Miss Wonderful eBook now $1.99

Miss Wonderful, which starts my Carsington Brothers series, was my first book after a hiatus of several years It was a great joy to return to romance writing with a love story set in Derbyshire, home of the Peak (what we now call the Peak District), and a place I had visited a few years earlier. Plot elements as well as my hero were inspired by actual events, persons, and places, a great satisfaction to my nerdy history mind.

Readers of Pride and Prejudice will remember that Elizabeth Bennett’s planned trip to the Lake District was curtailed. Instead, she went to Derbyshire, where she discovered Mr. Darcy’s beautiful house and estate. There’s a great deal more to Derbyshire’s beauties* and potential for romance, as my book, I hope, will make clear.

T. Cartright, A View of the High Torr, Matlock, 1808 courtesy British Library

Meanwhile, if you haven’t yet met any of my Carsingtons, here’s your chance to start at the beginning, for a mere $1.99.

*And yes, the spelling is “Tor,” but spelling in the early 1800s was a little erratic.

"The Lion's Daughter" eBook for $0.99

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From now until 23 April, The Lion’s Daughter is included in the @AppleBooks historical romance collection, for 99¢. You’ll find it here, along with several other historical romances.

This was my first full-length historical romance, after half a dozen traditional Regencies. As far as I know, it’s the only historical romance set in Albania (partially). This book was intended to be part of a two-book set—once I realized that a certain character needed his own story. Somehow, the duo grew into what eventually became my five-book Scoundrels series.

Me and My Big Mouth

A few years ago, historian Lucy Worsley gave a talk at the Richmond Theatre, which I had the great good fortune to attend. Early in the program, she spoke of herself as a shy person, but a show-off. This apparently explains her ability to stand on a stage all by herself and give an entertaining talk about her latest book (at the time it was Jane Austen at Home: A Biography). On my list of Favorite Things To Do, this kind of solo holding forth before an audience is somewhere near the bottom.

Still, I do have some show-off in me.

Like so many writers—and readers—I’m an introvert. Otherwise, we might be performing instead of glaring at a screen for hours at a time. But when it comes to talking about writing or research, the shyness and introversion tends to subside. Ask me questions about these topics, and I will answer with wanton abandon. (IOW, just try to shut me up.)

And so I do interviews, Zoom chats, podcasts, as long as they are Q&A in some form. The give and take can be fun. Definitely stimulating. Because one often has no idea what to expect. Oh, yes, there are some standard questions, but interviewers and/or their audience do at times ask questions that make me think hard, and I kind of love that. But the easy ones are also fun, allowing me to share excitement or amusement about this or that topic. At unnecessary length.

I’ve done a couple of these performances recently, and they are now online for your viewing/listening entertainment. That is, I hope you’ll be entertained.

Many of you may remember the Two Nerdy History Girls blog. Though Susan Holloway Scott and I retired from posting a few years ago, the blog remains and still draws readers. And so Meena Jain, of the Ashland Public Library, kindly invited us for a return engagement via Zoom. You can watch The Two Nerdy History Girls Ride Again! on YouTube.

Back in the fall, Hosts Bridget and Shani of the Romance at a Glance Podcast posed some challenging questions. The podcast recently went live, and you can listen to it here.

I retire now to my writer’s cave, until the next time somebody wants to ask a lot of questions.