Here’s the description:

Ahh, Penelopeep. She was rocking out to the Harlem Shake at a party with her girls (hey, at least it wasn’t Gangnam Style) and accidentally blurts out that she was snogging with Freddie Staines in his bedroom! He’s no Harry Styles, but he is charming. Now she’s ruined, or so she thinks. In swoops the Dowager Countess – I mean Dowager Duchess – to the rescue. She knows Penelopeep is a good gel so now she has informed Freddie that he, under threat of pain, will be marrying Penelopeep. The outlook doesn’t seem that bad – look at the size of that ring!

Ah, Dame Maggie, you do get around. And I cannot imagine anyone better suited to play the Dowager Duchess of Dovedale– even when covered with bright yellow sugar.

Check out the look of chagrin on Freddie’s face!

Thanks so much, Christine and Jean!! Aside from the fact that I want to move into that room (oh, the books!), I’m still laughing over the Grantham/Dovedale connection….

Pinkorama #3 coming up tomorrow!

Appearing on shelves today, we have the UK edition of The Temptation of the Night Jasmine:

Meanwhile, on Nooks and Kindles, we have my law school satire, Two L, where Measure for Measure meets Harvard Law:

There will also be a print edition of Two L, but it’s taking just a little longer than expected to get up and running. As soon as it’s available for order, I’ll let you know.

Happy Monday and happy reading!

Here’s the Pink publication schedule for the next few months:

– August 29: The Temptation of the Night Jasmine, UK edition.

– September 27: The Secret History of the Pink Carnation, special “Read Pink” edition in support of the Breast Cancer Research Foundation.

– October 11: “A Night at Northanger” (short story) in Jane Austen Made Me Do It.

– November 1: The Mischief of the Mistletoe, trade paperback.

– November 28: The Mischief of the Mistletoe, UK edition.

– January 3: The Orchid Affair, trade paperback.

– February 16: The Garden Intrigue!

I love that this combines both The Temptation of the Night Jasmine and The Mischief of the Mistletoe.

As the house party at Girdings goes out into the woods to collect the Yuletide greenery on Christmas Eve, we can find Charlotte, in her red cloak, and Penelope, with her red hair uncovered (so Pen!)…

… while Arabella stands alone in her plain brown cloak, the hood pulled up over her blonde hair.

The servants have prepared a sumptuous repast…

… and some of the gentlemen are certainly enjoying themselves. (Check out the dogs yipping at their heels!)

But other events are afoot. As Robert and Tommy make their plans, Freddy parties, and Sir Francis Medmenham exudes sinister…

… Turnip is busy trying to cut down a tree with the wrong side of his axe, until Geoff intervenes.

Pretty amazing, no? Candace & Cassandra, I doff my (tiny Peep) hat to you!

Very Mata Hari, no?

Although Charlotte, our historical heroine, is the heroine to whom I feel closest, my favorite bit from this book is an Eloise section. Without further ado, here’s my favorite Night Jasmine excerpt.

Worried that Colin might have a secret career as 007.5, Eloise decides to call her friend Pammy for advice and gets far more than she bargained for.

Scrolling down through my contacts, I hit the first name to come up in the P’s. If anyone could whip away the cobwebs, it would be Pammy. I had no intention of confiding my embarrassing double-oh-seven suspicions to her, but, if nothing else, at least she would be a distraction. And she had the added benefit of having gone to school with Colin’s sister Serena in London for two years. They didn’t move in entirely the same circles these days, but if anyone knew what Colin did for a living, it would be Pammy. The woman has the instincts of a bloodhound and the scruples of a Chihuahua.

Pammy doesn’t believe in outmoded social mundanities like “Hello.” Instead, she started right in with, “You’re at Selwick Hall, aren’t you!”

“Pammy! Hi! How are you?” I have the social mundanities on auto-pilot. They just come out, whether I mean them to or not. “It’s me, Eloise.”

Pammy made a noise that would have sounded suspiciously like “Duh!” if “duh” hadn’t gone out several years ago. Pammy is nothing if not au courant. “Who else would be calling from your mobile?”

“Good point,” I admitted.

“So?” piped Pammy. “How is it? Which flavor is he?”

As I so often do with Pammy, I removed the phone from my ear, looked at it, and put it back. It never helps. “Huh?” I said.

“Which flavor ice cream is he? It’s the latest thing. You compare every man you know to his corresponding ice cream flavor. Vanilla is your standard City bloke, presentable, but bland. Vanilla bean has a bit more potential, but it’s still no chocolate chip…. You get the idea.”

Hmm. I decided to try this out. “What’s moose tracks?”

Pammy answered without missing a beat. “Vaguely outdoorsy, from the mid-West in the States or the Midlands here, on the shaggy side.”

“Strawberry?” I asked.

“Super WASP-y, always wears pink Brooks Brothers shirts, on the border line of gay.”

“Sorbet?”

“Definitely gay. So what’s Colin?”

“Mint chip,” I said, without even having to think about it. Cool on the outside but with all sorts of dark depths. “Listen, Pams, do you ever remember Serena saying anything about what Colin does for a living?”

“Something in the City,” Pammy said promptly. In the background, I could hear the whirr of an espresso machine. It takes a lot of coffee to maintain that level of constant exuberance.

“That’s what he used to do. Any idea what he does now?”

There was a long, happy exhalation of steam in the background as the espresso maker did its thing. “Shouldn’t you be asking him?”

“It seems kind of tacky,” I hedged. “And I feel like I should know already.” At least that much was true.

“Hmm.”

I could hear Pammy thinking—and texting on one of her three other phones, but I chose to ignore that bit. Pammy texts even in her sleep; her phones are so much a part of her fingers that they have no impact on her other activities or on her brain.

“I have this friend”—Uh-oh. Pammy always had these friends. Which was this one going to be? The astrologist? The feng shui expert? The Color-Me-Beautiful woman?—“who has an agency called Man-Trackers.”

“Man-Trackers,” I repeated flatly. I had an image of Xena, Warrior Princess stalking her man through the streets of London’s financial district. It was straight out of Monty Python. Did they bring back scalps, or just suit jackets?

“They run check-ups on new boyfriends, you know, like due diligence, making sure they are what they said and all that.”

“Due diligence?”

“Well, just think about it, Ellie,” said Pammy, as though it were all perfectly reasonable and I just a little bit slow, “you wouldn’t buy a flat or a business without first having it professionally checked out, so why expend less care on picking out a man? It never hurts to do your homework.”

“That’s not homework; that’s stalking.”

“Don’t be silly, sweetie. Stalking is when you do it yourself.”

The winners of the ARCs of The Mischief of the Mistletoe, chosen at random from among the entrants, are….

– Susan (of Comment #3) and Lauren A (of List #25).

Congrats, you two! If you email me your snail mail addresses, I will send you your Mistletoe.

Stay tuned for phase two tomorrow, in which we go about selecting the Official Pink Carnation T-Shirt….

The winners of the British edition of The Deception of the Emerald Ring are….

– Amanda (Comment #148)
– chbs (Comment #204)
– Angie (Comment #96)

The winners of The Temptation of the Night Jasmine are….

– Veronica and Emily.

Congrats, all!! And thanks so much to everyone for participating.

You can find all the entries here.

Three people who vote will be chosen at random to receive copies of the British edition of The Deception of the Emerald Ring.

Two people who tweet, blog, or otherwise spread the word about the contest will receive copies of the trade paperback of The Temptation of the Night Jasmine.

(Sorry, no partridge in a pear tree. I’m saving that for the release of The Mischief of the Mistletoe.)

And now back to our regularly scheduled contest….