Search This Blog

Wednesday 19 August 2015

The Reprobate's Redemption is live!



Following a botched abduction in which he was wounded, Evelyn, Marquis Finchbury finds himself embroiled with the determined young runaway Imogen. Short of money but loath to get attached to a chamberpot heiress, Finchbury spurns the idea of courting Imogen. Instead he hands her over to his mother’s protection.

As Imogen turns her hand to sorting out Lady Enid’s problems and rescuing Finchbury’s illegitimate children from a murderous gypsy and a vituperative gentlewoman, Finchbury finds himself drawn to Imogen against his will. His protestations that he is no good for Imogen fall on determinedly deaf ears as the chamberpot heiress unravels the ghosts of his past and determines to marry Evelyn.


The background picture is Bath, where Finchbury, travelling reluctantly with Imogen, meets up with his mother and her paramour, and thankfully hands Imogen over to her.  Here Imogen makes a social debut, meeting some of the younger inhabitants of the town and trying the baths with Lady Enid, the cause of whose strange malady Imogen is able to guess.  However, Enid agrees to go with her son, with Imogen in tow, to his Seat, to decide what to sell, in order to start to recoup his fortunes.  We discover a lot about Evelyn's father, all to the man's detriment, and I enjoyed writing the children so much I'm going to work them into another book in the series just for kicks and giggles.  This may delay the book involving Letty Grey, as that doesn't take place until early 1815, but it will be coming! 
Fortunately I had all my weather research to hand in the writing of this, so the weather, including snow in Bath early in May  is accurate,  because it was written in the book, and sent to a friend to beta-read, before the Great Data Crash.  

It's coincidental that I was involving gypsies at the same time as my friend and editor, Giselle Marks, was writing a book in which Gypsies were a major feature, so we were able to share information.  The carts of the time were not the brightly painted vardos of later times, but were more akin to the pioneer carts of the wild west, with carts hooped and covered with canvas.  The hoops, often cut from local materials at each stop, were used to make rude tents for living in.  I call them vardos for convenience, because the word isn't going to have sprung out of nowhere. 
US:

And the UK manages to have both on one page HERE  and I'm sorry about the price, costs keep going up with everything...  I make 27p per hard copy... 

Saturday 1 August 2015

Guest blog from Melinda de Ross, the Coriola books.

Melinda's work may be set in the modern day, but her research is based in the past, in times of Renaissance superstition, belief in magic and vampires and so on. I have every respect for Melinda, not only for her meticulous research, but because she's writing in a foreign language.  Now I can shop in Romanian, but I couldn't write a book in it, and I raise my hat to her amazing English, which surpasses that of plenty of native speakers.






Melinda De Ross (real name Anca-Melinda Coliolu) is an international author of Romanian origin. She writes in two languages, and her books combine the elegance specific to the European style with the modern appeal of the American culture. Her favorite genre to read and write in is Romance, and anytime she prefers to watch a classic movie instead of going to a noisy club.
She loves to hear from her readers, and you can find her at:




Italian businessman Giovanni Coriola and English target-shooting trainer Sonia Galsworthy have only two things in common—a sizzling chemistry and no desire for commitment. When they meet in London, the world starts spinning faster and they quickly become addicted to each other. The incendiary passion between them skyrockets into smoldering, once-in-a-lifetime love.
Just as they thought they had things settled, a strange discovery triggers a mysterious spiral of events that puts their lives in danger more than once, with no apparent reason.
What connection could there be between an ancient amulet, a secret society and the long-dead poet Dante Alighieri? A sinister, complicated conspiracy that gradually catches up with the characters. And of course, one last twist before the ending.
*Dante’s Amulet is a follow-up of Mirage Beyond Flames.