Michele Ann Young Guest Blogging and Giveaway

The Lady Flees Her Lord

In my Regency-set historical, the Lady Flees Her Lord, Lucinda, Lady Denbigh is one of those people who collects strays, a kitten, children, and rather to her surprise, an ex soldier with a drinking problem. Fleeing a husband who abuses her because he despises her full-figure and her lack of fertility, she rescues a street orphan and poses as a widow with a small daughter in a quiet backwater in Kent.

Reclusive ex-soldier Lord Hugo Wanstead returns from the wars with a wound that won’t heal and some memories he’d rather forget. Brandy numbs both kinds of pain, but the Rubinesque woman renting a house on his estate is far too attractive for his peace of mind, especially when she takes him to task for neglecting the tenants on his estate.

A wary friendship develops into a budding romance, and they both feel they’ve been offered a second chance at happiness or a sort. But when Lucinda’s husband discovers where she is, her life and their love hang in the balance.

Women in the Regency era faced the same problems that unfortunately some women face today, including the need to fit the fashionable mold, the longing for children, and men who abuse. The need to produce the next heir was a huge issue in those times, and men usually blamed their wives if a son did not appear on schedule. After all the procreation of the next generation was a woman’s primary function, especially among the well to do classes. The inability to bear children was seen as a failure since there was no such thing as adoption in those days, and only a child ‘of the blood’ could inherit a man’s title.

If you recall the Bennets, in Pride and Prejudice, the reason Mrs. Bennet was so distressed by their cousin Mr. Collins’s visit, was because he was Mr. Bennet’s heir. Unfortunately they only had daughters. In today’s more enlightened societies, daughters are welcomed just as much as sons, thank goodness. We can also solve this problem of being barren by adoption, or for some couples by medical means not available two hundred years ago.

There were a great many home remedies, herbs and concoctions, that women tried when they appeared to be barren, lavender was one of them, and there were some experiments with electricity, which was touted as a cure-all for just about everything for a while, as well as lying down for weeks on end.

Having tried all of them and more and subject to increasing misery by her husband, Lucinda decides to take matters into her own hand and departs. She has some small resources of her own and an uncrushable spirit, but she is in fact breaking the law as is anyone who tries to help her.

The Lady Flees Her Lord is about Lucinda, and how she copes with her circumstances. When I reached the end, I must say I was impressed with her and very proud of the way she struggled to take back her life. I hope that readers feel the same way when they read her story.

In celebration of the launch of this book, I would am offering two signed books to be drawn from among those who comment, a copy of the Lady Flees Her Lord and a copy of No Regrets. You can visit me at my website http://www.micheleannyoung.com or to find out snippets of information about the Regency visit my Regency Rambles blog at http://www.micheleannyoung.blogspot.com