Hello! Happy Spring to You!

It's been a while since I posted to the blog -- my bad, but Spring sucks me out of the house, away from my PC and into the garden -- or what's left of it after a winter season has its way with it. Add to that a ton of rain in the past week or so, and the poor thing is under 6 inches of water!

Well, I'm taking a break for a bit from that project and back to working on "Lady Caro and the Count". If you recall, I left Romancing the Rogue in a bit of a cliffhanger with Caro fainting at the sight of Julien Alphonse Roberge, the man who tried to win her away from her second husband, the Count Roberge back in the early 1800s (you can find more details about that in the first book of The Merry Widow series, Snowbound Seductions).

Anyway, this romance will feature a country house party, a passel of young ladies seeking betrothals and Lady Caro and the Dowager Rutherford struggling to keep up with their new clients, Julien's nieces, and the Dowager's granddaughter. It should be great fun -- at least, that's my plan!

In the meantime, why not sign up for my newsletter to keep in touch with my progress (if any) and special sales that I post from time to time? Easy-peasy and I don't hammer you with a daily or weekly newsletter in your box -- that's my promise to you. Actually, you'll be happy to hear from me once a month, unless I run those specials.

Stay tuned for my next post where I'll include

some of my favorite historical romance authors in a

cute, easy to print bookmark.

HAPPY READING, MY FRIENDS!

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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...

Of Ladies and Lacy Fichus

Apologies all around for not writing more frequently on my blog -- something I'm determined to correct in the coming weeks. Today I'm going to talk about my main character, Miss Julia Charlotte Montford, the heroine of Wicked Wagers , due to release in October of this year. Julia is a feisty one -- spoiled, often impudent, headstrong and all too often making wagers. If she lived in today's world, she'd probably be buying lottery tickets by the yard! But one day she makes a wager with the ex-cavalry officer, Benjamin Malory Burton, and her life will never be the same. Oftentimes we writers scour the internet and sites like Pinterest to find an image that sparks the imagination of both the writer and the reader. Many times it's an actress or actor, but this time I stumbled on a series of paintings by John Hoppner, who lived and painted in the late 18th century into the early years of the 19th century. And I found Julia -- here she is -...

Claire Hadleigh

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