Sunday News!!

I’m back! Or at least in the Caribbean. Right now I’m sitting at the Bitter End Yacht Club using their internet.

Before I go on, let’s congratulate Natasha who won Amara Royce’s book!

In book news Miss Featherton’s Christmas Prince released while I was on the high seas! If you want a fun passionate Christmas story, this is for you!! Click here for the buy links.

Speaking of passion, I’m part of a multi-author box set that will release in February called Passionate Promises. The set is now on pre-order at the following sites.  Amazon   B&N:   iBooks   Kobo

Since I was last here, I have sailed from Hampton, VA to the Virgin Islands.

Leaving Hampton

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I have to say it was rewarding, but not a lot of fun. Normally, I suffer from mal de mar for about two day, this time it was four.

Most of the time the view was like this. Which is really pretty for the first few days.

Nights were nice as well.

But after thirteen days we were ready for our first sight of land.

Here is our anchorage.

I’ve heard some of you have snow. What’s going on where you are?

 

Ella

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Guest Author Amara Royce!

Please welcome Amara Royce back to the blog! She’s here to tell us about her new book and she’s giving away on copy. All you have to do is tell her you want it!

 

First the cover.

Now the blurb.

In bustling Victorian London, a desperate woman turns to the last man who would ever want to come to her aid…

Years ago, when Helena Martin escaped to London with a dashing captain, she had no idea she was endangering her entire village. Little did she know, the arranged match she fled was the little town’s last chance at prosperity. Now, with her beloved grandmother’s health failing, Helena must face the damage she wrought. And she must do it with an unlikely escort: her jilted fiance’s brother. 

Daniel Lanfield is undoubtedly attracted to Helena—and furious with her. Though it was unintentional, her thoughtlessness has caused great misery to their village. Yet Daniel is uniquely positioned to help her return home, and strangely compelled to keep her close along the way. For no matter what their pasts, the desire between them now is ever-present…

 

And an excerpt

As her friend spoke, she froze, a chill spreading downward from the crown of her head to engulf her. Daniel Lanfield. It couldn’t be. There must be plenty of Lanfields in England. After so many years and so many miles, what were the odds that one of the Marksby Lanfields would visit London—would be here at this place and this time? Inconceivable. They were devoted to the village and to their family’s business and held a disdain for anything metropolitan. Still, with dread sinking into her skin, she turned to look fully at the man beside her.

He looked nothing like the boys—young men—she remembered, but much change was bound to happen over a score of years. No, she was wrong. He did look like the boy who was supposed to be her brother-in-law. His brown eyes could be Daniel’s eyes. The shape of his face was perhaps broader from time and age but still that same strong square that marked the Lanfield men. His broad shoulders and his bearing reminded her of the elder Mr. Lanfield. The fall of curling hair beneath his cap, that was what had always distinguished him from his brother Gordon, who’d kept his straight hair closely cropped. This could be Gordon’s brother. Please, heavens, let it not be him.

“Someone should stay with you to make sure you don’t suffer a relapse,” he said, his accent nostalgically familiar and his faint smile achingly conscientious. She couldn’t deny it any longer. While his older brother had been rather distant and stern, Daniel had always been the kind one, the attentive one, the one to reach out to help others. The polite concern and deference in his eyes now said he didn’t recognize her. Best to keep it that way.

“No, no, sir. You should feel free to go about your business. You too, Mrs. Clarke—I’m sure the boys need more attending than I do. Now that I am free of those chaotic masses, I will be quite well.” She had to make him leave before he figured out who she was. Averting her eyes, she said pointedly, “I do not do well in the presence of large groups of people. I would be much better off by myself.”

Marissa nodded and said a hasty good-bye to Mr. Lanfield, exchanging cards with him and insisting he dine at the Clarke household as an expression of gratitude.

“Far be it from me to cause you discomfort, Mrs. Martin,” he said after Marissa left them. “I’d not feel right, though, leaving you unattended. ’Tis no trouble to spend a few moments in your company while you indulge your sons. This visit to London has been filled with activity—meetings, dinners, interviews. Today’s been my first chance to breathe all week.”

“You are not from London?” She shouldn’t ask, shouldn’t encourage conversation, but she craved information about her childhood home. It had been so long.

“Does it not show? I’m but a country bumpkin from a small village to the north, near the city of Bradford. Surely, I must stand out like a pig amid a herd of sheep.”

“Not at all,” she replied honestly. His speech and mannerisms were as cordial and appropriate as any of her husband’s business associates had been. He didn’t have the smoothness of a metropolitan industrialist, but his forthright demeanor held its own appeal. And that voice, the stretch and twist of the vowels…it stirred a deeply buried longing for the home she’d given up when she ran off with Isaiah, breaking her engagement with Gordon. If this truly was his brother, Daniel, she prayed he wouldn’t realize her identity. “But I really think I would benefit from some quiet. I hope you understand.”

“Aye, of course. ’Twas a pleasure to meet you, Mrs. Martin. I wish you well.” He stared at her a fraction too long for her comfort. She nodded and was relieved when he finally turned and walked away, his gait slow and hesitant, as if he was reluctant to go.

She put her bonnet back on and had just finished tying the ribbons when she felt a strange awareness and looked up. He hadn’t gone far, it turned out, and he looked at her with a puzzled expression. Then, to her chagrin, he began walking back in her direction. She calculated what she could do, where she could go, before he returned, but there was no way to escape without being obvious.

“Mrs. Martin,” he said, coming to stand before her again. “Forgive me if this seems intrusive, but I can’t help feeling that perhaps we have met before. May I know your husband’s name and, if I may be so bold, his occupation?”

Now she had a choice to make: tell him the truth and risk his recollection, or lie and risk him later finding out the truth from Marissa, assuming he accepted her dinner invitation. Despite that one long-ago promise she’d broken, she strove to maintain her integrity in all things, and this could be no different.

“My husband was Captain Isaiah Martin,” she said formally, a tendril of pride wreathing through her. Even now, she sometimes couldn’t believe he’d chosen her to be his wife those many years ago. And she couldn’t believe how fortunate she’d been to choose him as well. “When he retired from the military due to injury, he worked in various capacities for what is now the LNWR.”

Daniel Lanfield blinked twice, gave the curtest of nods as his expression turned ominous, and then turned on his heel and walked away without another word.

So apparently he hadn’t forgotten her.

His reaction was better than she’d expected.

 

Buy Links: Amazon  ~ Barnes and Noble ~ Kobo ~ iTunes ~ Google Play

About Amara.

Amara Royce writes historical romances that combine her passion for 19th-century literature and history with her addiction to happily ever afters. She teaches English literature and composition at a community college in Pennsylvania. When she isn’t writing, she’s either grading papers or reveling in her own happily ever after with her remarkably patient family.

 

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Guest Author Christy Carlyle!

Please welcome Christy Carlyle back to the blog!! Christy is here today with her latest release, One Tempting Proposal!! She is also giving away a copy to one of you. All you have to do is tell her you want it!

We begin with the beautiful cover.

Now the blurb.

Becoming engaged? Simple. Resisting temptation? Impossible.

Sebastian Fennick, the newest Duke of Wrexford, prefers the straightforwardness of mathematics to romantic nonsense. When he meets Lady Katherine Adderly at the first ball of the season, he finds her as alluring as she is disagreeable. His title may now require him to marry, but Sebastian can’t think of anyone less fit to be his wife, even if he can’t get her out of his mind.

After five seasons of snubbing suitors and making small talk, Lady Kitty has seen all the ton has to offer…and she’s not impressed. But when Kitty’s overbearing father demands she must marry before her beloved younger sister can, she proposes a plan to the handsome duke. Kitty’s schemes always seem to backfire, but she knows this one can’t go wrong. After all, she’s not the least bit tempted by Sebastian, is she?

And an excerpt.

He would leave. The duke was already two steps away from the threshold, and there was a firm, decided solidity in the line of his back. The man seemed quite finished with her and their strange encounter. Then he shocked Kitty by halting midstride and spearing her with a glance over the wide span of his shoulder.

Those eyes of his were a nuisance.

“Perhaps we can dispense with a bit of formality, Your Grace.” She paired the words with one of the simpering smiles she’d perfected over the years. It wouldn’t do to make an enemy of the man. “Please, call me Kitty.”

Many called her by the diminutive. There was no true intimacy in what she offered, but he wouldn’t know that. Gifting the concession drew people in and tended to soften them toward her.

He turned fully and snapped his head up, his inscrutable gaze tangling with hers. His eyes widened, but irritation still furrowed lines between his brows.

“Kitty?”

Ignoring his incredulous tone, Kitty lifted a hand to her elbow and pulled her white evening glove snug on her right arm. She brushed a fingertip across the spot where he’d touched her. Held her. As if he had any right to do so.

“That’s what my friends call me. So you must do so too.” She pasted on a grin and turned her chin down at the precise angle to allow her eyes to tilt up at him flirtatiously.

He’d succumb like all the others, and she would choose what he called her and when he touched her, if she ever allowed him to touch her again.

Then he stalked toward her, and her sense of control faltered. A tremor skittered across her skin, but she refused to retreat. She stood firm, only reaching up to twine her long strand of pearls through her fingers, twisting the gems tight to cover her pulse where it flickered wildly at the base of her throat.

He tipped his head and studied her in a slow agonizing perusal. “No, I think not.”

“No?” With him standing close, his rich verdant scent scrambling her wits, she wasn’t certain what he refused.

Her name. He was denying the invitation to call her Kitty. No, that wasn’t the way of it. Men didn’t refuse her. She refused them.

He closed the distance in one long stride. Warm man and the aromas of oak moss and bay assaulted her senses. Shock arced through her body. Shock that he affected her, and that she craved any man’s body so near.

“Is that truly what others call you? It can’t be your name. There’s nothing kittenish about you.”

She gasped, to breathe him in, to catch her breath, and when he moved his arm, she had the mad notion he might reach up and trace her lips with his fingertip, and then claim her mouth with his, letting her taste his woodsy cologne directly from his skin.

His gaze locked on her eyes.

“You’re not a kitten. You prowled that ballroom as sure-footed as any woman I’ve ever seen. And while you manage to appear disinterested in everyone and everything, I’d wager nothing escapes your notice.”

He lifted a hand as if to touch her but hesitated.

She held her breath, drawn taut and tense.

“You’re much more cat than kitten.” He grinned, the lines between his brows softening, and a glint of satisfaction lighting his gaze. “Yes. Kat suits you far better than Kitty.”

Buy links. Amazon ~ Barnes and Noble ~ Google Play ~ iTunes ~ Kobo

About Christy.

Fueled by Pacific Northwest coffee and inspired by multiple viewings of every British costume drama she can get her hands on, Christy Carlyle writes sensual historical romance set in the Victorian era. She loves heroes who struggle against all odds and heroines who are ahead of their time. A former teacher with a degree in history, she finds there’s nothing better than being able to combine her love of the past with a die-hard belief in happy endings.

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