Update on Next Release

Very excited, getting close to the release date for "Betrayed in Brighton!" It's funny, but in Book #2 of the Merry Widow series, Lady Alexandra and Major Pendleton are the heroine and hero of this Regency romance novella. They appeared as secondary characters in Book #1 (Snowbound Seductions), and I liked their relationship so much that I decided to feature them in the second novella.

It was almost a natural progression in terms of a timeline: by March 1815, only a few months after the end of Book #1, Napoleon escaped St. Helen's and re-joined his armies. So after only about two months together, Pendleton is sent away by Wellington and the War Office, undercover behind enemy lines.

But Alexandra had no idea of his assignment, assuming the British would strike and be done with the pesky Napoleon. Time seemed not to matter; time was on their side, wasn't it? And so, as I worked on this story and these two special characters, the layers of betrayal -- time, war, desire and one bloody-minded traitor -- seemed to grow and add depth to the story line.

By the time I handed the manuscript over to my beta reader, I felt as if both characters, but especially Lady Alexandra, had grown beyond the two-dimensional. They had suffered, were still suffering, and the complexity of their emotions and misgivings made them real -- at least to me.

I'm still on target for a June 1st release and am anxious to send my creation to the public readership. I'd love to see Alexandra and Pendleton capture your hearts as they've captured mine. As soon as the links are live, I will post them here on the blog, on my website and send out alerts on Facebook and Twitter.

Happy Mother's Day to all the moms out there -- and pick up a romance novel to make your day complete!

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More Secondary Characters

As promised, I'm back with some tidbits of info on another favorite secondary character who has appeared in several of my Regency romances -- the Dowager Lady Rutherford. I needed a character who would balance out Lady Caro (see last week's blog entry), someone who was smart as a whip, tough and yet hiding a soft side. The dowager seemed to fit the bill for when she first appears in Snowbound Seductions , she's ornery, feared by all (even the duke) and willing to use her ebony cane like a Scottish claymore. So, the first British actress who visually inspired me, mostly for the dowager's physical attributes is Phyllida Law. If you're an Acorn TV or Brit Box fan, many of you will recognize Ms. Law. Phyllida Law She's appeared in so many series and movies, and is also known as Emma Thompson's mother. She is a wonderful actress and, to me, captures how I visualize the dowager. And in my work-in-progress, Wicked Wagers , we'll see a b...

Top 25 Reads for 2018

2018 was a busy year for reading -- lots of great books, so little time, right? Although I must admit that this year I was immersed in Susan Mallery's Fools Gold series, as well as Jill Shalvis' Lucky Harbor and Heartbreaker Bay series -- and I do mean totally immersed. These two writers can world build like no other! But for the sake of the Top 25, I am putting Mallery and Shalvis in their own kingdom and let you decide. Also, please note that I am not driven by the NYT Bestseller List or any other "lists" -- I tend to like to find my writers in a more organic way, mainly by browsing in real brick-and-mortar bookstores and libraries, so some are "newish" and some are older. If I'm starting a new series, I like to start at the beginning, which means I'm reading past bestsellers. So, here's my top 25 titles that I heartily recommend to readers (broken down by genre / subgenre): Regency Romance: Sherry Thomas, His at Night Tessa D...

Sources of Inspiration

I've been working on my first Regency romance novel and, although I've read most of Jane Austen and seen so many of the excellent BBC movie variations, one still needs a bit of inspiration when working through the writing. It's usually those small details, descriptive of the landscape or the manor house, that gives a work that added level of veracity, of impact for the reader. Why else would readers want historical romance? I have to think that it's the time period that intrigues, a bit like a time tunnel. Go ahead, pick your period -- there's probably a romance set in each one. That's why I love Pinterest. If you can control the time spent on the great "P" -- and that's a big "if" -- there's so much out there to help spark those imaginative ideas or get a writer over the hurdle of writer's block. Here's a few that I chose to help keep me churning out those words: Image captured from Pinterest Wouldn't thi...

Claire Hadleigh

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