Historical Romance Giveaway – Enter by February 12th!

Historical Romance Books image

What better way is there to celebrate the month of love than by diving into a new romance?

Enter the Authors Cross Promotion historical romance giveaway and you could win up to 30+ ebooks. But you’ve only got until February 12th to sign up, so don’t delay!

 


Psst…BONUS! I’ve put all of my own books on sale this month for only $0.99 each!

Fall in love with the magic and/or get to know the Demon Duke’s secret today!
Links to retailers for each book are in my Books section

 

2018 Update: A Sale, A New Facebook Group, A New Book, A Quiz, and more!


Join Me!

It’s been some time since I’ve blogged here. My apologies; 2017 was quite a rough year on the personal front.

I’ve also been focusing my energies on my VIP Readers Email Club and my new Locked On Love Facebook group, a fun place for romance readers to talk love and so much more. I hope you’ll consider joining either or both groups, if you haven’t already!

And hey, I’m working on beefing up my Instagram presence, so if you’re active there, I’d love to follow you!


A Sale!

Just in time for the month of love, I’ve put each title in my award-winning Magic of Love series on sale for only $0.99 each (in e-book format). And did you know all of my books are now available on iTunes, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, and Google Play, as well as Amazon? Wahoo!

Want free excerpts and background information from A Man of Character so you can try before you buy? Sign up here!


Gawain and the Green Knight medieval illustration

The Legendary Duke

Another reason for my relative silence of late is I’m hard at work drafting The Legendary Duke, the second in my Put Up Your Dukes Regency series. It’s loosely based on the Arthurian legend of Gawain and the Green Knight, and I’m having a grand time dropping Arthurian Easter eggs into a Regency tale. I hope to have it out by the end of the summer.

I thank all my readers for their patience in waiting for my next book. While I’d hoped to have had a title out sooner, my mom’s illness and subsequent loss not only devastated me emotionally, but prevented me from researching and writing for the second half of 2017.


USA Today Bestseller The Demon Duke

USA Today Bestselling Author!

Thanks to YOU, I’m now a USA Today Bestselling Author! The response to The Demon Duke has been wonderful, far beyond my wildest dreams, and y’all launched it to bestseller status on both Amazon (it hit #21 in the entire Kindle store!) and the USA Today list! Unbelievable!


Input Wanted! A Quiz:

Finally, I’d love to hear from you! What do you like to read in an author’s blog? Behind the scenes info? Personal stories? Historical research tidbits?

Thanks for any input you’d like to share…my goal is to serve YOU!


A Thank You

Last but not least, I just want to express my heartfelt thanks to each and every one of you. It’s been a wild ride since A Man of Character first debuted.

I’m often still in disbelief that people are not only reading my stories but they all take the time to tell me, either in reviews or directly, that they love them and want more.

Thank you, thank you, thank you.

 


Photo Journey: Outside the UVa Rotunda & The Colonnade Club (pt 3 in a series)

Part 3 of my photo journey of UVa’s central grounds. All photos taken February, 2017, in remembrance of my grad school days and to show places that appear in my Magic of Love series.

Looking at the Rotunda from the west side of the Lawn.
Looking at a Pavilion from the Rotunda’s patio.

Continue reading Photo Journey: Outside the UVa Rotunda & The Colonnade Club (pt 3 in a series)

Why I Write Romance

Don’t tell my mom, but I started reading romance at the age of ten. I’d worked my way through all of the children’s books available in the local bookmobile, so I turned to the adult section, where I spied a book with a woman in a flowing green dress on the cover. The back said something about a pirate. I was hooked from that moment on (and still wish I could remember the name of that fateful book!).

As a teenager addicted to historical romance novels, I often had to defend my reading material of choice, even writing an essay for my tenth grade English class explaining my love for the genre: I read romance, because no matter what happens (and some pretty crazy things happen), you know those two people are going to end up together.

For this anxiety-prone child of divorce, that was the ultimate comfort, the idea that two flawed people could encounter all sorts of obstacles and still stay together, still find everlasting love.

As to why I write it? Because as an adult, I continue to seek that comfort, that security, that promise every day. Also, I’m a bit of a control freak. Plus, I really love witty repartee between characters. So an encouraging, reassuring story (with funny/witty parts, or so I hope) dictated entirely by me? Sign me up!

Romance provides escape, yes, but it also provides hope, and reminders that no matter what obstacles may come, Happy Ever After might be just around the corner. I hope my books entertain, amuse, and give that sense of hope, that sense of promise we all need, that second chances are possible, and that when life seems its bleakest, a new chapter might be waiting to be written. Gosh, that’s super-corny, but it’s true.

Writing, I’ve learned, also allows me to explore my own thoughts and beliefs through watching/learning what my characters do.

In A Man of Character, I examined the ideas of fantasy versus reality, perhaps in part because people have long challenged romance as presenting impossible ideals.

In A Matter of Time, I delved into whether feminism is compatible with wanting to prioritize love and marriage. (For the record, I am an ardent feminist who happens to be madly in love with my husband and who finds my identity in that relationship, and I’m good with that. So my answer to that question is a resounding yes.)

In A Scandalous Matter, I switched up the feminist theme by asking if romantic relationships negate individual independence, through the eyes of a heroine and hero who believe the two ideas are incompatible. (Spoiler alert: I disagree.)

And in my forthcoming The Demon Duke, admittedly a bit of a Beauty and the Beast story (my favorite Disney tale!) I looked at how we judge others and how we judge ourselves, and how we must make peace with who we are before we can be truly happy.

In each of my books, a main theme is finding one’s place in the world. How ironic that in becoming a writer, I’ve finally done just that. I know where I belong now, where my heart feels happiest, and it’s in writing romance.

I’ve come full circle, and I’m incredibly blessed.

Now, to you: What makes YOU read (or write) romance? I’d love to know! 


An earlier version of this blog post appeared on Tina Glasneck’s Celebrate With A Book site. I’m grateful to her for being fine with me posting it here, as well.

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Photo Journey: The University of Virginia’s Rotunda (pt 2 of a series)

Taking a much-needed break from editing The Demon Duke to bring you an image-heavy post about the stunning interior of the University of Virginia’s Rotunda.

This is the second in a series photo-documenting my visit to UVA on a delightful but cold February day, 2017. I hope you enjoy!

Have you been there? Share your experiences in the comments!

The basement entrance (from the south looking north). Perhaps not the most glamorous place to start, but it’s where I’ve always gone in, and it seems fitting to begin at the bottom, as the building only gets more glorious as you go up. Plus that bell is cool.
The basement room on the right (east) houses a display about the Rotunda, giving you information on its uses and adventures over the years.

Continue reading Photo Journey: The University of Virginia’s Rotunda (pt 2 of a series)