3.18.08: Catching up!

Hi, all!  Sorry for the long delay between web updates.  Between book tour and Book V (almost done but still untitled!), I’ve been off in authorial never never land.  In short, there’s a lot to catch up on.

Crimson Rose has been named a Fresh Fiction Fresh Pick—huzzah!  It also garnered a wonderful review from one of my favorite review sites, Dear Author. In honor of Crimson’s success so far, I’m hosting a new, Crimson-based contest on the Contest page.

Now that “Crimson Rose” is safely out on shelves, here’s the scoop on Book V.  Many of you have asked me who the main characters will be in Book V.  So here it is.  The grand unveiling.  Book V is about… Lady Charlotte Lansdowne, Henrietta’s best friend from Black Tulip. 

On a bitter cold Christmas Eve, Charlotte’s long-lost cousin (okay, so he wasn’t lost, just misplaced), Robert, Duke of Dovedale returns from India just in time to join the house party at Girdings, the Dovedale estate.  As a child, he was Charlotte’s favorite knight in shining armor.  The intervening years have only served to render him more dashing.  But, unbeknownst to Charlotte, Robert has an ulterior motive of his own for returning to England, a motive that has nothing to do with taking up the ducal mantle.  As Charlotte returns to London to take up her post as Maid of Honor to Queen Charlotte, echoes from Robert’s past endanger not only their relationship but the very throne itself.

Over the course of Book V, both Robert and Charlotte find themselves entangled with the Hellfire Club and George III goes mad again.  To find out how those events relate, you’re just going to have to wait for the book, but I have been blogging about the background research on History Hoydens. Check out the January archives for a post about Hellfire Clubs and February for musings on the madness of King George.

I’ll be posting title and release date as soon as I have them! 

Finally, I'd like to thank everyone who took the time to come and see me on book tour!  I very much appreciated it—and huge, huge hugs to the Shippensburg girls, who drove all the way from Pennsylvania to come to the reading in New Haven.  You are the best. 

It would take too long to do a full travelogue, but here are some of my favorite moments (and pictures) from my ramblings.  I’ve also blogged about other aspects of the trip on AccessRomance.

I started off in Boston, where the lovely folks at the B&N gave me and my friends each a red rose to take home. Six of us (five girls and one guy) toddled happily off to dinner where the waitress kept giving us odd looks. Finally, around the time the main course arrived, she blurted out, “You’re on TV, aren’t you?” People have said many odd things to me in my time, but never have I been mistaken for a TV star. “Come on,” she persisted. “You can tell me. You’re on The Bachelor, aren’t you?” The penny finally dropped. Looking around, there we all were, five women with roses and one very confused bachelor. We gently explained that it was pure coincidence, but the waitress spent the rest of the dinner shooting us surreptitious glances and hunting for hidden cameras. A certain gentleman (or should we say bachelor?) of my acquaintance isn’t going to live that one down for a long, long time.

From Boston, I set off for San Francisco, where the plane nearly didn’t take off because someone had brought a snake on board.  (No, really.) Having dodged the reptiles along the way, I finally made it to San Francisco, where my reward was getting to have dinner and chat about writing spy series with fellow author Tracy Grant. If you’re fans of Regency-set spy novels—and if you’re here, you probably are—I highly recommend “Beneath a Silent Moon” and “Secrets of a Lady”. I was green with envy for days after reading them, gnashing my teeth and wishing I had written them myself. 

In Dallas, an old friend took me to find the Muse—

--before delivering me dinner with the wonderful women of the Dallas Fort Worth Tea Readers Group, and then on to my reading:

On departing Texas, I spent Valentine’s Day in Nashville sharing writing stories and quiche with Tasha Alexander and J.T. Ellison. My absolute favorite moment of that reading occurred when a member of the audience raised her hand to recommend Tasha’s A Poisoned Season—with no idea that the author was sitting right in front of her!  A good time was had by all.

09.30.06: MySpace!

About five hundred years after everyone else, I’ve gingerly climbed onto the technological bandwagon and opened a My Space page. I haven’t quite figured out how to do the whole “add friends” thing—but I’m getting there! So if you’re on My Space, drop on by….

09.30.06: Welcome to the new Readers’ Page!

Several people have asked me about reading group guides for the Pink books, so here you’ll find the readers’ guides for Pink Carnation and Black Tulip, Q&A’s with the author, and information on setting up author phone-ins with your book club. Eventually, I hope to add a bulletin board, so everyone can chat about the books right here… I’ll keep you posted on that!