (out next month), I ‘visited’ the 1819 Summer Exhibition of the Royal Academy of Arts which at the time was based in Somerset House. During my research I came across two female artists who reached their peak at the turn of the 18th/19th centuries – Angelica Kauffman and Mary Moser. They are perfect examples of the kind of unconventional historical heroines that fascinate me.

My own heroine, Sophie, loves painting but is well aware of her limitations when she enters the amazing exhibition room where the likes of Turner, Constable, Reynolds and other British greats exhibited. She is content merely to be inspired and to be given the opportunity to paint and to buy her art supplies at the famous Cheapside art store, Reeves.

The Duke of Harcourt takes Sophie ‘backstage’ to the Royal Academy Council Chamber in order to show her Kauffman’s famous allegorical ceiling paintings. Sophie however, manages to find her way even further backstage where Academy members exhibit their nude paintings away from public (and female) eyes. I was using a little artistic license here – there were indeed rooms where Academy members could sketch nude models and where a young woman like Sophie (even women like Kauffman and Moser) were not accepted, at least publicly.

This distinction is made abundantly clear in the famous painting by Zoffany which shows the 168 Academy members observing male nude models – the only two Academy members missing ‘in person’ were founding members Kaufman and Moser (the two were also the only female members of the Academy until 1861)! Zoffany at least gave them a presence by adding portraits of them on the wall on the right, looking down on the male models. Here is a section of that painting:

I’m not a great fan of artists from this era other than Turner (and I have to admit Reynolds has a special gift with portraits) but I found the story of the rise of these two female artists fascinating – both had artist/artisan fathers who taught and promoted their girls’ talents very early on (Mozart style) and far from being excluded by the male environment, they were highly regarded at the time (Kauffman had Reynolds as a personal champion). Kauffman’s story is particularly exciting – she travelled all over Europe, was invited to England by the English Ambassador’s wife in Rome, was conned into marriage by a scoundrel, whom she promptly left, and when he died she married a Venetian artist and continued to travel and receive commissions from the high and mighty.
In my own story, The Duke’s Unexpected Bride, Sophie is ambiguous about her talents – she is acutely visual and painting is an important part of how she sees and interacts with the world but she has no great ambitions and no dramatic conviction in her skills. I think this would have been the case with many creative women of the time – unless their talent overpowered them or they grew up in a highly artistic or literary environment women of moderate or even above moderate skills were often willing to regard themselves as mere amateurs. Their best hope was to find someone who saw this additional aspect to their character as positive rather than negative – this is one reason Sophie is drawn to Max. Here is the scene where they discuss Sophie’s artistic talent:

‘I know you would prefer me without all the nonsense about the painting.’
‘I don’t know what you would be like without the painting. It’s not just something you do, it’s how you see the world.’
Sophie’s eyes widened.
‘No one has ever said that to me before.’
‘Is that good or bad?’
‘I…good, I think. It’s like those dreams where you are going about and suddenly realise you are only in your petticoats, you know?’
Max threw back his head and laughed.
‘No, I don’t. Not petticoats.’
‘Well, not petticoats, but you know what I mean. Finding yourself exposed.’
‘That doesn’t sound very enjoyable, then, and that is not what I meant to do. It was just a thought. Why did you think it was good, then?’
‘Because it means you see me.’
His smile faded slightly as he looked at her, but he kept his voice light.
‘Right in front of me. Hard to miss.’

Summary of The Duke’s Unexpected Bride:
When Sophie becomes her reclusive aunt’s companion she also finds herself nursemaid to a pug, stalked by an embittered artist, and the fiancé of the thoroughly unsettling Duke of Harcourt, a man she has dubbed the Stone Duke. Ten years after his disastrous engagement, Max knows he must choose his bride with caution. Sophie meets none of his criteria – she is impulsive, funny, talks to animals, and her compassion leads her perilously close to danger. Their inevitable clash of wits, passions, and private pain lead to near tragedy and to the realization that the irrepressible Sophie and the Stone Duke are perfectly matched.

Book Buy Links:
Amazon: http://amzn.to/2lXdgUZ
Barnes and Noble:
Harlequin: http://bit.ly/2n53GkT
Kobo: https://www.kobo.com/us/en/ebook/the-duke-s-unexpected-bride

Author Contact Links
Website: www.laratemple.com
Facebook: www.facebook.com/laratemple1
Twitter: @laratemple1
Amazon author page: http://amzn.to/2mWin9R
Goodreads: https://www.goodreads.com/LaraTemple

Lara Temple: About writing, luck, and not waiting for inspiration

Two years ago I got really, really lucky and it’s all my mother’s fault. She loves sending me snippets from magazines – some funny, some pertinent, some frankly bizarre. One little snippet mentioned Harlequin’s SYTYCW (So You Think You Can Write) writing contest and immediately my mind strayed to the boxes of scribbled notebooks shoved into the corner of my workroom and the somewhat less physical but more ominous folder of files on my computer, innocuously labeled ‘Writing’.

This opened up a can of worms for me. I had already scaled down my career to become a business consultant so I could work mostly from home and be with my two little kids, but after years of being the responsible adult I wanted to do something that was absolutely and truly for me. And what I loved most of all was to write.

I’d been writing since I was a little girl but I never really dared believe anyone else would like reading my flights of fancy and so long as I didn’t put my efforts to the test, I remained in that lovely terrain of boundless potential and possibilities. But I knew it was time to jump in and risk finding out if I could become a real author – a career, not just a necessary but personal occupation.

I didn’t think this contest would be an actual stepping-stone into the profession, just a milestone in my own decision. To say I was shocked to make the top ten in the contest was an understatement. I went beyond shocked when the amazing Nicola Caws (now my editor) gave me ‘The Call’ and said they wanted my historical romance manuscript. Mine!

I don’t know how to explain it, but nothing that I had achieved in my other career had felt quite like that. Well, I do know how to explain it – writing is something that is truly intimate. No matter what you write, it requires you to expose yourself (not just your talents, but yourself). It’s like walking into a room full of strangers, standing in the middle of the room and saying – look at me! And like me! Please? – And all that without being able to run out again before they all turn on you and judge.

From that moment on I started doing something which I had only heard about but hadn’t realized was possible – I sat down every day and wrote. The more I wrote the easier it became, which was another surprise for me. I had never thought writing required the kind of discipline I had applied to my career but now I found myself gritting my teeth and writing even when I knew it would probably end up in my ‘excerpt’ file (which is now longer than my books put together).

So when I say I’m lucky it’s not because I actually have books published (which definitely proves the adage ‘more luck than brains’!), but because every day I do something I absolutely love down to the last little follicles of my existence – I sit down and write. Even when it’s terrible or even when I stare at the page and realize I’ve got zilch inspiration, I know it’s still the right thing to be doing with my life.

Now I have two books out and a third coming out in May and two more in the works (and hopefully many, many more). My next one ‘The Duke’s Unexpected Bride’ (coming in April/May). Max and Sophie were such definite characters it was a pleasure to discover them as I wrote (though not always easy!). That’s why I’m so glad the cover really conveys that mix of chemistry, intimacy, and gentleness. So far it’s my favorite book and I can’t wait to see it in print. The day that box with the advance copies arrives is always a day of celebration, another milestone in this amazing journey.

Sophie is the misfit among the nine children of a strict country vicar and is paying her dues at her rich great-aunt's in London by looking after her overweight pugs. All she wants to do is paint and enjoy her temporary freedom from parents and siblings before being sent back home, but thanks to Marmaduke her path tangles with that of Max, the Duke of Harcourt. Max takes his duties very seriously and though his previous engagement ended in tragedy, he knows he must marry and he has a very clear idea of a suitable duchess. The only problem is that the quirky, unpredictable, and distracting Sophie keeps getting in the way, dragging to the surface an old rivalry, his tragic past, and most disconcertingly – his long buried emotions.