The Greatest Knight by Elizabeth Chadwick

Many thanks for inviting me to be a guest on your blog – I’m really pleased to be here to talk about William Marshal, the star of my novel The Greatest Knight.

Forget all your imaginary heroes, William Marshal was one fabulous man who really existed. The title says it all. He truly was the greatest knight of the Middle Ages. I had long wanted to write about this penniless knight who saved the life of the Queen of England at great cost to himself, who was the only man ever to knock Richard the Lionheart off his horse, and who married one of the most sought after heiresses in England.

While I was thinking about writing his stunning story, I had a very lucky break. Back in the thirteenth century, William Marshal’s eldest son commissioned a poet to write his father’s life in verse to be recited to the family on feast days. The poet composed the work while many of the people who had known William were still alive. These included his squire and best friend, Jean D’Earley who was with William when he unhorsed Richard the Lionheart, and when William came to the Tower of London and took Isabelle de Clare to be his bride. That poem, written in old French, was lost for hundreds of years. Then, in the late 19th Century it was discovered amongst a pile of old manuscripts by a French historian. He translated it from the ancient Norman French into modern French, but it was only as I began writing The Greatest Knight that William’s wonderful life story was finally translated into English, and I was able to use it as one of the main sources for my research.

The poem tells us many things about William. He was known as ‘Gaste Viande’ when he was a youth, which basically means ‘Greedy Guts’ because like a lot of teenage boys, he loved his food! He is described as being brown-haired with a tanned complexion. He was ‘tall…well fashioned; he had fine feet and hands and handsomely formed.’ The poem says too that in his youth he was an ‘upright young man,’ who was courageous, could hold his own in battle, but was equally at home at court. He had a fine, strong singing voice, and a great sense of fun. You could have a laugh with William! He was never boastful and always respectful of women.

Eleanor of Aquitaine valued him greatly and after he saved her life she rewarded him with‘horses, arms, money and fine clothes.’ None of this went to his head though. He wasn’t boastful and he kept his feet firmly on the ground. Even later in his career when he was a wealthy man, he remained modest. Rather than have a great seal made to put on his documents, he kept the small, old one that had served him since his early knighthood. He was also intensely loyal. If he said he would do something for you, he kept his word. A vow was a vow – unto death should it come to it. That’s my kind of guy.

I thought I’d leave you with a small excerpt from the novel, just a taster of the kind of man who became England’s greatest knight.

Here, William has arrived at the Tower of London to claim Heloise of Kendal, an heiress who has been entrusted to him. Ranulf de Glanville, who is in charge of the heiresses at the tower, is not impressed.

…..De Glanville’s nod was grudging. ‘I’ll have her summoned.’ He beckoned to an attendant. ‘I assume you intend to wed the girl?’

William made a non-commital sound, thinking that everyone was suddenly very concerned about his marital status. ‘I have heard that you have another heiress lodged in your keeping,’ he said thoughtfully.

‘I have several heiresses. They come and go as the King sees fit to grant them to wardens and husbands,’ de Glanville said coldly. ‘And I doubt he will see fit to grant you more than he has already given.’

William answered the rebuff with a smile. He had heard that the daughter of Richard Strongbow was lodged in the Tower and everyone knew that she was one of the greatest marriage prizes in the Kingdom. A man who gained her property would not be just a simple baron, but a magnate. He had been wondering for several days if Queen Eleanor was ambitious for him and also how ambitious he was for himself. He had glimpsed Strongbow’s daughter fleetingly on the day he had set out for Jerusalem – a thin girl in the stages of turning into a woman, with wide, blue eyes and ropes of rain-jewelled fair hair.

The attendant returned, escorting two young women; a willowy blonde and a buxom younger girl with a freckled complexion and bright brown eyes. Ranulf de Glanville’s own complexion darkened until it almost matched the madder-red of his woollen tunic.

‘As I understood,’ he said curtly, ‘I sent for the lady Heloise alone.’
The attendant stared like an owl caught in daylight and began to stutter an apology. Overriding him, the plump girl took a swift pace forward and said, ‘I asked Isabelle to accompany me. Have I done wrong?’

The justiciar compressed his lips. ‘Had I wanted both of you, I would have sent for both of you.’ He gestured to the discomforted attendant. ‘Escort Lady Isabelle back to her chamber.’

William rose and bowed to the girls. ‘They may both remain as far as I am concerned,’ he said easily. ‘A flower gladdens the eye, but two flowers doubly so.’

‘This is not the court of the Young King,’ de Glanville snapped. ‘Your speeches are inappropriate…my lord, as is Lady Isabelle’s presence.’

‘But surely the lady is your guest not your prisoner.’ William perused Isabelle de Clare more closely. The slender waif of three years since, was developing into a beauty. She returned his regard calmly from eyes flecked with different tones of blue like a summer sea. Her complexion was pale but pink warmth had seeped into her cheeks……

© Elizabeth Chadwick


About the Author
Elizabeth Chadwick lives near Nottingham with her husband and two sons. She is the author of 17 historical novels, including Lords of the White Castle, Shadows and Strongholds, A Place Beyond Courage, The Scarlet Lion, the Winter Mantle, and the Falcons of Montebard, four of which have been shortlisted for the Romantic Novelists’ Awards. Much of her research is carried out as a member of Regia Anglorum, an early medieval re-enactment society with the emphasis on accurately re-creating the past. She won a Betty Trask Award for The Wild Hunt, her first novel.

GIVEAWAY
Sourcebooks is sponsoring a giveaway of TWO copies of this book! This giveaway is open to the United States and Canada. To enter, leave me a comment (don't forget the email addy) and tell me who your favorite historical figure is and why. This is one really awesome book so don't miss out!

Congrat's To This Week's Winners

Stacey ~ Never Marry A Stranger by Gayle Callen

*Jane ~ Surrender of A Siren by Tessa Dare

*Maija P. ~ The Notorious Bridegroom by Kit Donner

*Morning Glow ~ Secret Desires of A Gentleman by Laura Lee Guhrke

Please send your snail mail info to terraontop57 at yahoo dot com. Congrats to our winner and I hope you enjoy your prizes!

Never Marry A Stranger by Gayle Callen

Hi to Terra and everyone at Yankee Romance Reviewers! Thanks so much for inviting me to spend the day with you. I’m Gayle Callen, and I write Victorian romances for Avon books (and medieval romances for Avon as Julia Latham—but not this time!). My newest book, NEVER MARRY A STRANGER, hit the shelves this week, and I’m very excited! It’s the third book in my “Sons of Scandal” trilogy. I love to plot in trilogies, mainly because if I’m going to work so hard to come up with characters and their world, I want to get lots of mileage out of it!

I approached this trilogy with the idea that these three heroes, cousins, come from a very scandalous family, starting with their grandfather, and then their parents. I wondered how three very different men would react to it. Daniel (from Never Trust a Scoundrel) is a rake to the core and embraces scandal. Christopher (from Never Dare a Duke) wanted to get past a scandal from his youth, so he became the perfect duke, and he wanted to keep his reputation spotless. In this third book, NEVER MARRY A STRANGER, Matthew thought he wanted to escape his family’s scandal, but he can’t outrun the family trait and eventually gives up trying. He returns from India because he discovers that his family believed him killed in the war. He shows up, only to find a woman posing as his wife—and he never married her. Instead of denouncing her publicly (and exposing his family to even more scandal) he pretends that amnesia from his war wounds has blocked his memory of marriage. Emily dreads being found out—and instead, finds a man who’s more than ready to jump into marriage as he tries to figure out the truth.

This book had a more difficult journey to publication than most of my others. In my usual, intense plotting fashion, I wrote a detailed 25 page outline before I wrote the book. I figured out my characters, their motivation, the main points of the story, the blackest moment, and the resolution. (I’m a plotter. Some writers are seat-of-the-pantsers, who just sit down and start writing—{shudder}) My critique group approved of my synopsis, as did my agent and editor. I plunged ahead and wrote the book, handed it in, and discovered that it just didn’t work well enough for my editor. It seemed that the characters didn’t have any chemistry. It took me a while to figure out what was wrong—and then it hit me. I had set up their motivations incorrectly. Originally, I had Matthew be really angry at Emily’s deception, and she felt very guilty, even though she had been desperate when she’d allowed them to think she was his wife. Matthew came across as grim, and she came across as fearful. The only sexual tension was very reluctant and forced.

So I totally changed their motivations. Emily became plucky, and determined to be the best wife ever, to make Matthew fall in love with her, because she had nowhere else to go. Matthew became changed by the war into a man who had learned to relax and enjoy whatever came his way, even the craziness of a wife he didn’t marry. He was simply glad to be alive. He was still determined to figure out the truth, of course, but he enjoyed every moment of it, and thought Emily darn well asked to be seduced. The sexual tension became fun and palpable, since they’d both become stronger people with the revision. In each scene, I had to change their thoughts, but not the action. I was totally surprised by how much better the book was, and thankfully, my editor agreed.

So even though I’ve written twenty books, each one is individual, and turns out a different way than I’d planned. But those revisions made it a more powerful book—and I hope you agree!

So how do you react when something you’ve worked so hard on has to be changed?

Leave an answer to Gayle's question along with your email addy and you will be entered to have a chance to win a copy of Never Marry A Stranger. One winner will be chosen at the end of the week.



NEVER MARRY A STRANGER by Gayle Callen

An Excerpt

Emily Grey opened her eyes, thinking groggily that she was supposed to be in the drawing room. Instead she was lying on her back, beneath the canopy of a bed—in her husband’s bedroom.

It all came to her suddenly, and her wary gaze found the man who’d brought her here, who now watched her after his pleasant greeting.

The dead man she’d claimed as her husband.

She’d thought she’d become a strong woman, but his entrance into the drawing room had stunned her so that she’d been speechless, unable to think about what to do.

She’d fully expected to find herself tossed from the house.
But he hadn’t denounced her. When he’d said he’d lost part of his memory, her relief had been so absolute she must have fainted. How appallingly weak of her. Weakness was a liability; only her strength and her wits would see her through this now.

She found herself studying Captain Matthew Leland, trying to remember the man she’d known for only a few hours not quite two years ago, the man whose death she’d used for her own convenience.

But he wasn’t dead. He was very much alive, and alone with her in the bedroom they were supposed to share as husband and wife.

But he wasn’t her husband.

She wouldn’t panic. This rare illness of his had given her the chance to continue as his wife. She was strong now, and had learned she was capable of doing terrible things in order to survive. And she would survive this.

“Matthew?” His name came out in a feigned whisper of disbelief.

Casually he leaned against the bedpost, arms folded across his chest, and a small smile turned up his lips. He was a handsome man, as she’d thought from the first moment she’d seen him on a boat in the stormy English Channel. He had dark, auburn hair that glistened by lamplight. His amused eyes were hazel, not just one color, but changeable the more she looked at him. When she’d first met him, she’d thought his eyes intense, as if he would focus only on her whenever they spoke together.

With a classically square jaw and thin lips, he was the picture of what a handsome man should look like. He was still broad with muscle, perhaps even more so since he’d been serving as a soldier in India. His coat almost seemed too tight across his shoulders, as if he hadn’t had time to purchase a new one since he’d been back.

Well, of course, he hadn’t. He’d rushed straight from the ship to tell his parents that he was alive—only to find a wife he didn’t remember.

What would his wife do?

Without a second thought, she flung herself from the bed and into his arms. He didn’t even stagger, so strong was he. She thought he hesitated, but at last his arms came around her, and she was enveloped by warmth—but not security. She would never delude herself. She’d grown up thinking that marriage meant security, but she’d found it herself, without needing an actual husband. She’d learned never to rely on anyone else.

At last she leaned back to look up at him, smiling with happiness, forcing tears to glisten in her eyes. “Matthew!” She repeated his name with gladness and joy.

He was smiling down at her, which gave her some ease, but he studied her face closely. Should she kiss him, distract him from thinking too deeply? She was fully prepared to do what was necessary, but…something stopped her.

“They called you Emily,” he said slowly, as if testing out her name on his tongue, his voice a deep rumble of masculinity.

She grinned as her hands stroked down his shoulders. “I was Emily Grey, but you made me a Leland.” She let her smile fade. “But now I don’t know what to do. I want to show my happiness for your safe return, and cry at the same time. Do you truly remember nothing?”

He shook his head. “A fine homecoming for a wife who hadn’t allowed herself to hope I would return.”

His hands slid down her back slowly, coming to rest on her waist. She’d wanted to distract him, but strangely, just his touch was distracting her. She could not risk such a mental failing.

“How could I hope?” she asked, fingering his lapels. “They said you were dead. I was ill when your mother told me. Even now I remember how lost I felt. But to you, I am just a newly introduced stranger.” As a tear fell from her lashes, she was grateful for such a mask behind which to hide. Though she was playing with fire, she reached to touch his cheek, feeling the warmth of his skin and roughness of stubble.

Suddenly, his hands tightened on her waist, pulling her even more intimately against him. His gaze was centered on her mouth.

He thought she was his wife. He could claim his marital rights.

She found she couldn’t breathe, her breasts rising and falling against the hard wall of his chest. Though he was not an exceptionally tall man like his cousin the duke, he still leaned over her, powerful and intimidating. If he ever remembered everything—

He bent even closer, his mouth just above hers. She felt his breath, knew an intense ache that she couldn’t identify. To her surprise, at the last second he turned his head and pressed his warm lips to her cheek. He let her go so quickly that she stumbled back against the bed.

Surrender of A Siren by Tessa Dare

Surrender of a Siren, which released yesterday, is the second book in the trilogy that began with Goddess of the Hunt. It stars Lucy’s friend Sophia, a pampered heiress who jilts her fiancé and runs away in search of passion and adventure. She finds all that and then some aboard the Aphrodite, a merchant ship owned by Benedict “Gray” Grayson, a devilishly charming ex-privateer.

Because she originated as a secondary character—the perfect, pretty “other woman” who was Lucy’s rival before they became friends—Sophia Hathaway is different from a lot of Regency heroines. For one thing, she’s beautiful and she knows it. She’s also wealthy and privileged: no Cinderella story here.

But what she has, in a quantity even greater than beauty or fortune, is imagination. A wild, wicked, irrepressible imagination, which has been her secret escape from her boring life as a proper Regency miss. This creativity of thought translates into a few concrete talents. She’s an accomplished artist, for one. Sophia is also a very good liar. She finds uses for both talents aboard the Aphrodite.

Her imagination is both a blessing and a curse. She can’t stop herself from dreaming after wild passion and sweeping romance, and thus ends up on a rather gritty, grueling, unromantic ocean crossing. But it’s that same wicked imagination that gives Sophia the emotional courage to hold her own with Gray. She has the soul-deep conviction that they both deserve to love and be loved, flawed as they might be.

So, it’s that age-old job interview question: Do you have a personality trait that is both your strength and your weakness?

In my case, I think it’s my dislike of arbitrary procedure and rules. I’m not exactly a rebellious sort, but I just can’t get exercised about enforcing random policies. And on the wild journey that is parenting, that’s definitely proven to be both a blessing and a curse!

How about you?
http://www.tessadare.com/
http://www.tessadare.com/bookshelf/surrender-of-a-siren





Surrender of A Siren

Excerpt

Desperate to escape a loveless marriage and society’s constraints, pampered heiress Sophia Hathaway jilts her groom, packs up her paints and sketchbook, and assumes a new identity, posing as a governess to secure passage on the Aphrodite. She wants a life of her own: unsheltered, unconventional, uninhibited. But it’s one thing to sketch all her wildest, most wanton fantasies, and quite another to face the dangerously handsome libertine who would steal both her virtue and her gold.

To any well-bred lady, Benedict “Gray” Grayson is trouble in snug-fitting boots. A conscienceless scoundrel who sails the seas for pleasure and profit, Gray lives for conquest—until Sophia’s perception and artistry stir his heart. Suddenly, he’ll brave sharks, fire, storm, and sea just to keep her at his side. She’s beautiful, refined, and ripe for seduction. Could this counterfeit governess be a rogue’s redemption? Or will the runaway heiress’s secrets destroy their only chance at love?

The Write Stuff by Kit Donner

Do you know the write stuff? You’ve written your manuscript and think it’s pretty darn good. You feel like you’re so close to finaling or winning a contest or getting the ultimate agent or a 3-book contract, but it hasn’t happened yet.

Why? Is it some mysterious bit of wisdom no one has taught you? Probably not, but I may have some suggestions that will help you. Since I’ve been critiquing contests as well as individuals who look for help in polishing their manuscripts, I’ve noticed a few common mistakes writers make that might be preventing them from “sealing the deal.”

In this blog, I’ve listed common mistakes I’ve found, that corrected, may help you achieve your writing goals sooner. Since I made many of these mistakes, I can now recognize them in others’ writings. I hope this blog may help you or at least make you consider if your writing is progressing the way you hope it is. I’m a firm believer that whether published or not, you continue to hone your craft.

(Not in any order:)

1. Using the word “that” or “for a moment” too often
“that”- You’ll be surprised how many times you really don’t need to use this word.
Suggestion: Go to “edit” and “find” all your “thats,” and see how many you really need.
“For a moment” – I was surprised at the number of times I used “for a moment” in my first manuscript. Although it’s about showing passage of time, again, you really don’t need it.
Suggestion: Try to be more creative or don’t use anything. “Briefly” and “suddenly,” are not good substitutes either.

2. Is this scene necessary?
You’ve probably read this before: every scene needs to move the story forward or further character development or add something for the reader. Recently, I’ve read many scenes where I question the writer: What is happening in this scene? Is it two people talking about nothing? When the reader has read a scene, what is she supposed to come away with?
Suggestion: Review your manuscript for wasted scenes that accomplish nothing to your storytelling.

3. Who’s talking- you or your character?
As writers we know the story, and we know what we need to get across to the reader in each scene. In reviewing the scene, are your characters’ dialogue true to their characters?
Suggestion: Think carefully about the words you put in your characters’ mouths.
Make sure they are true to the character.

4. Sentence flow
In examining each paragraph, do your sentences flow together? Are they logical and do they read smoothly?
Suggestion: Have your critique partner or another read your paragraphs JUST for smoothness and review each sentence for clarity and coherency. Anything unclear, ask the writer, what this sentence mean?

5. Using conjunction sentences with “ands” and “buts”
Do you use a lot of conjunctions when writing? Does the first part of the sentence work with the second part? And usually, characters can’t do two actions at the same time. Example: “He walked across the room and sat down.”
Suggestion: Vary sentence structure. Use conjunctions at a minimum. Push yourself as a writer to search for new ways for stronger story-telling.

6. Varying sentence lengths.
You’ve probably heard shorter sentences are better for faster pace, especially when building suspense or writing action scenes. Longer sentences slow the pace and give the reader time for reflexion.
Suggestion: Give your readers a break by varying your sentence lengths. Don’t use all short or long sentences. If you have many long sentences, see if you can break them up for shorter sentences.

7. How do you begin each sentence and paragraph?
Do your sentences begin with many “he’s” and “she’s?” Or the characters’ names?
Suggestion: Skim each page for how you begin each sentence. Do you have too many subjects? Think about how you can change up your sentences for variety.

8. The infamous ITS vs. IT’S.
Many of you already know this, but I’m always surprised when I find “its” used incorrectly. It’s = it is its= possession
Suggestion: “Edit” and “find” all the “its” to make sure you’re using the right one.

9. Create the scene using your senses.
So many scenes I’ve read have dialogue and character action and maybe a word thrown in about moonlight, but little more. Remember to put your reader into the scene.
Suggestion: Example: Your heroine is riding in a bumpy carriage ride. Will your reader feel the bumps of the road or the leather seat or see the rolling landscape outside the carriage window? Is she cold from the drafty carriage or warm from the rug thrown over her legs? Can she smell newly-cut hay or hear the horses’ harnesses jingling or another passenger snoring? Think about developing each scene further.

10. Put all the words you need in, then take most of them out, especially when showing and not telling.
Suggestion: When writing your first draft, use all the words you need to tell the story. Then when revising, take most of them out, which includes many “telling” scenarios. Example: She slapped the whip against her thigh in irritation and frustration. You don’t need “in irritation and frustration” because by her actions we already know how she’s feeling.

OK, I’m now officially off my soapbox. I hope these suggestions might help you and your writing to go the next step.

All the best, Kit Donner

P.S. Please, please, put your punctuation WITHIN the end quotes.

Let Kit know what you think of her article and leave your email addy to have a chance to win a signed copy of The Notorious Bridegroom. One Winner will be chosen at the end of the week.

The Notorious Bridegroom

Excerpt

Chapter Three

The sun’s dying scarlet rays washed across the sky after Patience’s second day as Paddock Green’s newest still-room maid. She stretched her weary arms above her head, stiff from polishing the last looking glass with wine spirits, then added whiting for a final shine.

Finished earlier than expected, Patience had helped rub and sift the sugar for cake, although the cook complained that Patience’s cake dough could be used as cannon fodder to shoot at the unsuspecting French enemy. Perhaps next time she could remember to add the yeast, the cook hinted scornfully.

But Patience’s mind was not on baking a better cake. Like Pandora with the key to her box, she wanted to unlock the earl’s secrets in his locked study, no doubt to keep out prying still-room maids.

After she helped Lem cut the cotton tops off the candles and change the lamp oil, Mrs. Knockersmith sent her to bed with a warning to be up earlier than the sun. Patience wearily climbed the stairs, scratching her head through her large mobcap.
Lord Londringham, a subject never very far from her mind. What kind of a man was he? He was certainly guilty of espionage, but murder? She shivered as if ghostly hands had reached out to her from the grave. Biting her lip, she realized resignedly that she would have to get much closer to the earl if she wanted to discover the answers she sought.

Although the hour grew late, Patience decided to take a quick nap before attempting her first foray into spying. She had thought about it all afternoon and planned to eavesdrop on the earl and the captain when they met tonight in the earl’s rooms. With any luck, she could secure evidence to be used against the earl.

Once safely inside her maid’s room in the attic, Patience threw off her mobcap and spectacles, and in relief, unbuttoned the maid’s uniform before pulling on her thin blue lawn nightdress. She unpinned her hair, then combed the thick strands through her fingers, as she massaged away the slight pain from the cap and pins. She promptly curled into a ball and closed her eyes. Just for a few minutes, she promised herself.

An hour later Patience awakened, slowly, then jolted into a sitting position. It all came winging back to her on a cry.

Tonight. The earl's room.

A glance at the clock showed almost half-past eleven. She grabbed a pale blue wrap and slipped quietly out the door, not giving herself pause for failure, and winked three times for luck before hastening towards the stairs.

Patience thought her frantic breathing would awaken the dead. Lips dry and hands trembling, her bare feet whispered across the moonbeam-lit wooden floor as she ran down the hallway. She prayed the shadows would hide her as she hugged the cool walls on her descent to the second floor, forcing her cowardly feet forward step-by-step.

When the longcase clock in the Grand Hall began to chime, she stopped to take quick, shallow breaths, keenly listening for any sleepless companions in the night.

What if she was too late? What if the earl had not returned yet? Too late for a change of heart. A spur of righteousness lit her heels and with frantic archangels beating in her heart, Patience began her secret advance towards the enemy.

As she crept down the long corridor in the west wing, she noted the ornate pillars standing sentinel outside every other door down the hallway, which would provide a perfect refuge if needed. Luckily, nothing disturbed the night. Wax candles nestled in their wall sconces flickered from the slight breeze through the open window at the end of the hallway. The dim light slightly illuminated the path to the earl’s door.

Stealthily she continued on, her palms dampened, as she moved closer, four doors, then three doors away. Not far from his suite of rooms, she could see a light under his door. Was success near at hand or was disappointment about to send her scurrying back to bed? On tiptoe, she crossed the hallway to his door to listen.
All quiet. At the point of deciding whether to wish for better luck tomorrow, someone made the choice for her. Heavy footsteps thudded on the stairs heading her way. The only escape available was a nearby door. She fervently hoped she had done something good lately to warrant an unoccupied room and a place to hide.

Patience sprang for the door, jerked it open, and then almost slammed it shut, her nightdress and robe flying about her ankles. She pressed her back to the door, holding her mouth with one hand to muffle her breathing. Thankfully, no indignant person leapt from the large tester bed. She leaned against the door and listened as the footsteps continued past her door and the earl's rooms.

Who could that have been? If it was the captain, why had he not stopped?

Putting a hand to her heart to calm herself, Patience peered into the room, her eyes adjusting to the moonlight laced faintly through the window. She slowly and cautiously circled a long chaise longue in the darkened room while holding out her left hand to guide herself to the wall, which she thought must adjoin the earl's room.

She leaned an ear to the silk damask wall and with her senses tuned for sound, she strained to hear. A moment passed and then another. She held her breath and waited. Nothing. Were the walls too thick for the convenience of eavesdroppers or would-be spies?

If only she had not fallen asleep. She shook her head and sighed, regret as unfamiliar to her as poverty to a king.

Patience straightened up with an idea. Perhaps the captain had not yet arrived for their rendezvous?

A puff of wind just then wafted a ribbon of white curtains into the room. The upper housemaid must have forgotten to close the window.

The window. Might she be able to hear something if the earl’s windows remained open? Not willing to give up yet, she hurried across the room. In her haste, she stubbed her toe on a small chest at the end of the bed. A knuckle in her mouth helped to stifle a moan as she rubbed her sore toe while hopping on one foot. Clumsy must be my middle name.

Had anyone heard the noise? After a few uneasy minutes and no one barged into the room, she sat on the chest in relief, her toe still throbbing. All remained quiet, though she did not want to examine exactly how long her luck or the silence would last. Her heart might give out before then.

At last, when she felt she could move safely, she limped to the window and drew aside the white curtains. Clouds paraded past the moon dulling its white light. The night offered damp possibilities as Patience contemplated her next move.

When she stuck her head out the window, she discovered the earl’s windows were still open. Her moment of glee was cut short quicker than wind to a flame upon realizing the distance seemed too great to learn anything of value.

She perched on the windowsill, her nightdress and wrap smoothed underneath her, her toes curling against the cold stone, her chin resting on her hand.

Disappointing. It was times like these that Patience Letitia Mandeley had no idea what she was doing. She was not normally the adventurous type, but she had to do something to help Rupert.

Patience gazed across the sprawling lawn and neatly trimmed gardens of the estate and contemplated her situation. Perhaps the distance to the earl’s window was not as far as it seemed. She looked below and spied a stone balustrade running the entire length of the house. The balustrade appeared to be about two feet in width. Strong enough to stand on? There was only one way to find out.

She grasped her nightdress and wrap closer to her body, and with a deep breath she precariously crawled out the window onto the ledge a few feet beneath her. For a fearful minute, her feet dangled in the air as her toes sought purchase on the narrow shelf. Her luck held as her feet touched the hard, cold surface.

She held the window ledge in a firm grasp and tested the balustrade. It appeared to hold, even though it was designed more for an ornamental purpose than a functional one.

Her cheeks felt warm from her exertions as she tried to still her shaking hands. Reluctantly, she released her slippery grasp from the windowsill and slid her hands down the rough stone wall. Between both windows there was nothing to hold on to but the uneven surface of rough stone.

Eyes closed, she carefully maneuvered her body around so that her back fit snugly against the stone wall.

She stopped to reward her efforts and regain her fortitude, if not her courage. The ground appeared exceedingly far away, and it would take only one slip-
She made up her mind only to concentrate only on the ledge and not look beyond it. Grasping the raspy edges of the stones blindly with touch as her only guide, Patience started to walk sideways along the side of the house. The distance was farther than she had initially determined, but by a tentative step and slide crawl she felt her way over to the earl's windows.

A chair scraping the floor stopped her progress.

What was happening? Was there anyone with the earl? Her heart pounded in her ears, and she suddenly felt quite ill.

This is too dangerous. I shall never make a spy.

With Seduction In Mind by Laura Lee Guhrke

You may not know this, but writers are a mass of fears. We fear being exposed as the worst writer ever. We fear of missing our deadlines and disappointing our publishers. We fear writer’s block, rejection, brutal reviews, disappointed fans, low royalties, and the list goes on. When I began my latest book, WITH SEDUCTION IN MIND, I decided that the best way I could tackle my own Writer Fears was by—you guessed it—writing about them. Also, I had a killer deadline, and I thought writing about writers would be easy. No research, since this is one topic I know all about. No agonizing over whether characters are being true to type, since I know what writers are like. No writer’s block for me because I could do that to my characters. Yep, I thought, this book is going to be a piece of cake.

I was so wrong.

WITH SEDUCTION IN MIND, the story of cynical, famous-but-burned-out novelist Sebastian Grant and naïve, fresh-faced wannbe writer Daisy Merrick should have been an easy story to write. I had plenty of conflict. (Did I mention Daisy’s first writing assignment was a review of Sebastian’s play, and did I mention she HATED it and slaughtered him in the newspaper?) I also had plenty of plot elements to work with, since I decided to throw in every writing cliché I could think of (tongue-in-cheek, of course!). And once I put these two people in a situation where they had to work together, I had the potential for some sizzling romance, especially when they begin a game of mutual seduction. So you see, this story seemed like a slam dunk to me. Until I actually went through the process of writing it, and that’s when I learned that writing about writers is very, very hard. The reason is because I had to make writers seem like normal people when the truth is that we’re nuts.

Seriously, we are. We have all these fears and insecurities, but we also have enormous egos. We whine a lot, and you just can’t have your romance hero and heroine whining all the time. In addition, writers are horrible procrastinators, going through a great deal of work to avoid working. None of these neurotic traits writers possess are very heroic, and that’s what made WITH SEDUCTION IN MIND a hard story to tell, especially for a fear-riddled, insecure, whiny procrastinator like me. Still, somehow, it all worked out in the end. WITH SEDUCTION IN MIND hits stores tomorrow, and when I’m not hyperventilating about bad reviews and low royalties, I’ll be trying to write the next book, which I thought sure was going to be a piece of cake, until I…umm…actually started writing it. Now, it seems impossible, but it’s too late to back out. I am so screwed.

How about you? Is there any project you’ve taken on that turned out to be a lot harder than you thought? Any situation where you realized you’d bitten off more than you could chew but it was too late to back out? Any promise you’ve made that later you just wanted to run away from? What did you do about it? What did you learn from it? And would you ever do it again?

Leave an answer to Laura Lee's question along with your email addy to have a chance at winning a copy of her previous book "SECRET DESIRES OF A GENTLEMAN". One lucky winner will be picked later this week.





CHAPTER ONE

All the world’s a stage, and all the men and women merely players: they have their exits and their entrances; and one man in his time plays many parts.
--William Shakespeare

* * *

London, May, 1896

Daisy Merrick was unemployed. Such a circumstance wasn’t unusual—Daisy had been in that particular pickle many times before. Some people, including her sister, were inclined to see her ever-changing job situation as her own fault, but to Daisy’s mind that opinion was most unfair. Today was a perfect example.

Bristling with indignation, she marched out of the offices of Pettigrew & Finch, where she had just been informed by the matron in charge of typists that her services would no longer be required. And no, Matron had added upon her inquiry, they could not see clear to providing her with a letter of character. Given her shameless conduct, no favorable reference would be possible.

“My shameless conduct?” she muttered, pausing on the sidewalk to search for a passing omnibus amid the traffic that clogged Threadneedle Street. “Mr. Pettigrew is the one who should be ashamed!”

When that gentleman had cornered her in the supply closet, taken up her hand, and confessed to a deep and ardent passion for her, she had refused to succumb to his advances, as any respectable woman would have done. Yet, when informed by Matron Witherspoon a short time later that her employment had been terminated, Daisy’s indignant explanation had not saved her job. Mr. Pettigrew, Matron had reminded her with a superior little smile, was a founding partner of an important banking firm, and Daisy Merrick was a typist of no consequence whatsoever.

An omnibus turned the corner, and Daisy waved her arms in the air to hail the horse-drawn vehicle. When it stopped, she climbed aboard and handed over the three-pence fare that would take her home. As the omnibus jerked into motion, she secured an empty seat and considered how best to explain to Lucy that she’d lost yet another job.

Though she knew the blame could not be laid at her door, she also knew her elder sister might not see things quite that way. Lucy would list all the reprimands Daisy had received from Matron for her impertinence during the three months of her employment with Pettigrew and Finch. No doubt, Lucy would remind Daisy of how Mr. Pettigrew had witnessed Matron’s latest scolding a week earlier, of how he had patted her hand once the older woman had gone, of how he had called her honesty “refreshing” and assured her she had no reason to worry, of how he’d said he would “take care of her.”

Lucy might even be tiresome enough to bring up the warnings she had issued regarding Mr. Pettigrew’s assurances, and her own blithe disregard of these warnings.

Daisy bit her lip. In hindsight, she knew she should have followed Lucy’s suggestion and informed Mr. Pettigrew that she couldn’t impose upon him to intervene with Matron on her behalf. Had she done that, this mess might have been avoided. But having a sister who was always right could be so aggravating, and Daisy often felt an irresistible compulsion to fly in the face of Lucy’s well-meant advice. This had been one of those times.

Winners of Dark Hunger by Rita Herron

*library pat

*joder

*Dina

*Christina

Please send your snail mail info to terraontop57 at yahoo dot com. Congrats to all our winners and I hope you enjoy your prizes!

Congrat's To This Week's Winners

Virginia ~ Wallet by Anna DeStefano

R K Charron ~ Dark Legacy by Anna DeStefano

*Armenia ~ Highland Obsession by Dawn Halliday

Please send your snail mail info to terraontop57 at yahoo dot com. Congrats to our winner and I hope you enjoy your prizes!

Mr. Darcy, Vampyre by Amanda Grange Trailer

What's Your Dream? Join the Fun and Giveaways on Anna DeStefano's Dark Legacy Blog Tour

What's your dream... One of my favorite lines from one of my favorite modern fairy tales—Pretty Woman. It's the beginning and ending of the movie. When you think about it, it could be the beginning and ending question in every romance story: Everybody has a dream...What's your dream?

They're so important—the worlds we slip into when our conscious minds aren't looking. Of course in Dark Legacy, I've created a paranormal reality where dreams can be infiltrated and programmed and remote-triggered by psychics and covert teams of government scientists. But that's because the love stories I crave are wrapped up in thrilling suspense and rocket-fast pacing ;o) Don't let the edgy excerpt I'm sharing today make you think that's all I see when I think about dreams.

Part of the fun of my blot tour for my paranormal romantic suspense debut is that I get to share the neat things I've learned about dreams. I get to ask a lot of nosy questions and get people remembering and sharing things about the sleepy worlds they think only exist in the night. I get to share what the last two years of dream theory research has taught me (and what my hero and heroine in Dark Legacy must learn, if they're going to save each others' lives AND the promise of love between them): that our dreams are absolutely essential to our wellbeing.

Our dreams (night dreams, day dreams, fantasies, imagination, whatever you want to call them) are our passion. They're our soul. They're beyond us, but everything about them is uniquely us. Their symbols and imagery and the yearning we find within them reflect parts of us we need to see. Happy and exciting or dark and scary or vague and hard to see clearly, our dreams come from the heart. They feed our hearts. Ultimately, they save Dark Legacy's hero and heroine's lives. They can save ours, too ;o)

And today I'm not talking about night dreams or day dreams (though you'll see a touch of them in my Dark Legacy excerpt). Today, tell me what your LIFE dream is. The future you want. The one thing you desire most. The just-beyond-your-grasp thing that you're almost afraid to crave. Because that's what this is all about for me—reaffirming the power of dreams to change our lives.

For Maddie Temple in Dark Legacy, it's having someone see her for exactly what she is, strange psychic powers and all, and having that someone love her and need her, regardless. For me, it's writing outside-the-box love stories that find a home that will hopefully live on forever in readers' hearts.

Maddie finds her dream come true in Jarred Keith. Dark Legacy was the most fun I've ever had writing a book, and embarking on this journey reminds me that my next "novel" dream-come-true might be just over the next hill—you know, the August 25th hill...the drop date for Dark Legacy. All things good are just over the next hill, as long as we keep dreaming ;o)

So, dive in. It's your turn. What's your wildest fantasy, and how will it change your life forever WHEN it comes true???

Tell us about your Life Dream in the comments--one lucky visitor will win a Dark Legacy ARC, and another will win a fabulous XOXO "butterfly" wallet that matches the purse I'm giving away this month to one of the lucky visitors on my blog.

Visit www.annawrites.com/blog to see a picture of that and other prizes, to read more exciting excerpts and dream theory posts, and to join in all the Dark Legacy release fun—I'm drawing the XOXO Purse winner on August 25th, and my September Grand Prize Drawing is for a COACH Butterfly Purse! You'll also find more information about my Dark Legacy blog tour—new chances to win at every stop!



Dark Legacy excerpt:

“Something’s changed.” Jarred did that head cocking thing shrinks do when they think they have all the answers. “Since the last time we spoke. When was that, three weeks ago? Things have gotten even worse, and I remember offering to admit you to psych back then.”

“I had a long night. Nothing new.”

“Yates said you haven’t been sleeping at all.”

“Like I said, nothing new.”

“Are the dreams that bad?”

“Who said anything about dreams?” Sarah’s rebellious, eat-shit smile spread across Maddie’s face. Maddie coughed, covering her twin’s sass with the back of her hand.

“Okay.” Jarred steepled his fingers in front of him, elbows resting on his desk. “Nightmares, then. Fantasies. Whatever’s going on in your head while you’re staring at the ceiling all night. Can the bullshit, Temple. I’ve read Yates’ files. Not that I needed to. When we met, you were the most professional, best-liked resident on staff. What’s been messing with you so badly the last few months that you have to be supervised when you see patients? Why wouldn’t you talk to me about it back when I would have helped you prevent all of this?”

It wasn’t the question that jerked Maddie straighter in her chair. It was the way the warmth in Jarred’s voice washed over her. How the worry in his gaze felt too good, deep inside where she secretly needed him. Craved him, like an addict who couldn’t resist the seductive pull of something she knew would destroy her. The man saw her–really saw her. And his undivided attention was as dangerous as it was warm…comforting…flooding her mind…

Making her skin crawl!

Because sometimes, it was like she could read Jarred back–the way Sarah had been able to feel people toward the end. Not just with intuition or empathy or a little brush of minds. But all out becoming the person’s feelings. Taking them in. Making them herself, and her them. Sometimes it had felt like Jarred was in Maddie’s mind, sharing his secrets while he dug for hers.

Highland Obsession by Dawn Halliday

Thanks so much for having me at Yankee Romance Reviewers! I’m so thrilled about my newest release, a very (very!) spicy Scottish Historical, HIGHLAND OBSESSION.

HIGHLAND OBSESSION excerpt:

In the Scottish Highlands, two warriors are about to clash over a woman of passion…

They were the unlikeliest of friends debauching their way through London: The Earl of Camdonn, a nobleman of vast wealth and power, and Scottish laird Alan MacDonald, a respected Jacobite with ambitions of his own.

But their friendship is destroyed when Alan marries the beautiful Sorcha Stewart—only to witness Cam kidnap her from their bedroom.

Alan will do anything to get his wife back. Cam fights to redeem his honor, even as he refuses to give up his desire. Torn between love and duty, Sorcha must watch as the two men she desires go to war over her. And when the battle lines are drawn, all three lovers are lured into a triangle of forbidden passions…

Here’s what Monica McCarty (one of my favorite Scottish romance writers) said about HIGHLAND OBSESSION:

“Watch out for your fingers . . . HIGHLAND OBSESSION is on fire—a scorching page turner from cover to cover! Sexy Highlanders and wickedly erotic romance, Dawn Halliday is the HOTTEST new voice in Scottish romance.”

~Monica McCarty - Author of HIGHLAND SCOUNDREL


Anyway, I loved writing this book! I didn’t know how much I’d enjoy writing stories centered in the Highlands until I began. I jotted down some of the reasons I had so much fun with HIGHLAND OBSESSION (and its sequel, HIGHLAND SURRENDER, coming in early 2010).

Dawn’s Top 10 Reasons to write about (and read about) Highlanders:

(10) They want something, they go after it. Everything else be damned.

(9) The place they live (sooo beautiful)

(8) They have a keen sense of honor.

(7) They wear plaids. (What can I say?! They’re sexy!)

(6) The accent!

(5) They possess a single-minded devotion to those they love (their woman, their family, and their clan)

(4) They have very large…broadswords.

(3) They’re physically powerful.

(2) They’ll do anything to protect what’s important to them.

(1) They’re very, very good with their hands.


What are some of your favorite things about Highlanders?

Leave Dawn an answer to her question and your email addy to have a chance to win a copy of Highland Obsession. One Winner will be chosen the end of the week.

A Couple of Quick Reviews For Your Pleasure

Dark Hunger by Rita Herron is an explosive paranormal romance that will leave you drooling with desire round every turn. A tall, dark and sexy hero that will drive our heroine into a tizzy. See that hunka, hunka on the cover, well that only gives you a little insight into the lip smacking, tongue tingling deliciousness of our hero. Our heroine is in for the fight of her life on all fronts. Desires, passions, cravings, damn them all!

Quinton is a respected team member of our National Security. A man who is half human, half demon with a sex appeal that even the blind could not ignore. He is also an assassin and a damn good one at that. He is as skilled a killer as he is a lover. Damn those bad boys are always the alluring types.

Annabelle our heroine is a reporter who is hell bent on getting the major career breaking story to bring her up in the ranks at her network and have her boss finally start to take her seriously. Receiving mysterious messages she is lead to Quinton and it may just cost her, her life in the process of achieving her goal and exposing the real killer of bad guys.

Will Quinton be able to carry out his orders and kill Annabell before she exposes him and his team? Will Annabell be able to turn in Quinton for that major career change before he can capture her desires and passions? Hmm.......makes for a tasty tale me thinks!

Mass Market Paperback: 320 pages
Publisher: Forever (August 1, 2009)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0446199486
ISBN-13: 978-0446199483





A Hint of Wicked by Jennifer Haymore is a heartfelt romance that will make you feel yourself lucky to not having been put in the position that our heroine is. A touching love that will take you on a journey of happiness, pain, anger, confusion, patience, and oh so much more.

Sophie our heroine is the Duchess of Calton not only with husband number one but with husband number two. Upon finding out that her first husband is presumed dead at the Battle of Waterloo, Sophie along with Garrett's cousin, heir and best friend Tristan set out in search of the truth of Garrett's demise. Unfortunately for Sophie, Garrett is lost to her in body as his body was never recovered from the fearsome battle. Sophie and Tristan search for eight long years only to come to the conclusion that their beloved Garrett is truly indeed lost to them in body and soul.

Now eight years have passed and Sophie and Tristin marry. Tristan's wife having died a few years back allows him to finally have the woman he has wanted all his life. Their marriage is going well and each having a child by their former spouses makes a nice respectable loving family. That is until Garrett shows up in Sophie's and Tristan's bedchamber. All bets are off and hell breaks loose setting into action a series of events that will tug and tear these three childhood friends into a competition. A competition that will set Sophie as the prize and tear her heart into pieces.

Mass Market Paperback: 432 pages
Publisher: Forever (June 1, 2009)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 0446540293
ISBN-13: 978-0446540292

Winners of Seduce Me by Robyn DeHart

*catss99

*Wanda

*budletsmom

*Cheryl McInnis

Please send your snail mail info to terraontop57 at yahoo dot com. Congrats to all our winners and I hope you enjoy your prizes!

Congrat's To This Week's Winners

*Morning Glow ~ Mr. Darcy, Vampyre by Amanda Grange

*booklover1335 ~ Mr. Darcy, Vampyre by Amanda Grange

Please send your snail mail info to terraontop57 at yahoo dot com. Congrats to our winner and I hope you enjoy your prizes!

Mr. Darcy, Vampyre by Amanda Grange

Thanks so much Amanda for being with us today and for such an awesome book.

Thanks, it’s lovely to be here!

Terra ~ What made you try to fit vampires into a Pride & Prejudice storyline?

Amanda ~ The idea came to me quite a few years ago when I was watching Buffy the Vampire Slayer on TV over here in the UK. I thought that Buffy and Angel would make a good Lizzy and Darcy, and the idea of Mr. Darcy as a vampyre just grew from there.

Terra ~ Your descriptions of the different parts of Europe are fantastic. I actually felt like I was on vacation while reading this. How much research did you have to do to get such wonderful renditions of the cities as they might have been in that time period?

Amanda ~ I’m very lucky because I’ve actually been to most of the places in Mr Darcy, Vampyre and they haven’t changed as much as you might think. The old buildings like Notre Dame in Paris and the palazzos in Venice are still there and they are breathtakingly beautiful. If you ever get a chance to go to Europe then I really recommend seeing them! To add some depth to the descriptions and to make sure they were right for the nineteenth century I read travel books from the Regency era and I studied paintings of the time as well.

Terra ~ Poor Mr. Darcy and his plight and fears! How hard was it for you to make his character strong but tender and fearful? What is the one thing you like best about our beloved Mr. Darcy in this story?

Amanda ~ I think I’ve always seen Mr. Darcy as strong and tender so that wasn’t too hard for me. What was difficult was making him seem afraid but not letting the reader – or Lizzy! - know exactly what he was afraid of, at least not until about half way through the book. As to what I like best about him – oh, goodness, that’s a hard question! I could give you a hundred things, but one?! Let me think. If I’m allowed only one, then it has to be that he is wholeheartedly in love with Lizzy, body and soul.

Terra ~ In your story you portrayed the vampires as sinister, violent and distrustful as well as playful, loving, trusting and just down right fun to be with. How difficult was it to go from one side of the spectrum to the other in the same race? Do you think that vampires are much the same as the human population with their emotions to some extent?

Amanda ~ Yes, I see them as having their own characters. Just as some humans are evil and some are good, so it is with the vampyres in the book. I really loved writing both sorts of vampyres, especially as they have such long pasts. I found I knew a lot about them and their histories, even though all this knowledge didn’t find its way into the book, and their histories gave them their characters.

Terra ~ What scene is your ultimate favorite in the storyline and why?

Amanda ~ Oh, that’s another tough question! I think it would have to be the scene when Lizzy tells Darcy she’s going back to England. She knows there is something very wrong between them but he won’t tell her what it is because he doesn’t want to frighten her. Lizzy feels rejected and miserable and poor Darcy is in torment, wanting to confide in her but wanting to protect her from the truth at the same time. I feel for them both so much in that scene.

Terra ~ Do you have any plans on writing future renditions of Jane Austin books into paranormals?

Amanda ~ No, not at the moment, although I think Willoughby from Sense and Sensibility is probably a vampyre! But I do have plans to write more about Mr. Darcy as a vampyre.

Terra ~ What is your favorite time period in the romance world and why?

Amanda ~ The Regency, without a doubt. I love the clothes, the carriages, the houses, the men, in fact everything about it.

Terra ~ Not only have you given Pride & Prejudice a paranormal flavor but you have also given it a bit of Indiana Jones adventure. Was it difficult to incorporate all these things without losing sight of the original storyline?

Amanda ~ In a way it wasn’t too hard because I know Pride and Prejudice very well. I’ve read it many times – it’s my favourite book! – and I’ve even written another book, called Mr. Darcy’s Diary, which retells the story from Mr. Darcy’s point of view. So in a way, adding more elements like the paranormal and adventurous parts was just a natural progression for me. Whenever I felt like I was losing sight of the original I would just read a few pages of Pride and Prejudice so that I could put myself back into the right frame of mind.

Terra ~ Do you have any particular tips, tricks or rituals that help you ease your way through the story when writing? How long did it take for you to come write Mr. Darcy, Vampyre?

Amanda ~ My tips change all the time! Sometimes one thing works, sometimes another. I try not to leave the keyboard too soon if I’m stuck, because if I sit and think about the problem I can often see a way to move forward, but sometimes I find it easier to do something completely different like going for a walk.

As to how long it took me to write Mr. Darcy, Vampyre, it’s taken a long time because I’ve been thinking about it for years. The ideas have come to me gradually over that period and I think that’s why the books is so rich, because it’s been simmering for ages.

Terra ~ How many more surprises do you think Lizzy will find out about her beloved Mr. Darcy especially were the storyline to continue onto another book?

Amanda ~ I think there will be plenty of surprises in store for Lizzy. Darcy has had a very long life and a very long history. I think as Lizzy comes to know him ever more deeply she will learn a lot more about him!



The wedding day is magical but when Elizabeth and Darcy embark on their wedding tour, Elizabeth discovers that Darcy has a secret . . .


Prologue


December 1802

My dearest Jane,

My hand is trembling as I write this letter. My nerves are in tatters and I am so altered that I believe you would not recognise me. The past two months have been a nightmarish whirl of strange and disturbing circumstances, and the future . . .

Jane, I am afraid. If anything happens to me, remember that I love you and that my spirit will always be with you, though we may never see each other again. The world is a cold and frightening place where nothing is as it seems. It was all so different a few short months ago. When I awoke on my wedding morning, I thought myself the happiest woman alive . . .

Leave a comment or question for Amanda and your email addy to be entered to win one of two copies of Mr. Darcy, Vampyre. US and Canada only!! Sorry Folks! Believe me when I say this is too delicious to miss.


Terra's Review

Mr. Darcy, Vampyre by Amanda Grange is not your typical Pride & Prejudice rendition. This story is a true love story with paranormal influence and a grand adventure no less exciting than that of Indiana Jones.

I think almost the entire population of the cultured world must know about our beloved Mr. Darcy and his beautiful Lizzy. What they don't know is the dark secrets that will chase the couple all across Europe thrusting them into a frenzy of action and adventure while questioning their love and their sanity.

A heady mixture of events that will lull poor Lizzy into a thrall yet send her skittering away at the drop of a pin. Shattered nerves be damned!

Our author has given us a treasure of culture to please even the most delicate palate, a delicious romance of times gone by and a fantasy world that will surely make you quake in your boots. Ms. Grange has taken us through the most important cities of Europe that will make the ton of England titillate in anticipation for the tasty tales of a wedding tour that is sure to be the best of the best.

Bravo I say, Bravo!

Paperback: 320 pages
Publisher: Sourcebooks Landmark (August 1, 2009)
Language: English
ISBN-10: 1402236972
ISBN-13: 978-1402236976

Congrat's To Last Week's Winners

stacey ~ Previously Published Title by Erin Quinn

*Mitzi ~ A Bad Day For Sorry by Sophie Littlefield

Vicky ~ Shiver by Maggie Stiefvater

Please send your snail mail info to terraontop57 at yahoo dot com. Congrats to our winner and I hope you enjoy your prizes!

Dark Hunger by Rita Herron Blog Tour (5 Copy Giveaway)

Reporter Annabelle Armstrong will go to any lengths to deliver a story, even track down Quinton Valtrez, a man she believes is a coldhearted assassin. Yet the truth about the darkly sensual Quinton is even more shocking...and the overwhelming desire he ignites is one she vows to resist.

Quinton has fought his demonic powers since he was a child. Now using his gifts for the good of national security, he can't let himself be distracted by the beautiful, determined Annabelle. But his need for her is sudden, fierce--and could soon cost Annabelle her life. For a wicked enemy is out for vengeance, a demon who wants to draw Quinton into a life of pure evil and is willing to use Annabelle as bait. To save her, Quinton must achieve the near impossible: tame the sinister force that is both his inheritance and his curse before it claims him forever.

I've got 5 copies to give away, many thanks to Anna at Hatchette for the books!!

So This Is What You Have To Do To Get An Entry!
1. Leave a Comment +1
2. Follow Me +1 already a follower +2
3. Post this contest on your blog (can be on your sidebar or a post) +3

PLEASE put your email in your comments or no entry (no exceptions).
This is for the USA and canada only please and no Po Boxes (publishers rule)!
Winners will be announced on August 23rd!

Haunting Beauty by Erin Quinn

Thank you so much for having me at Yankee Romance Reviewers. HAUNTING BEAUTY released just a few days ago and I’m still alternating between dizzy excitement and plunging fear. It makes living with me quite . . . special . . . ha ha. I’m sure my DH will be so glad when things settle down a bit. Unfortunately, he’s in denial because by the time they settle down with HAUNTING BEAUTY, HAUNTING WARRIOR will be gearing up. In all, the Haunting series will have 4, possibly 5 books to it. This is the first time I’ve ever attempted a series and I’m finding it a wonderful challenge.

So about HAUNTING BEAUTY.

It all begins with a man of course, and what a man he is. I fall in love with all of my heroes—I think most romance writers do. But Sean Ballagh is not just a man and I swear, I’m still not over him. Sean is complex and conflicted, infinitely gentle, unbearable cynical, and desperately in need of saving.

Enter Danni Smith.

Sean comes to Danni just before dawn on an obscure morning. He appears in the middle of her kitchen, larger than life. Compelling. Determined. He wants something—Danni knows this right away, just as she knows he isn’t real. Sean is only a vision . . . a precursor to the flesh and blood version of the man who will soon be knocking on her front door, asking her to come with him, to Ireland, to a world as stark and beautiful as the man himself.

Sean’s grandmother has sent him to find Danni and bring her home, but soon after meeting her, he realizes that nothing is what it seems and his reasons for being there have little to do with his grandmother or Danni’s family and everything to do with how he feels when he’s near her . . . how he feels that he can’t live without her. Here’s a small excerpt about Sean, coming to this realization:

Danni stared at him, making him feel as if she saw through him. “Why are you here, Sean?”

Her demand shifted the ground beneath him, pushing him ever closer to an edge he hadn’t seen before, hadn’t suspected lurked just in the distance.

Why was he here? Why was he here?

Because of her, the answer came simply enough. He’d come only for her.

It made perfect sense and yet the why of it eluded him. He stood there, staring into those thunderous gray eyes and the only explanation was wrapped around his heart, bound so tight he couldn’t separate it and analyze it.

He’d come for her because . . . because . . . she belonged with him. That alone was the reason he’d come to bring her home.

The simplicity of it rolled over him like a great wave. It forced him under and towed him out as it washed everything else away. He felt bewitched, bewildered, beset. The possessive need of her cast a shadow in his mind that he couldn’t see past, though he knew he should. What waited on the other side? What was it that flitted in and out of the recesses of his memory?

He raised his eyes to Danni’s and something of his confusion must have shown through. He sensed a softening in her, a reaching out. And like a drowning man, he grasped.

“I came for you,” he muttered, propelled forward by the power of the statement. He backed her to the counter in three quick steps. Surprise widened her eyes while something else—something deep and conceding darkened them. The moment had been inevitable; he saw it there in her face and it charged his blood, infusing him with fire.

Slowly, deliberately, he braced his hands on either side of her and lowered his head to hers. A fraction of breath kept them apart but the intimate rhythm of her racing pulse beating at her throat, of his heart pounding in his chest—it made them one. “I came for you,” he said against her mouth.

And then he kissed her. The feel of her lips, the heat of her breath as it expelled in a rush went through him like an electric charge. He’d dived in, expecting the water to be shallow, the act painful. But if this was pain, he hoped to die of it.

Sean reunites Danni with her family but how could she have guessed that in going back home she would also being going back in time? That she would be meeting herself as a child? Reliving those fateful hours before her whole world was shattered? Learning the secrets that determined her fate? Who is this Sean Ballagh with his beautiful eyes and heated touch? He is more than a messenger, but even Sean doesn’t know the truth about himself.

In HAUNTING BEAUTY, I explored a personal fascination with time and the idea that the past is not set in stone. Mistakes can be un-made, heartache can be transformed into triumph . . . but at what cost? If the past is an elaborate puzzle with interchangeable pieces, when one is altered, how do the others still fit? And how could you be sure that what changed didn’t make everything worse?

It’s always a little amazing to me how the process of writing a book unfolds. For me there a many wrong turns and dead ends, countless pages I have to delete and try again and entire chapters that I write and rewrite and rewrite again and then still toss out. Where I think my story will end and where I actually finish are usually miles and pages apart, and yet it seems afterwards that there must have been a master plan I was working from—a mysterious one I didn’t even realize was there.

It was the image of the man appearing to Danni in a vision that drove me to begin writing HAUNTING BEAUTY. The opening scene came to me in such living color that every detail seemed to jump out . . . Her bare feet on the broken shells as she follows Sean Ballagh to the cavern beneath the castle ruins, the wind capturing his leather jacket and snapping it about his legs, the desperation in his eyes, the pain in her heart. As a writer, there are times when it happens like that—all at once and in full glory—but for me it’s usually the exception and not the rule and so I knew when this one crystal clear scene exploded in my head that I had to follow Danni and Sean to wherever they might take me.

And boy was it a ride.

I hope you’ll add Haunting Beauty to your reading list and that you’ll fall in love with Sean just as I have. Of course, you must be careful. He might break your heart.

Thank you again for having me at Yankee Romance Reviewers!

Ask Erin a question dealing with her excerpt from below along with your email addy and you will have a chance to win one of Erin's previously published titles. One winner will be chosen this weekend.

Haunting Beauty
An Excerpt

The man came to her just before dawn.

Danni had awoken with a start a few moments earlier, tangled in her bedding, unsure of what had pulled her from sleep. The inky blackness outside pressed against her windows, a dark entity that wanted to creep in and take over. Uneasy, she crawled from bed and shuffled to the kitchen for coffee.

That’s when she felt the air turn.

It plunged in a silent, cold force that made her ears ring and her stomach sink. Like a latent memory, the sensation of it was suddenly there, filling her head—familiar and frightening, pressure and relief. She knew it; she feared it. She remembered it, though what the turning air heralded escaped her.

She spun to find the man waiting behind her. Tall, with broad shoulders and the layered muscles of a warrior, he leaned against her counter. As if it was perfectly natural for him to be there. As if he really was in her kitchen.

Dark brows and long black lashes emphasized the unusual color of his eyes—not quite green, not quite gray. Eyes like the sea, relentless and deep. A straight, blunt nose gave balance to his full lips and square jaw. There was a harsh and rugged edge to his features that flawed his beauty and made it something masculine, something more compelling than simple aesthetics. He wore a black leather coat over a crisp white shirt and jeans that tapered from lean hips to long legs. Not just tall. Not just broad. A big man.

He watched her, assessing and judging her with the same weighted concentration she gave him. She felt self-conscious in her faded Save the Children T-shirt and pink boxers, which was ridiculous. He wasn’t really here.

She knew it, but the knowledge didn’t stop her stomach from knotting with uncertainty and fear. Why was she seeing him? What did he want? There had to be a reason. She knew that, too.

Danni sloshed coffee over the edge of her mug as she set it down. She would drop it if she held it any longer. The man interpreted this as acquiescence and began. Sometimes it was like that, she remembered. Sometimes they seemed to take Danni with them, like tour guides on a ghostly journey. Other times they were completely unaware they’d unraveled the fibers of reality and forced Danni to peer in at them.

When she’d been a child, the visits—the visions—had been frequent and exciting. The plunging turn of the air had felt like flying to her. But the visions had stopped so long ago she’d forgotten they’d ever happened at all. No, she corrected herself. She hadn’t forgotten—she’d wiped the experiences from her memory with purposeful precision, because only the crazy saw people and things that weren’t real.

The man turned, gesturing for her to follow as the familiar kitchen walls behind his broad shoulders vanished and, like a painting created before her very eyes, a stark landscape appeared in their place. The image had fuzzy edges and a grainy texture, but it breathed in a lifelike way, just as the man did.

It seemed so real. Too real.

A patchwork quilt of vivid greens, earthy browns and heavy pewter spread out unending. Danni frowned, trying to put a name to the place. Did she know it? Had she seen it before? The man crossed from the pale kitchen tile to a spongy turf that should have left footprints, but of course, didn’t. His steps were as unreal as his presence. Reluctantly, Danni went with him.

It felt like they walked for some time, but she knew they’d never left her kitchen. Still the frosty cold of the earth against her feet, the wintry wind on her face and the damp mist clinging to her hair and scant clothing, chilled her to the bone. The sensations were crisp and visceral and frightening.

Barefoot, still wearing her pajamas, she followed the man across a valley to a destination she couldn’t fathom. The sky above them grumbled and rolled in bleak shades of slate and steel. It seeped down to lush emerald pastures and saturated the air with freezing dampness. The brisk wind carried the spice of sea salt as it tormented the many limbed alders and bandied with the stranger’s long leather coat and short cropped hair. She could hear waves crashing somewhere close.

Where are you taking me?

He paused and looked back at her, as if she’d spoken out loud. There was something in his eyes as he stared. A longing. A need. Her heart thumped painfully at the echo it dragged from inside her. Who was this man? Why did she feel as if she should know him?

They reached the edge of a precipice hanging out over the churning sea. A foot path cut a sharp trail down the side. Even as she prayed he’d turn away from it, the man started down the steep slope. His long legs covered the distance easily as he descended but Danni had to scramble to keep up—certain a deadly plunge was in her future—not so clear on what that might mean to her real self. If she died in a vision, would it be for real?

The sounds of the tide thundering relentlessly were louder now and she smelled the sharp scent of brine. She sensed something big looming high up to her left, but didn't know if it was real or imagined and couldn’t turn to look back.

Enormous rocks poked from the hillside, forcing them to weave as they descended. The exertion warmed her and now she could hear sounds rising from down below. A woman’s voice. Danni paused, listening to the agitated tone. Frantic, pleading. There were other voices too. A man, maybe two. And children. Frightened children.

Danni’s blood raced so fast she felt sick. The sound of their young, scared pleas propelled her back into her own history. To nights in the communal bedroom of the group home, where someone was always afraid, always crying.

Solemn and intent, the man continued down with effortless grace. Danni remained frozen where she was, listening to the troubled but unintelligible words. Whatever was happening down there, it wasn’t good and every instinct Danni possessed urged her not to continue.

There was a loud bang—a shot followed by screams. Danni trembled, her palms slick with clammy fear. Her shaking dislodged pebbles that rappelled down the hill. She didn’t want to follow the man anymore. She wanted out of this vision. She wanted to be back in her kitchen where it was safe. She clenched her fists tight, wanting to escape it. Reject it.

The man paused and looked back. It seemed he knew what she was thinking. His eyes darkened with compassion, but also with disappointment he couldn’t quite hide. She felt it as much she saw it. He gave her a small nod. Go ahead, he was saying. The gesture came without condemnation. He was giving her permission to turn away. To run away.

For a moment the steep sea wall, the glowering sky . . . the compelling man watching her . . . It all wavered and Danni could see her kitchen through the overlaid image. All she had to do was step through, step out.

Down below the children sobbed and the woman beseeched with frantic incoherent words. Danni felt her despair, her terror. Her desperate need . . . .

The man started down again, now with urgency. Danni clenched her eyes tight and breathed deeply. Knowing she couldn’t turn her back on such desperation, she mentally closed the passage to her kitchen, slamming the door on safety and sanity. She began to follow once more, hurrying to catch up as he disappeared into the deep gloom covering the bottom.

Broken shells and rocks crusted the shallow strip between massive boulders and angry surf. It crunched painfully beneath her feet as she followed the man to a door cut into the base of the wall rising up to the cliffs. Danni peered through the gathering shadows and thick fog that hugged the ground, obscuring her feet

She couldn’t see anyone until she reached his side. And then, with the pop of her ears clearing and a surreal rush of color and texture, the source of the voices emerged from the blur into shocking focus.

Danni was suddenly inside a cavern of some sort that hunkered low over a tide pool. A stone floor circled it and on the far side she saw people standing in the glow of a lantern. The muted lightening turned their faces into masks, distorting their features with ghoulish hollows and shiny plateaus. They stood in a cluster—a woman with two children. A man knelt on the ground just at the edge of the lantern’s glow. He held something in his arms Danni couldn’t make out.

She wanted to move closer. She wanted to see their faces. But she stayed where she was, motionless beside the green-eyed stranger as the scene played out.

The children she’d heard crying clung to the woman’s legs, trying very hard to be a part of her. A boy and a girl, Danni thought. She guessed their ages at four or five, but she couldn’t be sure. The woman was speaking again, her voice high with fear. Someone cloaked in the concealing shadows, responded. The voice was deep and masculine, but Danni couldn’t see the speaker or understand what was said.

The green-eyed man Danni had followed from her kitchen approached the woman. Pausing to look back at Danni, he lifted the hem of her light jacket and blouse, revealing the bulge of an early pregnancy and . . . bruises. Huge discolorations that covered her ribs and abdomen in a mottled mixture of black, blue, neon yellow, and sickly green. Old and new, the marks layered one on top of the other.

The woman spun with a gasp, her eyes wide and frightened. She stared at the empty space where Danni stood for a long, breathless moment. Danni felt the contact of the woman’s gaze as it settled on her face.

She can see me . . .

But that wasn’t possible. Danni wasn’t really there. None of them were. This was a vision . . . a hallucination . . . wasn’t it?

The woman continued to stare right at Danni as she searched for the cause of her discomfort. Danni saw a shiver work its way through her body, shuddering down to the hands that held onto her children. Who was she? How could she . . . ? The thought died suddenly as recognition covered Danni in an icy sweat. She looked at the boy standing so quietly beside his mother then at the little girl holding her other hand. The child’s face was tear-stained, her eyes big and gray, hair golden brown. She blinked back at Danni with wide, knowing awareness.

It felt like a giant fist had punched through time and yanked Danni from her body. The little girl was no stranger, but neither was she an acquaintance or a friend. Like the vision itself, she was of the impossible. She was Danni . . . Danni as a child.

I’m looking at myself . . . . Herself as she’d been twenty years ago.

Danni’s eyes were hot with feelings she couldn’t process, couldn’t comprehend in this moment that had no place, no substance in the world she knew. Slowly she shifted her attention back to the woman, now seeing the familiar features, remembering how it felt to put her arms around her, to be held by her.

The woman was her mother.

The mysterious male voice said something in a vicious, sharp tone, jerking her mother’s attention abruptly away.

“No,” Danni shouted. She rushed forward and tried to turn her mother back around. Tried to touch her, hold her, beg her to see Danni again. But whatever connection had been made for that brief instant was gone. The little girl began weeping inconsolably and the man who knelt beside them rose unsteadily. Through the twilight, Danni saw a face wet with tears, swollen and red, ravaged by grief. She felt his pain pulsing off him like the lapping waves in the pool at her feet.

The tension in the air tightened around them, like a noose of thin wire that would soon cut through the skin. There was terror in her mother’s eyes. In the way she flicked her gaze back and forth between the disembodied voice and the man at her side. He lifted his hands, holding them away from his body, palms out—the universal sign for compliance.

The hostile words exchanged between the woman and her unseen antagonist grew louder until they echoed all around them. Why couldn’t Danni understand what was being said? Why did her mother’s answers come in as an indecipherable and discordant throb?

Suddenly another bang resounded in the cave and Danni’s screams joined those of her mother and the children. A gun, she thought. That was a gun. Even as her mind catalogued the sound, her body reacted to the bite of pain slicing through her. She felt it—felt it —as if a bullet had burrowed into her heart. She looked down, expecting to see blood. To see her life draining out of her. But there nothing, nothing to explain the bewildering agony. She looked around her in shock, in panic, seeing again the crumpled shape on the ground beside the cluster of frightened people. Only then did she grasp what it was—what the man had been holding when they’d first come in. It was a body.

She managed to turn to the stranger who’d brought her here. He only watched her, his face impassive. His presence neither comforting nor threatening. As she stared at him, she felt trapped by his gaze. She couldn’t look away, couldn’t turn back to the unfolding drama. The voices of her mother and the children waned, taking with it the searing pain. They were fading—all of it, vanishing.

Danni wanted to cling to her mother like the child she’d once been. But she couldn’t break the hold of his enigmatic green eyes, couldn’t make her legs support the weight of her need.

Again a swirling mixture of grays and browns frosted the air, making Danni think of a giant God creating sand art on an unending pane of glass. The light changed from dark gloom to hazy murk and they were outside again. The wind joined the sensation of biting fresh air and bitter cold. It was just the two of them now. The crushing pain of the gunshot was gone but Danni’s heart filled with grief at the loss of her mother. Again. Again Danni had been abandoned by her.

The man moved, not giving her time to mourn. He had a mission. She’d forgotten that he was there for reasons of his own.

They were back in the valley. Danni followed him as he strode away, a tall dark figure in a world painted with shades of obscurity. Their time was nearly at an end. She could sense it, feel it in the crackling air. It would turn again and the vision would be over.

Towed in his wake, Danni trailed the man to a mound of dirt amidst the lush pasture. Silently she waited by his side, once again aware of something huge casting a shadow on them, but unable to turn and face whatever it was.

They’d stopped beside a shallow grave, freshly dug and unmarked. The bitter scent of tilled earth mingled with the damp fishiness wafting from the sea. She could hear waves crashing furiously against the rocks below.

Her stranger wore an expression of inconsolable remorse as he looked upon the open hole gaping in the oasis of green. Danni swallowed painfully, more afraid than she’d ever been. The grave was an ominous symbol in this vision. Or was it real? The muddied ground at her feet seemed to call out to her. It coaxed her closer. It promised sweet and seductive rewards.

Danni slowly leaned forward and looked into the hole. There were two bodies sprawled at the bottom, as if they’d been carelessly tossed in. One was an adolescent boy and some shadowy part of her mind said his was the body she’d seen in the cavern. He was gangly-limbed and hollow-chested. His legs were twisted beneath him in an unnatural position and his face turned away. Crumpled beside him was a woman wearing leggings and an oversized t-shirt—an outfit reminiscent of the eighties. Her long golden-brown hair lay in a fall over her shoulders and against the boy’s chest. Half of her face was concealed, but the other half . . .

Danni gasped and stumbled back, her mind fighting what her eyes displayed as truth. Once again, she was face-to-face with herself. The woman in the grave was Danni.

The man beside her stared at the bodies for another introspective moment. Then he looked to the distance at the stark precipice that plunged down to the turbulent sea. Danni felt his grief and anger mix and grow until it burned like the whipping wind. She felt the power of it consume him, drive him to a point as perilous as the cliff’s edge.

Then suddenly he turned those desperate eyes on Danni. He reached out, as if realizing for the first time that he might touch her. She waited for the contact with a biting combination of terror and anticipation nipping at her insides.

Visions couldn’t touch, couldn’t feel . . . .

He brushed her cheek with the back of his fingers and his warmth was electric against her cold skin. She stared at him, stunned, seeing her own astonishment mirrored in the glittering silver and green of his eyes.

He touched her again, settling his palm against her jaw, cupping face—both hands now. Both hands warm and rough and undeniably real. Transfixed, she stared at him, catching her breath when his gaze shifted to her mouth. He was going to kiss her.

Her hands came up to the muscled wall of his chest, feeling it rise with his deep breath, grappling with the feel of his heart beating beneath her palms. Her fear knotted with the rush of sensation and became a ball of heat in her belly, a longing that smoldered and sparked. She waited as his head bent, his lips moving closer to hers. But the air was turning—she could feel it coming. Even as his mouth hovered over her lips, his breath a hot whisper, a seductive secret she couldn’t quite hear, he began to fade.

She tried to stop him, tried to hold back the air even as it hissed away. In an instant, the man, the grave, the steel wool sky . . . all of it became a mist that floated just on the surface. Beneath, Danni’s kitchen waited for her to come home.

She felt a ripping sensation as it sucked her back to where she’d begun. She sagged against the counter, drawing in deep breaths of warm air. Her cup sat just where she’d left it, coffee not yet cooled, though it seemed hours should have passed. She couldn’t stop the shaking in her legs or slow the pounding of her heart. She sank to the cold tile and curled in on herself.

She didn’t understand what the vision meant, who the man was or why she’d seen the mother she remembered only from the single photograph she possessed. She knew one thing, though. The green-eyed stranger was looking for Danni and when he found her, she would have to make a choice. Go with him and answer the beckoning grave, or deny the call of her mother and everything she’d wished for her entire life.