Newlsetter, June 2016

News

June has come in beautifully here. The sun is out, the cats are prowling, and I’m indoors looking at it all, writing. It could be worse!

Politics are steaming ahead either side of the Atlantic, the Europe vote over here garnering hysteria on both sides, and the Presidential campaign in the US. When the sun comes out it doesn’t seem to be so important!

So, here’s the news, and you’re the first to hear it.

I’ve been offered a contract at Kensington. With the last Emperors of London book in the works (there are two left to be published!) I didn’t want to leave their world, so I put a proposal forward for the stories of the Shaws, the family of the Marquess of Strenshall.

And they offered it to me! I am thrilled to be able to write these stories for you. If you recall, the family has a gay member. I am endlessly fascinated (and horrified) by the fate of gay people in the eighteenth century, especially men, when the sin of sodomy was punishable by death. It’s wonderful that I get to tell his story. It will be a novella, and set between the two books about two of the Shaw women. Writing a story about gays means treading a fine line between the cruder, more condemnatory views of the time and the modern approach. I can’t wait!

The books will be coming out after the last Emperors book comes out. I would like to tell the other stories, Ivan, Poppy, Augustus and the rest. I feel privileged to tell their stories.

But this month I’ve been busy writing the story of some brand new characters. Still set in the mid-eighteenth century, these stories will continue the story begun in “What He Wants...Is What She Needs” from the Seven Nights Of Sin anthology. In that one, Gerald, the new Earl of Carbrooke, is supposed to marry the daughter of a duke to help his sisters enter of society. He meets and falls in love with Annie, the widow of a City merchant, and the owner of a business. He could make Annie his mistress and marry the duke’s daughter, except Annie won’t do that, and when he gets to know her better, he wouldn’t do that to her. So what to do?

I’ve planned a trilogy based on that story, where Gerald’s three sisters find their own mates. Not without problems, or where would the stories be? Over in the first chapter!

So far these books don’t have a home, but several publishers and agents have expressed interest. We shall see how it goes! It’s wonderful to have the freedom to shape this book the way I want to. I do have a partial written about a different set of characters, but they’ll have to wait until I can get around to them. The series was accepted at Samhain, but of course it won’t be going there now.

New Release

I have a new release this month, and it’s a contemporary. “Escaping The Past” continues the story begun in “Learning To Trust,” but it’s a stand alone, and I’m selling it as a single title.

Buy the Book and Read An Extract:

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Jade has come from England to New York to find work and to live incognito. Two years ago she received a message from her brother, Miles, the last she’d heard of him. Since Miles works for a shadowy organization called the Increments, she’s more than worried, but she obeys his request and leaves home. She found a new life, one she enjoys, even though she only has a job in a department store and lives modestly.
Gary, part owner of the store where she works, has a shady past. Although he can claim a personal fortune, his father nearly bankrupted the family company, then he went back to his Italian roots and took strictly illegal work from his gangster family. Gary’s Neapolitan family still rule in Italy, and Gary has kept strictly away from them.
Jade and Gary have an instant connection, but the social gap between them is huge. When Jade is put in danger, Gary is forced to act to save her. Unfortunately, Jade’s brother is working undercover for Gary’s family, something both his family and the government agency watching them are aware of. Back in Italy, they’re faced with unpleasant choices. Jade won’t allow the danger she and Miles are in to lead Gary to follow in his father’s footsteps and rejoin the family business. Not that Gary has any such intention, even if it means he loses his life protecting the woman he loves.