The Mistress House by Leigh Michaels (Guest Blog & Giveaway)

I’ve been a writer since before I could actually write – there is poetry in my baby book (dreadful poetry!) which I dictated to my long-suffering older sister. And I wrote my first romance novel when I was a freshman in high school. Mercifully, I maintained enough common sense to burn it. I also burned the next five books I wrote (including a romance/murder mystery where I never could decide who the guilty party was).

I learned to write by reading and analyzing romances and then by writing and writing and more writing. Eventually I knew I couldn’t learn any more by myself, and since this was back in the Dark Ages before Romance Writers of America had chapters everywhere, and before writing classes were offered on the Internet, I submitted a book to a publisher in the hope that my rejection letter would give me clues on how to take the next step in making my writing better.

However, instead of the “No, but here’s why” letter I hoped for, an editor with great vision – the legendary Jacqui Bianchi of Mills & Boon – responded with an analysis of where my story fell short, and after a complete rewriting, she bought the book. After that I wrote 80 sweet traditional contemporary romances published by Harlequin Romance and Harlequin Presents in the US and by Mills & Boon in the UK, and I thoroughly enjoyed my 20-year career in contemporary romance.

Then I burned out. I’d tried to do too much and write too fast, and though I still loved my stories, after 80 books I didn’t feel I had anything new to say. I crashed hard and didn’t write a word of fiction for about two years. When I finally went back to creating characters, I wrote miniature pieces – a thousand-word short story to start, gradually building up to longer stories.

When I wrote the first pages of the story that became The Mistress House, I thought it was another short story… but the characters soon demanded more space and more time. Then they introduced me to their friends, and before I knew it, I had three intertwining stories set in a house which had managed to make itself a character, too.

That makes it sound like the writing was easy, which it wasn’t – but it was enjoyable to open up the file each day and retreat to 1815 to find out what was happening with my characters.

Fortunately for me, my agent, Christine Witthohn of Book Cents Literary Agency, and my editor, Deb Werksman of Sourcebooks Casablanca, both loved the book as much as I do. But now when I start writing a new historical romance, I know there are going to be three heroes and three heroines whose stories weave together. It’s the relationships between people – not only lovers but friends and families – that make my stories different, and I hope as special to readers as they are to me.

THE MISTRESS’ HOUSE BY LEIGH MICHAELS – IN STORES FEBRUARY 2011
Three beautifully intertwined love stories…

The rules are made to be broken…
When the handsome, rakish Earl of Hawthorne buys the charming house across the back garden from his town home, he never expects the lovely lady he installs there to ensnare him completely…


After Lady Keighley marries the earl, it seems a shame to leave the house empty, so she offers it to her childhood friend Felicity Mercer, who discovers that the earl’s gorgeous cousin is precisely the man she’s been waiting for…

Finally, feisty Georgiana Baxter moves into the house to escape an arranged marriage, and encounters the earl’s friend Major Julian Hampton late one night in the back garden. The handsome soldier is more than willing to give her the lessons she asks for…

There is plenty of gossip, scandal, and torrid speculations surrounding the “mistress’ house”, but behind closed doors, passions blaze…

ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Leigh Michaels is the author of nearly 100 books, including 80 contemporary novels and more than a dozen non-fiction books. More than 35 million copies of her romance novels have been published by Harlequin. A 6 time RITA finalist, she has also received two Reviewer's Choice awards from Romantic Times, and was the 2003 recipient of the Johnson Brigham Award. She is the author of On Writing Romance, published by Writers Digest Books. Leigh also teaches romance writing on the Internet at Gotham Writers’ Workshop. She lives in Ottumwa, Iowa. For more information, please visit www.leighmichaels.com.

Contest Time: We have two copies of the Mistress House to give away to 2 lucky commentors. This is for the US and Canada only! Please leave an email addy along with your comment if you would like to be considered for the contest.

Many Thanks to Sourcebooks for bringing us such a wonderful author and for the books provided for the giveaway!