#GetLostInAStory 's guest is Elizabeth Essex on Desert Island Living #Regency #historical

Welcome to Get Lost in a Story and to our special guest, Elizabeth Essex!

         Elizabeth Essex is the award-winning author of the critically acclaimed Reckless Brides series of  historical romances for St. Martin’s Press. She is the award-winning author of the critically acclaimed Reckless Brides series of historical romances for St. Martin’s Press. Her books have been nominated for numerous awards, including the Gayle Wilson Award of Excellence, the Romantic Times Reviewers’ Choice Award, and RWA’s prestigious RITA Award, and have made Top-Ten lists from Romantic Times, The Romance Reviews and Affaire de Coeur Magazine, and Desert Isle Keeper status at All About Romance. Her fifth book, A BREATH OF SCANDAL, was awarded Best Historical in the Reader’s Crown 2013.

         When not rereading Jane Austen, mucking about in her garden, or simply messing about with boats, Elizabeth writes, and has done so for over twenty years. She graduated from Hollins College with a BA in Classics and Art History, and then earned her MA in Nautical Archaeology from Texas A&M University. While she loved the life of an underwater archaeologist, she has found her true calling writing historical romance full of passion, daring and adventure.

Vicki: Hi, Ms. Essex and welcome to Get Lost In a Story.

Elizabeth: Thanks, Vicki. I love visiting with the whole GLIAS crew here!

Vicki: You have taken your readers on some big adventures in your Reckless Brides series. Where are we going this time? 

Elizabeth: We are going to a deserted island in the South Pacific! How’s that for adventurous? Many readers may already know that long before I ever put pen to paper, or fingers to keyboard as a romance novelist, I was a nautical archaeologist—an underwater archaeologist who studied and excavated

shipwrecks. Blame it on late night readings of Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island and Kidnapped, or on too many National Geographic Jacques Cousteau specials as a kid, but I have long wanted to combine my archaeologist past with my romance novelist present by writing a shipwreck story. So with A SCANDAL TO REMEMBER I got to write a romantic adventure of shipwreck and survival. (Was their survival in doubt? This is a romance novel, after all. :) )

Vicki: How much of your own experience and background as an archaeologist ended up in the story? 

Elizabeth: A lot! One of the greatest pleasures in writing A SCANDAL TO REMEMBER, was that I not only got to depict the lethal drama of the shipwreck, but I also got to strand my hero and heroine alone together on a deserted South Pacific atoll. This was familiar territory for me, because I had spent many field seasons much the same way, in remote, inaccessible camps, or on uninhabited islands in various parts of the world.

Vicki: Oh my, Ms. Essex! Being in a remote camp sounds a tad dangerous. Your heroine, Jane Burke, must be very intrepid! 

Elizabeth: Jane is a lot more intrepid that I ever was—after all I had some modern conveniences, like a satellite phone for emergencies, and an entire crew to keep me safe and fed—my hero and heroine have only themselves. In A SCANDAL TO REMEMBER, Jane Burke is a conchologist, a bluestocking scientist in a time when women scientists were not the norm. She succeeds against the disapproval of both her family and society because she simply does her job better than anyone else. It was really fun to try to create a heroine who was a lot like the archaeologist I used to be—determined and really well-prepared. I had Jane spend hours and hours planning out the details of her field project, and carefully packing her fragile equipment for transport, because that is exactly what I used to do—plan excavations and purchase equipment, repair mosquito netting and seal tarpaulins, test and ship scuba equipment for an entire camp full of working archaeologists and students for the long May to September field season.

But the thing that I really have in common with Jane Burke is that I thought that working in my chosen field on a remote island was the best job in the whole wide world, and the most fun imaginable!

Vicki: And obviously, you translated all your wonderful experiences into your books. Tell us about your hero. Is he another of your Royal Navy officers?

Elizabeth: You know me so well, Vicki. He is! Lieutenant Charles Dance is a character who made his first appearance in the Reckless Bride’s world as a midshipman in the first book of the series, ALMOST A SCANDAL. Now, in A SCANDAL TO REMEMBER he is in charge of the run-down ship that will take an expedition of the Royal Philosophical Society, including our bluestocking lady scientist, Miss Jane Burke, to the Islands of the South Pacific. Unfortunately for our hero, nothing, with the exception of the surprisingly lovely Miss Burke, goes right. Storm, sabotage and shipwreck ensue!

A wee excerpt:

         Dance awoke to the terrifying feeling that he was alone. Empty and depleted.

         Jane was gone.

         The clawing pressure building in his chest might have felt like panic, if he allowed it to be. He lurched to his feet, only to find himself unsteady. He raised his hand to shield his eyes from the glare of the watery gray sunlight.

         The yellowish cast to the western sky that had obscured the sun for days still made him feel uneasy. He’d been at sea for more years than he liked to count, and sailed the Pacific twice before, and he’d never seen the like.

         But the truth of the matter was that his unease was not due to the strange weather, but from the fact that Jane Burke, who had clung to him as tenaciously as one of her precious barnacles for uncounted nights, was gone.

         She was nowhere nearby. She was not within his sight.

         “Jane.” He staggered toward the boat, hoping that she had taken shelter within its familiar confines. But the pinnace was empty. More than empty—items were missing. The line that had been the main sheet, controlling the sail, was gone, as were many of the tightly packed supplies. “Jane!” he bellowed.

         That was panic, cracking his voice wide open like a boarding ax.

         “Dance!”

         Dance turned a full circle to see her running—tearing up the beach at him as if a tribe of spinster-scientist-eating cannibals were after her.

         No. There were no cannibals.

         And she was smiling.

         She was running toward him as if she hadn’t just spent however many days it had been in a small boat in the middle of the Pacific Ocean. Her feet were bare in the sand. He could see her small toes, and her white, white ankles and shins where she had tied her skirts up to keep them out of the water. Her hair was streaming loose on the breeze.

         Everything that had heretofore seemed so buttoned up and battened down was coming gloriously undone. The drawn, coughing girl of the boat was gone, and left this glowing creature in her place.

         When she reached him she held out her hand and offered him a handful of shells, as if she were giving him rubies and pearls, or manna from heaven. Or better yet, carpentry tools with which he might fix the broken boat.

         He looked again at the contents of her outstretched palm. Shells. But she was beaming at him as if she were ecstatically happy.

         Happy. Shipwrecked only God knew where in the middle of the ocean.

         “It’s unbelievable.” She was breathless with her joy. “You won’t believe what I found. Tridacna gigas. Giant bivalves. Clams as big as a breadbasket.” She spread her arms to indicate the monstrous size. “And more than that. A Venus comb murex, Murex pecten, and another murex, I think, but that I’ve never seen before but it’s definitely a gastropod mollusk with a very wide operculum. And this whelk of the Triton type that I’ve never seen anywhere but is definitely some sort of Cabestana. Oh, Dance. It’s—”

         Dance thought her face would split in two with the width of her smile.

         And then she hurtled herself into his arms, wrapping her arms around his back, and sighing into his chest. “Oh, Dance. It’s heaven.”

         Heaven. Impossible.

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Elizabeth: What about you? Do you think you could survive on an uninhabited island with a group of people? Or how about with just your one and only? Would the two of you, and your love  survive?

An Essex of Scandal? or just...

A BREATH OF SCANDAL

Book II of the Reckless Brides

St. Martin's Press

ISBN: 1250003806

Forced by her family into an engagement with a man she can never abide, Antigone Preston knows only a scandal will save her from a loveless marriage. But knocking a man down to the ballroom floor with her fists brings dangerous consequences. She may have ruined her reputation, but now she’s endangered her heart…

The son of an earl and a career navy man, Captain William Jellicoe has no interest in the frivolities of London—and even less in the institution of marriage. But there’s something steering him toward Antigone. He has never met anyone as brazen and unconventional as…himself. But will he risk it all for a woman who still has the breath of scandal hot on her lips?

MEET THE CAPTAIN & ANTIGONE

ANGI: Approximately how many scandals were you involved in before you met?

WILLIAM: A scandal? I can’t imagine what you mean, although there have been a number of rather colorful incidents. Are you by any chance referring to the incident involving that delightfully malodorous stink-ball in the officers’ gunroom? Or perhaps the time a banner announcing the end of Lieutenant Charles Dance’s virginity was hoisted upon the mizzen mast? Or was it perhaps that evening a milk cow went missing from its home in a field in the French countryside, and was installed under cover of night in the ship’s forecastle? Mere childish pranks. No harm no fuss.

  Although, I will say it might have been something of a scandal the time I set the captain’s wife on fire—although technically, she did set herself on fire—but I was responsible, and I did also manage to do some considerable damage to the ship. But that was years ago. I’ve been nothing but the veriest bore for years now.

   Well, until I met Miss Preston, that is. And then of course, there was the matter of the cognac in the locked library, and the dice game with the footmen, and most notably, the brawl in the tavern. But those were, one and all, entirely Miss Preston’s doing and not mine.

ANTIGONE: Really, I can explain everything. The cognac was practically medicinal, what with coming right after the incident on the dance floor with Mr. Stubbs-Haye. And I can’t regret striking him in the least. He quite deserved it. And I suppose the congac is what led to sneaking out of the house, which led to the marvelous little dice game—I’m rather fond of games of chance, because really, there isn’t much chance involved if one just does the maths— which led to the sojourn at the tavern. But it was all Commander Jellicoe’s doing, the brawl. I never should have gone into the tavern at all if not for him.

   But I cannot find it within me to regret any of our adventures, not a one. For if I hadn’t started by stirring up a scandal, I never should have met Commander Jellicoe in the first place.

ANGI: Where did you learn to use your fists?

WILLIAM: Well, I’m a sailor, you see. We’re a notorious thirsty and pugnacious lot. And I have brothers. Always settling things with our fists, brothers and sailors alike. And over the years, there were a great many rather famous set-tos with the French. Used more than my fists then, but a steady sword arm is always a welcome ancillary to being handy in a good mill. But I do believe Miss Preston is the first, and only, young lady I’ve ever seen with such a carronade of a right. She’s downright lethal with her fives. I am, quite frankly, all admiration.

 ANTIGONE: Commander, surely you exaggerate. I will admit to learning a thing or two from old Billy, the groom in our stable, when I was growing up, but that was only so I could take care of my sister when bully-boys made fun of her stammer. People ought to think before they say something hurtful, and if they don’t, well I don’t see any reason why I should have to put up with it. 

ANGI: How many times did you sneak into the gardens at a ball? Did you steal a kiss?

WILLIAM: I don’t believe I’ve ever snuck into a garden at a ball.  I avoid them like the proverbial plague, balls. But I can’t speak for Miss Preston.

ANTIGONE: Well I haven’t either! I’ve snuck out to play dice with footmen, certainly, and snuck out just to be on my own. And I did sneak out of the house to go adventuring with Commander Jellicoe. And there was a kiss. But it was freely given, and not stolen at all.

ANGI: What’s the first thing you liked about each other?

WILLIAM: Oh, undoubtedly it was that carronade of a right. And her derriere. But I saw the right first, and I was, as I said, all admiration.

ANTIGONE: You’re too kind. I do have to say it was his smile—a little lopsided, his smile, as if he’s too happy and lazy to use all of his face. But it’s charming nonetheless. And that was the second thing, his charm. And his marvelous ability to keep a secret.

ANGI’S GOTTA ASK: I have to know… Where did Antigone’s name came from?

ELIZABETH’S GOTTA ANSWER:   Well, I knew Antigone’s father was a scholar of both mathematics and classics at Cambridge, and I thought he would have perhaps chosen a name from Greek myth. And frankly, I chose Antigone (and her sister’s name, Cassandra) as an antidote to all the too-beautifully named heroines I was finding in romance novels. There did not seem to be many plain Anne or Janes anymore. Every heroine seemed to have a lyrical, lovely name, and I (and my heroine) am just contrary enough to want to pick a difficult name instead. And in the book, the hero, Will Jellicoe, thinks Antigone is an awful name, too, so he has some fun with it—and with Antigone. :)

THE COUPLE's STORY BEGINS...

            Antigone Preston had hoped to spend the evening unprofitably, laying low in an unseen corner of the ballroom. But her hostess, Lady Barrington, stopped her with a tap of her fan.

            “Miss Antigone, we must take you in hand. My dear Mr. Stubbs-Haye.” Lady Barrington called to one of the young men slouching about. “How do you do this evening? How is your dear mother? Let me recommend Miss Antigone, here, as a most desirable partner. We must have her dance this evening.”

            Antigone chose to make no objection to such an introduction. She would have been content to stay with her sister, but Cassandra appeared to have been persuaded to dance the set with a handsome young man by the very encouraging name of the Viscount Jeffrey, who was already leading her sister away on his arm. And Mr. Stubbs-Haye seemed innocuous enough.

            For his part, Mr. Stubbs-Haye was also smart enough to know an order when he heard it, no matter how softly veiled, and self-interested enough to act upon it without delay. “I should like nothing better, my lady. I should be honored if you would consent to dance with me, Miss Antigone.”         

            She consented, the gentleman offered his arm, and at the cessation of one piece of music, Antigone found herself being led out beneath the dazzling chandelier to the middle of the crowded dance floor in almost happy anticipation of the next. In the uncomplicated, goodhearted company of a ruddy-cheeked sportsman like Mr. Stubbs-Haye, she might actually enjoy herself.

            The musicians struck up a country dance, and Antigone tried to lose herself in the pleasure of the lively steps. But in a few measures, when they found themselves at the top of the dance for a moment, and the moment called for conversation, Mr. Stubbs-Haye ended all her enjoyment.

            “Well, I must say, Miss Antigone.” Mr. Stubbs-Haye leaned his head across the gap to impart his confidence. “I am surprised to hear about you.”

            “I’m not.” Antigone knew well enough that he must be referring to her engagement to Lord Aldridge—which was mean to be a secret—but if rumors were to be shared, perhaps she might exchange Mr. Stubbs-Haye’s for one of her own. “And pray what have you heard about me?”

            “That old Aldridge has his hooks in you. You don’t exactly look the type.”

            His bald, nearly vulgar statement threw her uncharacteristically off her stride. An uncomfortable heat settled between her shoulder blades and no doubt blotched up her neck. She put something more tart than vinegar into her voice. “And pray what type is that, Mr. Stubbs-Haye?”

            “Ah, ha-ha.” A roguish tilt of his head supplied all the innuendo his words had not. “Manners forbid a gentleman, and all that.”

            “Manners ought to have forbidden a gentleman from making reference to a lady’s type in the first place, but that doesn’t seem to have stopped you, Mr. Stubbs-Haye.” 

            “Ha-ha. Too true. But I tell you something. When the time comes, and you want a man who knows what to do with a lively girl like you, you remember your friend Gerry.”

             “Mr. Stubbs? Are you perchance drunk? Or merely suicidal?”

            “Stubbs-Haye,” he corrected without an ounce of shame, smiling at her in a way that did not inspire confidence in either his sobriety, or in appeals to his gentlemanly character. “Ain’t you just a lively, taking little thing.”

            And as she skirted past Mr. Stubbs-Haye to circle around the gentlemen next down the line, Mr. Stubbs-Haye reached down, and quite deliberately patted her bum.

            Antigone knew this—the deliberateness—because the dance called for no touching whatsoever at that point in the proceedings.

            She instinctively sidled out of his reach, her discomfort rapidly distilling down into ire. She may have been a country miss, more at home with horses and huntsmen than dandies, but surely manners in Hampshire were not so very different from those six miles away at home, as to permit gentlemen such liberties?

            “Sir! I have no wish to be a ‘taking little thing.’” Antigone attempted to keep her voice low—Mama would have apoplexies if she heard her daughter employing sarcasm in Lady Barrington’s ballroom—but Antigone could only think dark humor was necessary in such a case. “Nor do I wish to be pawed at like a tavern maid, Mr. Stubbs-Haye. Please, kindly confine your dancing maneuvers to the prescribed areas. Or-” 

            Antigone let her threat subside. If they had been in the upper rooms at the White Horse tavern she would have simply abandoned him on the dance floor and walked away, manners and appearances be damned, and seen to it that he was sent the wrong way on a hunt to come a cropper in a hedge. But they were not in Wealdgate village, and her mother’s tense instructions for behavior in Lady Barrington’s vaunted ballroom had not included direction on what to do when pawed by drunk, or otherwise obtuse gentlemen.  As it was, her forceful style of addressing Mr. Stubbs-Haye was drawing curious eyes in their direction.

            Well, perhaps the censure of his peers would help to stifle Mr. Stubbs-Haye’s ungentlemanly urges. And yet it seemed to Antigone, not all those glances were friendly or sympathetic. The gazes of the couple now nearest to them—a windswept-looking blond man and his much fairer skinned sister, for their familial resemblance was unmistakable—darted back and forth between the partners, seeming to question what she had done to invite such unwarranted liberties.

            Oh, for heaven’s sake. Antigone felt the heat in her face flame higher, until she was sure it must be singeing her eyebrows. She certainly was not encouraging Stubbs-Haye. She had only just met the confounded man, in whose character Lady Barrington must be sadly deceived.

            Antigone cast a glance over her shoulder toward the silk upholstered chairs where her mother sat with Lady Barrington, to see what they made of Mr. Stubbs-Haye’s egregious behavior.

            Yet that proved to be an error of the gravest kind, for while her attention was diverted, Mr. Stubbs-Haye took the opportunity to make good on his vulgar promise, and reached down and groped her bottom. Roughly.

            And that, as they were wont to say, was that.

            Before another thought could force prudence upon her brain, and remind her that she meant to be good, and proper, and quietly supportive of her sister, Antigone simply hauled off and punched Mr. Gerald Stubbs-Haye with every ounce of indignant anger surging from her affronted behind. Luck, and the full centrifugal force of her blow would have it that she struck him squarely on the chin.

            He went down hard. Felled like a tree, crashing to the ground in a tangle of flailing arms and quivering, satin-breeched limbs.

            Mr. Stubbs-Haye, it would seem, had a glass jaw.

            And as she stood over him, panting with the pain in her hand and not a little satisfaction, everything else stopped.

            The music faded to a scratchy end, and all eyes turned to her.

            No one spoke. No one came forward to offer her any kind of assistance or support. No one so much as moved a muscle. For a the longest moment, the crowded room was so quiet Antigone fancied all she could all hear was the pant of her breath, and the low creak of her heart turning over in her chest.

            In reality, there was only the pathetic and decidedly unmanly moans of Mr. Stubbs-Haye.

            Oh, Lord help her. She had certainly stepped in it this time.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

When not rereading Jane Austen, mucking about in her garden and simply messing about with boats, acclaimed author Elizabeth Essex can be always be found with her laptop, making up stories about heroes and heroines who live far more exciting lives than she. It wasn't always so. Elizabeth graduated from Hollins College with a BA in Classics, and then earned her MA in Nautical Archaeology from Texas A&M University. While she loved the life of an underwater archaeologist, she has found her true calling writing lush, lyrical historical romance full of passion, daring and adventure.

Elizabeth lives in Texas with her husband, the indispensable Mr. Essex, and her active and exuberant family.

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PREVIOUS RELEASES by ELIZABETH:
For a complete Back List and Excerpts 

ALMOST A SCANDAL
Book I of the Reckless Brides

St. Martin's Press

ISBN: 1250003792

THE DANGER OF DESIRE

ISBN: 0758251580

THE PURSUIT OF PLEASURE                       

ISBN: 0758251548    

    

A SENSE OF SIN

ISBN: 0758251564

UP NEXT for ELIZABETH: 

SCANDAL IN THE NIGHT

St. Martin's Press

Summer 2013

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READERS DON’T FORGET to follow us on Facebook & Twitter #GetLostStories for a daily update on who’s visiting GLIAS and what they might be giving away! Are you an author wanting to find readers? Send us an email. Come back tomorrow when Jillian hosts Sharon Fisher and return Wednesday for  Irene Hannon and me. ~Angi

ELIZABETH WANTS TO KNOW:   When we talk about what we like to see in a hero, we often get stuck on physical attributes, but what, other than the way a man looks, is most important to you? Personally, I like a man who knows how to laugh—at himself and at the world around him. How about you? How do you feel about a hero who can make the heroine, and YOU, laugh?

RITA® Historical Romance Nominees

And the nominees are...
~ ~ ~
EILEEN DREYER
Grand Central Publishing Forever; Amy Pierpont, editor

Major Sir Harry Lidge has done his duty. After losing too many good men in battle he's ready to live a life free of care. But first he has one last mission: kidnap the most outrageous woman in London - the same woman who betrayed him nearly a decade earlier - and find out what she's concealing before her secrets take down the crown.

Surrounded by ardent admirers and a few loyal friends, Lady Kate Seaton glides through the ton armed with nothing but coture gowns and bon mots. No one suspects that beneath her lighthearted facade lies a sorrow so scandalous she'll do anything to keep it hidden.

But only when she trusts Harry with the truth can she begin to heal. And only when Harry trusts her with his heart can he protect both his country and the woman he loves.

Excerpt from Always A Temptress
Website

~ ~ ~
JOANNA BOURNE
Berkley Publishing Group; Wendy McCurdy, editor

Attacked on a rainy London street, veteran spy Justine DeCabrillac knows only one man can save her: Hawker, her oldest friend . . . her oldest enemy. London's crawling with hidden assassins and someone is out to frame Hawker for murder. The two spies must work together to find who's out to destroy them...

Excerpt from The Black Hawk
Website

~ ~ ~
ELIZABETH ESSEXKensington Brava; Megan Records, editor

An Unlikely Partnership
Naval Captain Hugh McAlden is accustomed to taking on deadly, high-stakes assignments – and being rewarded handsomely for his success. But to accomplish his latest mission, he’ll need someone more inconspicuous among his own ranks. Someone like the larcenous beauty who just relieved him of his pocket watch under his very nose…

Meggs is one of London’s stealthiest thieves and her livelihood depends on remaining untethered and unnoticed. But when she is caught by the icy-eyed Scottish captain, she sees a chance to escape her life of crime forever. Ever weary, she accepts his unusual proposition, even as she plots to cut and run at a moment’s notice.

And an uncontrollable desire
But as Meggs and Hugh come nearer to the danger at the heart of their mission, thoughts of betrayal and distrust begin to dissolve … overshadowed by a passion worth every risk…

Excerpt from The Danger of Desire

Website
GLIAS interviews

~ ~ ~
KAKI WARNER

Berkley Publishing Group Sensation; Wendy McCurdy, editor

Honest, hard-working widower, age thirty-three, seeks sturdy English-speaking woman to help with mountain ranch and four children. Drinkers, whores, and gamblers need not apply.

Not very romantic, but after one disastrous marriage, widowed Edwina Ladoux isn’t looking for romance. What she wants is safety for herself and her half-sister, and a way out of the war torn South, even if she has to offer herself up as a mail order bride to a stranger a thousand miles away in the Colorado Rockies. But she hadn’t reckoned on Declan Brodie.

Declan’s first wife ran off with a gambler and was later killed by Indians. He has no desire to saddle himself with another—and her mulatto “traveling companion”. But his children need a mother, and he needs help to keep his mountain ranch running, and the proxy papers are already signed. But there’s something odd about those two. A connection he doesn’t quite understand. But at least the companion can cook.

What starts as a marriage of convenience between a southern princess and an overworked rancher-sometimes-sheriff, soon becomes a battle of wills, then a grudging respect, and finally a side-by-side struggle to rebuild the ranch after a vicious Indian attack. But just as things are starting to looking up again, and Declan and Ed begin to explore their feelings for each other, Declan’s first wife returns and an old enemy out for revenge threatens to destroy the family. It all comes to a head high atop an abandoned mine platform, where Edwina fights as she never has before, and Declan faces his greatest fear in order to save his daughter and the woman he has grown to love.

Excerpt from Heartbreak Creek

Website

~ ~ ~

JENNIFER ASHLEY
Berkley Publishing Group Sensation; Kate Seaver, editor

Lord Cameron Mackenzie is intrigued when he finds the pretty widow, Ainsley Douglas, hiding in the window seat of his bedchamber. Cam remembers Ainsley Douglas all right—six years ago, he’d caught her in this very bedchamber, during a house party in the Mackenzies’ Scottish manor. Enchanted by her ingenuous excuses, he decided to seduce her, but stopped shy when she’d made a rather touching appeal about her “good husband who didn’t deserve to be heartbroken.”

Later, Cameron learned that her visit to his bedchamber was part of some female intrigue against him, the kind his late wife used to practice. Ainsley protested her innocence, but Cameron’s anger made him never want to see her again. Now she’s back, at another houseparty—and Cameron finds the gray-eyed minx in his bedchamber, again. Her excuses are just as ingenuous, but this time Cameron is determined to teach her a lesson.

They have unfinished business, Cameron tells her. He asks her how many of her many buttons she’ll let him unclasp, promising that before the houseparty is over, she’ll be asking him to undo them all.

Ainsley’s dismay is real. She’s on a mission to prevent embarrassment to Queen Victoria, and time is running out. Though the needs he’d stirred long ago during her unhappy marriage rise again, she knows it would be foolish to fall for love-them-and-leave-them Cameron Mackenzie.

But he asks her a question that challenges her beliefs about love and happiness, and she finds herself risking all to be with the black sheep of the Mackenzie family.

Excerpt from The Many Sins of Lord Cameron
Website

~ ~ ~
ELIZABETH HOYT
Grand Central Publishing; Amy Pierpont, editor

River Pirate ‘Charming’ Mickey O’Connor has lifted himself from the depths of the slums to be the King of St. Giles. Anything he wants he gets—with one exception. Silence Hollingbrook has been haunting his dreams ever since she spent a single night in his bed.

That the only true treasure . . .
Once Silence was willing to sacrifice anything to save the man she loved. Now a widow, she’s finally found peace when Charming Mickey comes storming back into her life with an offer she can’t refuse. But this time she won’t be the only one paying the price for his sins.

Lies in a woman's heart?
When his past comes back to torment him, Mickey must keep Silence safe from a merciless enemy, while wrestling with the delicious hold this widow has on his heart. And in the face of mounting danger, both will have to surrender to something even more terrifying . . . true love.

Excerpt from Scandalous Desires

Website
GLIAS interview

~ ~ ~

LORETTA CHASE
Avon Books; May Chen, editor

Brilliant and ambitious dressmaker Marcelline Noirot is London's rising star. And who better to benefit from her talent than the worst-dressed lady in London; the Duke of Clevedon's intended bride? Winning the future duchess's patronage means prestige and fortune for Marcelline and her family. To get to the lady, though, Marcelline must win over Clevedon, whose standards are as high as his morals are...not.

The prize seems well worth the risk. This time, though, Marcelline's met her match. Clevedon can design a seduction as irresistible as her dresses; and what begins as a flicker of desire between two of the most passionately stubborn charmers in London soon ignites into a delicious inferno . . .and a blazing scandal.

And now both their futures hang by a thread of silk…

Excerpt from Silk Is For Seduction
Website

~ ~ ~
COURTNEY MILAN
HQN Books; Margo Lipschultz, editor

He was her bitterest enemy….

Ash Turner has waited a lifetime to seek revenge on the man who ruined his family, and now the time for justice has arrived. At Parford Manor, he intends to take his place as the rightful heir to the dukedom, and settle an old score with the current duke once and for all. But when he arrives, he finds himself drawn to a tempting beauty who has the power to undo all his dreams of vengeance.…

And her dearest love

Lady Margaret knows she should despise the man who’s stolen her fortune and her father’s legacy—the man she’s been ordered to spy on in the guise of a nurse. Yet the more she learns about the new duke, the less she can resist his smoldering appeal. Soon Margaret and Ash find themselves torn between old loyalties—and the tantalizing promise of passion….
Excerpt from Unveiled

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