News for November

It's the season of fireworks and moustaches!
Odd to see the facial hair springing up on male faces. It gives them a good excuse not to shave for the month. Personally I'm not a fan of the huge Ozarks-style beard. It just looks odd, but some people can carry a beard better than others.
I'm rabbitting, because I'm writing. When I'm in writing mode, things go off in all directions. I lose focus on everything except the book I'm writing, which annoys my family no end. Fellow writer friends totally understand, though. Which is a good thing.
I'm writing the final book in The Shaws series. Final, because there are no more family members to write about. I've written them all, now. I've submitted a new series to Kensington, though, which I'm excited about. It's far too early to tell you much, but it will feature a character you'll have met before.
I've also got a book in progress about one of my ancestors, Hester Bateman. She was a remarkable woman. Widowed at an early age, she was left with two young sons and a silversmithing business, which was left to her, not to her sons, although they did go into the business when they grew up.
She brought silverware to the masses by using new technology. So instead of keeping the existing business on an even keel until her sons grew up, she took a huge risk and entered a new market. It paid off. She wasn't a designer as such, but silverware with her maker's mark fetches huge money today. It's a pity we don't have any!
That's what I mean when I say that if you write history, you don't actually have to make anything up. The history of the eighteenth century is full of remarkable women, who achieved a lot in their time. I don't write biography, so I use these people as inspiration, and write their stories from that. Hester, for instance, never remarried, but my heroine certainly does!
That's some of Hester's work above. Isn't it gorgeous?
I haven't heard from anyone about work I've sent. Not yet, anyway, but I'll be sure to let you know when I do.
I have two series left from Samhain and Ellora's cave, and a few stragglers, one-offs and the like. I'm planning to release the Richard and Rose series early next year. Brand new covers, but the same Richard and Rose goodness!
Did you get to Goodreads to download the Sinless giveaway? You still have time, it doesn't close until the 11th November.
https://www.goodreads.com/giveaway/show/260970-sinless

November Newsletter

Season of mists and mellow fruitfulness! And of my summer holiday!

My daughter and I planned to go to Florence in the summer, but we looked at the projected temperatures and thought – Nope! – so we’re going later this month.

I can’t wait. Florence is one of my favourite cities in the world. It’s breathtakingly beautiful, and small enough to walk around. I’ve also been looking at flights to the States for RT next year, but they’re sky-high. At least I hope they are, because if they’re not, I’m in trouble!

Travel is an important part of my life, but in the Georgian era, it was far more difficult and took a lot longer. It could take five days to get from York to London, for instance! A lot depended on how much you could afford, if you had your private vehicle and the pace you were prepared to go.

Even my characters in this month’s release, “Mad For Love,” were subject to the travel restrictions of the time. Unless they could fly, and we haven’t seen that one yet.

This book is all about Bacchus, a character who has fascinated me for most of my life. Bacchus is a god of opposites, and of the world turned upside down. So he is king when the mad rule the world, he is the man who drives people to a trance-like frenzy with wine and dance and song.

My favourite painting is Titian’s “Bacchus and Ariadne.” It’s a revolutionary painting, from a history of art point of view, with terrifying risks taken with colour and a geometry that a younger artist wouldn’t even attempt. If you’re in the mood, try drawing the triangles in the painting, following the obvious points.

But apart from the technical brilliance of the work, it’s a painting about falling in love. Ariadne’s lover, Theseus, has just sailed off and abandoned her (you can see the sails of his ship in the distance) and Bacchus, leading a procession of his Bacchantes, sees her and falls instantly in love with her. In the sky you can see the constellation he created for her crown.

Their eyes are meeting for the first time, and they’re in love.

How could I resist? So writing this book is even more exciting for me. In this, Bacchus is an eighteenth century nobleman, and he finds his love in the daughter of one of his enemies. He knows her mother is his enemy, but in order to defeat her, he has to find out who she is, to discover her attributes and defeat her with them. And he has to rescue his lady from her mother’s schemes. But in doing so, he unwittingly repeats some of the motifs from his own legend.

You can pre-order the book here: https://www.samhainpublishing.com/book/5215/mad-for-love

Or here at Amazon: www.amazon.com/Mad-Love-Even-Gods-Fall-ebook/dp/B00NW6FVC6

(It’s a dollar cheaper at Samhain!)

I went to the Imperial War Museum this summer, which has just reopened after a 4 year facelift. Originally, the museum was the Bethlem Hospital, better known as Bedlam. So I could have a good look at the building, and talk to the curators about the restoration. They have discovered a lot of features of the original building, like some places in the stone where chains had been driven, and bars at the windows. Grim. But from a research point of view, fascinating.

And let’s not forget the reason the War Museum was built. Britain has been commemorating the First World War all year. It began a hundred years ago this year, and resulted in the death of a generation of young men. On November 11^th we have Armistice day, and the second Sunday in November is Remembrance Sunday. On the 11^th hour of the 11^th day every year there is a minute’s silence for the fallen. This year it will be even more poignant.

Newsletter July 2014. Two new cover reveals!

 July has come with a flurry of sporting activity – the World Cup and Wimbledon are both going strong as I write. While I’m a big football fan, I’m only a tennis fan for two weeks in the year—and there has to be strawberries.

But I’m also writing like  a demon. I’ve made some decisions this month that I’m still pondering about. Some have just happened. For instance, after a couple of fallow years, I’ve come over all historical. I couldn’t be happier. With two series starting this year, it seems my stories of Georgian Britain are in demand again.

Not that I’m saying that the old ones have stopped selling, or I don’t get letters about them, because I do. Every month I get letters about Richard and Rose – will there be any more stories? Will I write spinoffs about some of the characters? Freddy? Gervase?

Sadly, the way matters are at the moment, probably not. But for Richard and Rose lovers there are themes I want to continue to explore and characters I want to develop, perhaps take them in a different direction. What was it like to be different in those times? Gay, for instance? Or what if your family is dedicated to a cause you don’t believe in? What if you’re an aristocrat with no money? All different, and all need looking at in their own way, on their own terms. I’m busy working with that in the Emperors of London series, but in the Even Gods Fall In Love series, I’ve taken an even more extreme view. What if the gods are still among us, foisting their gifts on people who might not want them? Things that make them so radically different they don’t feel at home anywhere? Then add an enemy, a fight they’ve engaged in over the centuries, and drag in ordinary people who don’t know what they’ve got themselves into.

I’m thrilled to say that the first Even Gods Fall In Love book, Lightning Strikes, sold well enough to get into several bestseller lists, and so the series is off to a great start. The second book is on its way and the third book is contracted. Here’s your treat for the month – the cover reveal of the second book, “Mad For Love.” We’re on to Bacchus’s story. Blaize, the Marquis of Stretton is finally let loose on the world. Can Bacchus survive his Ariadne? Not only does Blaize have to cope with the fact that if he stops drinking wine, he goes mad, but he falls for the one woman he shouldn’t, the daughter of his worst enemy. That’s coming later this year, in October.

People who wanted to do their own thing resonate with us. There will always be loners, people living on the edge and people who don’t fit for one reason or another. They are my main subjects, I’ve discovered over the years. Maybe it was because I discovered my place, the place where I feel most comfortable, after years of fighting through worlds where I demonstrably didn’t fit. So I can sympathise and write about it in my romances.

Of course, it’s all romance and part of finding a place for me includes finding people who feel the same way, who are looking for something or someone. That’s what I do.

So, on to this month. My paranormals also concern difference and people who are hunting for part of themselves. In “Jewel of the Dragon,” the heroine is part of an insidious organisation that she wants to escape from. Or rather, she is refusing to have anything to do with it, but one of the people she loves most in the world, her brother, is deeply enmeshed in it. Then she finds someone, who by his very nature is different and apart. Dev Wyvern works for a successful auction house, but he’s also a shape-shifting dragon. How’s that for difference? He feels adrift, although he does have connections in Department 57, and works for the paranormal branch of the CIA sometimes. “Jewel of the Dragon” is now out in a new edition, with new cover art. And it’s cheaper! For those of you who already have the Loose-Id version, it’s probably not worth buying it, unless you want to collect the complete set, but if you haven’t caught up with the Department, now’s your chance. I should really do a proper promotion for it, but I’ve never found anything that works as well as putting out a good book and asking people to take a look.

The Amazon buy link is here.

Extract

Here you go with the new cover art, blurb and extract.

Dev Wyvern is Welsh, tall, dark and sexy as sin. He’s also a shapeshifter. When he walks into Alix Lancaster’s jewelry shop she knows her brother, Clay, is setting a trap for him. Clay is a member of the PHR, sworn enemies of all Talents. So does Alix betray her brother by warning Dev, or let him walk into a lethal snare?
Dev is drawn to Alix like few other women. But can he trust her? Sent by the enigmatic Cristos, the boss of Department 57, to expose a PHR cell, he finds love and danger waiting for him. He takes both of them on, and has to make a choice; will she forgive him if he destroys the brother of the woman he loves?
Will they get out alive?

She had no more defenses, nothing left in reserve. He took her in his arms, and she couldn’t resist him, but she fought her tears. No point crying. It wouldn’t alter anything.

Still, she found it soothing to rest on his shoulder, softly padded by his terrycloth robe. His arms enclosed her, not with desire, but with mutual comfort. He spoke, his words low, his lips against her hair. “Would you like a T-shirt or something to sleep in?”

She appreciated his kind gesture, but she honestly didn’t care. He’d seen all of her and still wanted her, the only man she could remember who didn’t criticize some part of her body. The knowledge came as easement in itself. She shook her head, clearing her brain of the smothering miasma of sheer exhaustion.

Gently, he undid the belt holding her robe in place. He led her to the bed and threw the covers back before sliding the robe down her shoulders and throwing it aside. He kept his attention on her face, but he slid his arms around her waist and urged her to sit on the bed. She lifted her legs, and he drew the covers over her before walking around to the other side of the bed.

She tried not to look, she really did, but from the first time she’d met him, his butt had attracted her, so when he drew off his own robe, she did sneak a glimpse at him. He looked fine, really fine. And once, he’d wanted her. He slid into bed back first, so she couldn’t tell if he still wanted her.

He rolled over, and propped himself up on one elbow. At least a foot lay between them. Even in her exhausted state, she felt a yearning, wanting to feel him, to touch him. And she knew she could trust him. If she said no, it would mean no, and he would accept it. Trust. Something she had used misguidedly in the past but never again.

“I could put a pillow down the center of the bed if you like.”

She grinned. “That would be a bit silly. Dev, I’m too tired to think for myself. You can do what you want with me, and I won’t complain.”

“You put me on my mettle. I can hardly do anything now you’ve said that, can I?” He smiled, a gentle, understanding smile that encompassed everything she’d suffered. “I’d very much like to hold you, but if you don’t want me to, I won’t take offense.”

“I’d like that too.”

She began the move, sliding closer to him, but he lifted the covers so she could slip into his embrace. His arms folded her close, and she felt their body heat combine into comfortable warmth. No desire.

Relationships were forged on less. Far less.

You can buy Jewel of the Dragon here.

Lynne Connolly