To ‘cut’ or not to ‘cut’…by Cecilia Grant

A few weeks back I posted a deleted scene from ‘A Gentleman Undone’ on my website, and Melanie saw it and asked if I’d like to stop by bookworm2bookworm to share another deleted scene and talk a bit about why it didn’t make the cut.

I’m a pantser rather than a plotter, which means I tend to explore a lot of blind alleys, dead ends, and meandering interstate bypasses in my early drafts. Hence, plenty of deleted scenes from which to choose.

The one I’ve chosen here comes from a sequence that would have taken place pretty early in the book, after Lydia manipulated the deck to give Will back the money she’d fleeced him of and before the scene where she showed him her sleight-of-hand tricks.

At the semi-polite gaming club where their paths cross, she’s wrestling with her mixed feelings over having restored his money, and she elects to cope by drinking a whole lot of punch. He asks her to dance, perceives her condition, and contrives to get her into the supper room so he can make her eat something.

Drink hasn’t improved her temper. As the scene starts, she’s just plunked herself down, seized a bun from a nearby plate and bit into it “with feral gusto,” per Will’s observation.

*     *     *

Might you like a dish of soup to go with that bun?” He lifted the tureen’s lid at one side. “It appears to be turtle. There’s also fish, fowl, roast mutton, some sort of aspic, and turnips and peas. I had it all set down at once so you could choose.”

A sudden stagger came in the rhythm of her chewing. Heaven help him, he knew exactly what caused it. Nobody ever took care of her, she had not the least idea of how to respond to solicitous attention, and she did not welcome such attention from him. He’d seen it before, hadn’t he, on Tottenham Court Road and all the way to Somers Town.

She swallowed, and glared at the empty plate before her. “I don’t care very much for turtle soup.”

“Nor do I, in fact.” The tureen’s lid settled noiselessly into place. “May I carve a bit of this goose for you? I had it myself at supper. It’s really not bad.”

“If you like. Peas as well, perhaps.” Finally she put the bun down on her plate and let her hands sink out of sight to her lap. She sat stiffly, watching him make busy with the knife and fork. She might have been some child of savages, brought into civilization and struggling to master odd English table manners. “You’ve done this before.” Her gaze slanted from his hands to his face.

“Carved a goose? I should hope so.”

Intently she shook her head. “Fed someone. Compelled someone to eat.”

It wasn’t the first time this evening he’d felt himself the object of her avid attention. The look she’d turned on him, just before remarking on the scent of his new shaving soap, had been nearly enough to scorch his skin. Until he’d realized drink was behind it. “Indeed I have. Peas, you said?”

She nodded, eyes still fixed upon him as though she were sifting through all his secrets and only wishing they were written in a language she knew how to read.

She could thank God they weren’t. “Peas to accompany your roast fowl, madame.” He tipped the spoon and sent its little grey-green orbs rolling onto her plate. Another few months and there’d be fresh peas for supper, crisp and verdant in place of these pallid specimens.

“You don’t care to speak of it.” She hadn’t once bothered to glance down at the food as he filled her plate.

“Only it’s not very interesting to tell.” He shrugged the shoulder nearest her as he turned away to set the serving-spoon back down in the dish of peas. “Men would turn up drunk and I would see to it they got something on their stomachs. A staggering-drunk soldier isn’t much use, as you may imagine. Nor is one puking his guts out because he hasn’t bothered to put anything down his gullet besides gin, pardon the subject.” Though he’d a thousand times rather have a man puking his guts out from gin than from fear. To the former, he could at least offer food and perhaps a place to lie down. To the latter, he could offer no useful physic under the sun. A few hollow words of encouragement. Exhortations to be brave, as if the poor fellow might have forgot what demeanor was expected of him and only wanted reminding. Ineffectual rot, the whole of it.

A muffled clink told him he’d worked the spoon to the nethermost layer of peas and struck bottom. He let go the handle and threw a quick look to Miss Slaughter, who still watched him, hands in her lap. “Eat your food before it grows cold,” he said, and signaled to the footman for coffee.

She turned her attention to her knife and fork. “I don’t mind. I have things, too, of which I don’t care to speak.”

“That much, I already know.” To have a bit of history with her, to have subjects on which he might tease her, felt like a gift slipped into one of his pockets while he wasn’t looking. She pinned him somehow to the present hour, with their brief trifle of a shared history making a buffer between now and the history that had gone before. “May I hope you’ll make an exception regarding what transpired the last time we sat together at cards?”

One thing to be said for drink; it rendered her readable. She arched her brows in an exaggerated counterfeit of innocence, and spoke to the plate. “You had an admirable run of luck, as I recall.”

“Rubbish. You fed me those cards.” He leaned forward and lowered his voice. “You cued me to buy instead of twisting, and you saw to it I got back everything I’d lost to you the week before.”

She raised a forkful of goose and put it in her mouth, chewing so thoroughly as to make any reply impossible. He sat back as the coffee was delivered, his hands balanced on the table’s very edge.

“I won’t tell anyone, you know,” he said once the footman had retreated. “I only can’t think for the life of me how it was done, and I should like to find out.”

She eyed him for a moment, considering, and then speared a pea on each tine of her fork with great care. “No one besides you has ever accused me of cheating.”

“That’s because you’re so good at it, I expect.” He reached for her cup. “How do you take your coffee?”

Again she shifted in her chair, the savage-born girl squirming under polite attention. “I’ll manage it. Thank you.”

“Nonsense. I’ve already got started.” He spoke lightly, to cover the disproportionate sense of urgency that thundered through his veins. To minister so to another person, to perform small kindnesses in a clean, quiet room, was his own drink, his own opiate, the thing that shut out memory like a blanket of fog. Ten men with hot blacksmiths’ tongs couldn’t pry his fingers off this saucer now, let alone one woozy and unarmed girl. “Sugar, I should think? Milk?”

“Lots of sugar. No milk.” He hadn’t expected so ready a surrender. But devil take him if he would complain.

He transferred three sugar lumps from the bowl and stirred, assiduously, until every last grain must be dissolved. She grew more and more sober, watching, and when he set the cup before her she stared at it, so glum that he finally had to ask what was the matter.

“I’m in your debt again.” She made no move to take her coffee. “And I don’t want to be.”

“For a cup of coffee? Hardly.”

“For your kindness.” For God’s sake you’d think she’d been sentenced to a stretch in Newgate, her tone was so dour. “You were right. I’m in no state to gamble. I should have lost money if I’d tried. You spared me from that, and now… our accounts don’t balance.” Her eyes rose from the coffee to his face. She was beginning to sag all over, as though her chair sat in some bizarre zone with twice the usual dose of gravity.

“Come.” With two fingertips he nudged her saucer closer. “Drink your coffee. You owe me only one thing, and that’s another dance, because tonight’s was abysmal. Now that I know it was the liquor, I don’t mind saying you were half a step behind on every turn.”

That ought to have lightened things, or at least boosted her back to her livelier angry state. But she sagged a degree or two more. “I wish I hadn’t drunk all that punch,” she said. And with one awful shuddering breath, she began to cry.

“Here, now.” The words came on their own, as he fought to tamp down a flare of panic. “It’s not so bad as that. It’s one night of gaming missed.”

“I can’t miss even one night. And don’t tell me it’s not so bad. You don’t know.” She wiped at her face with the heel of her gloved hand before remembering her napkin, and snatching it up.

“You’re right. I don’t.” God, that horrible helpless feeling again. This, at least, he’d thought he’d left behind him. “But I promise you a good third of what you feel now is just the distorting effect of drink. It will pass. You’ll be sanguine in the morning, if not before.”

“No, I’ll never be sanguine again.” She hid her face in her napkin and sobbed like a child who’d just found her pet canary claws-up on the floor of its cage.

Will looked about the room. The lone footman stood against the wall, staring straight out in front of him with practiced indifference. The mortifying spectacle had no witnesses, but neither was any help ready to hand.

What could he do? Every muscle in his arms and torso twitched with the impulse toward what he could definitely not do, which was gather her into his lap and murmur indistinct words of comfort as she spent her grief on his shoulder. “Do you want me to fetch one of your friends?” He allowed himself to lean six inches nearer. “Some lady to sit with you?”

She shook her head, sobs unabated, face still hidden behind the cloth.

“Would you…”  He cleared his throat. The words had caught on something halfway up. “Would you like me to send Mr. Roanoke to you?”

She shook her head even harder, and angled her body away.

He sat straight up, to give back the six inches of space. “Then, ah…”  He’d thought that last question was the difficult one. But no, it was this. “Would you prefer to be left alone?”

Another shuddering breath, as she paused between sobs to decide. Then she nodded, with extra vigor to make the answer readable even from the back of her head. That was that. She wanted him to go.

He didn’t, though. He let her hear him rise from the chair and walk away, but he only went as far as the wall, where he stood, like a superfluous footman, out of her sight while she wept.

This was ludicrous. It was absurd. She’d be embarrassed when she finally came to herself, and they might have a good laugh over it the next time he saw her. Why then couldn’t he find it in him to be amused, or to feel anything at all besides helpless pity for her distress, and disgust at his own inability to console? If any man ought to have a proper sense of perspective on this scene, he was that man. Lord knows he’d seen stronger claims to pity and consolation, enough such claims to last him his life.

Nevertheless he stood, still and silent, until she finally dried her face and reached for the coffee. The stuff would be lukewarm at best, now. His fingers itched to stir three lumps of sugar into a fresh hot cup and set it before her. But then she’d know he hadn’t gone when she’d asked. So he stayed long enough to see her take the first swallow, and then slipped from the room and went home without playing a single hand of cards more. And when she turned up in his dreams that night it was only to waltz, not at a proper distance but wrapped in his arms, worn out from crying, her cheek on his shoulder and the weight of all her cares entrusted to his keeping, if only for the length of the dance.

*     *     *

This wound up being part of a 10,000-word cut (the drinking, the dancing, and assorted shenanigans went on for awhile), which was as painful as it sounds. But for a number of reasons, it had to go:

1. Will was too invested, too soon. I’m not opposed to romances where one party feels strongly right from the start, but this one worked better if they came together at first for a shared purpose (winning at cards), and only gradually developed feelings for each other.
2. It was 10,000 words with no progress on the card-playing front, and I needed to advance the card-playing storyline sooner.
3. The characterization of Lydia felt wrong. As I wrote further into the story and got to know her better, I realized that she got angry when she drank, but she stayed her focused self. She wasn’t sloppy, and she wouldn’t go on crying jags.
4. It’s a sitting-and-eating-and-drinking scene, thus not very dynamic. I’ll confess I love s-a-e-a-d scenes, both as a reader and a writer, but, recognizing that I’m in the minority on that, I try not to write too many of them

Several things from this scene survived to reappear elsewhere in the book, including nurturing-through-coffee (now in the scene where Lydia wakes up in Will’s bed to find covered cups of coffee and chocolate), the sobering-up of a glum drunk person with roast goose (this time with Will as the beneficiary), and, almost verbatim, the exchange about how she manipulated the cards to return his money.

Of the things I cut here, I was probably sorriest to lose “sobbed like a child who’d just found her pet canary claws-up on the floor of its cage.” I liked that image, and may wind up using it elsewhere someday. You’ll all have to pretend not to have seen it before

How do you all feel about deleted scenes? Do you watch them on DVDs? Do you like seeing this “behind the scenes” stuff, or is it like a visit to a sausage factory; something you’d rather not know?

Mel here! I am thrilled that you came over…I feel like one of those girls that just giggles at meeting Justin Bieber!!! Thanks and we would love to have you back in January as your next book, ‘A Woman Entangled’ hits the shelves!

Cecilia Grant can rock my romance world anytime and I hope she does yours with one copy of her ‘Gentleman’ which she’s giving away today!!

Cecilia Grant ROCKS my romance world!

Last couple of weeks I felt like I entered a ‘read-a-thon’ and ‘crammed’ a lot of books. Some were just okay and some good, and then there’s ‘A Gentleman Undone’ by Cecilia Grant. Have you heard of her? If you haven’t, I’m here to tell you that you NEED, HAVE to read her work. She debuted a few months ago with ‘A Lady Awakened’ and now she gifted us with ‘A Gentleman Undone’. Her covers are amazing and I truly can see Martha, the heroine (sister of the hero on the second cover) to be this woman, as I could easily imagine Will to be lying there as one scene in particular brings this cover to life!

Here are some of the reasons behind my enthusiasm and why I’ve become such a fan of this author: her prose and characters make my heart flutter with anticipation and joy; her plots that set the pace of the story make me feel the angst so acutely that I don’t even realize that I’m holding my breath; she doesn’t just write romance, she writes love stories that are deep, complex and ooze passion, compassion and humanity.

She doesn’t just ‘tell’ me the story. Oh, no! She builds it with muscle and sinew, than adds the fat to it and I feel…I sigh…I cry and laugh…I savor. And when I’m done reading that last sentence, I feel full, my appetite satisfied and I catch myself…smiling.

If you’re still in doubt about reading both of these books [and you do not need to read them in order], here’s the Book Trailer for a Lady [which I hope will get you in a mood for a Gentleman] and two of the many, many awesome scenes from a Gentleman….

***   ***   ***

“Again, the dark library with that moonlit bay window. His grip mangling the chair’s padded arms. He ought not to look this time. She’d be angry – she hadn’t liked him broaching the incident in their hallway conversation upstairs– and doubtless find a way to part him from more of his money. Fool that he was.

But he could no more stop himself than he could push back a tide. Slowly, inexorably, he came up out of the chair, angling for one illicit glimpse. Another inch– another–and he saw round the bookshelf into the bay. He could almost believe she was made of moonlight itself. Moonlight undulating, the way it did on an ocean when you’d sailed away and left shore behind.

Arms twisted up above her head. Face tilted. If only confound Roanoke weren’t there to spoil the view… and then, as though she’d read his thoughts, one pale arm sank away from the drapes. She sat her palm to the middle of the man’s chest and pushed. Roanoke stumbled backward and–most obliging of him–wavered and dissolved altogether.

She opened her eyes. Will’s heart lurched up out of his chest to thunder directly between his ears. Would that instant of awful vulnerability repeat itself in her face?– but no. She registered his presence, and her generous mouth quirked, just slightly, at the corners. He hadn’t caught her off guard this time. His heart rebounded to its proper place. She didn’t reach for her pushed-off sleeve. Steadily, without shame, she returned his gaze. Her arm lifted, and snaked back up the velvet. The other one drifted down and stretched toward him. She turned her palm up, crooking her forefinger.

Yes. He let go the bookshelf and stepped out into full view. And she did avail herself of the full view: her eyes raked down his form and went wide when they got below the waist. Don’t flatter yourself. She worked in a pleasure house. She’ll have seen all sizes. Whose intrusive voice was that? Ah. His own. That was certainly odd. No matter. Things were looking promising. He could straighten out the odd bits later.

He stood still a moment, to let her finish her perusal, and when her eyes came again to his face, he went to her. Shadow to moonlight, and they play exquisitely as shadow and moonlight always did. A sound… a bird? In this house in the middle of the night? No, that would be… he’d left a window open before he … for morning breezes and so he wouldn’t sleep too … No. No. To complete any of those thoughts would bring some dire result; he couldn’t quite lay his hands on it, but no, even that, to identify the dire result, might bring it about.

Urgency flared up in him as he took her face in his palms. A delicate rose-petal scent wafted from her, just as it had done whenever he got near enough in that dark hallway. Now he’d find out whether she tasted of roses too. He bent his head quickly, and brought his mouth to hers. But she was gone. His hands sat suspended in the air where her face had been. Despair clenched his innards in its fist–he’d been so close–and suddenly he felt a touch on his coat sleeve.

She’d got behind him somehow. Slipped away like quicksilver, but no matter, because here she was turning him, backing him up against the velvet where she’d been, and then … and then … she stared at him with her falcon ferocity, and sank to her knees. Yes. Oh, yes.  ‘Hurry.’ His unaccountably clumsy fingers stumbled over his buttons. ‘It’s a dream, you see, and we have to finish before I … ‘

But no, that had been a mistake, to say so out loud. Already the velvet was feeling like linens at his back, and the midnight darkness was beginning to lift. ‘Hurry, please.’ Though please, he already knew, had no affect on her. ‘If you could at least get–‘ No, she was wavering just as Roanoke had done, even as he moved frantically from one button to the next. She leaned toward him, slowly, her lips parting, but he could hear traffic from the street below.

Horses. Someone shouting. Confound his open window. He finally got himself free of his breeches and felt a single faint, dissolving touch from her lips …and it wasn’t enough. He came awake, hard and ravenous and alone in his bed.

***   ***   ***

Lydia waited on a bench in the entry hall, wrapped in her cloak, until the creaking wheels and clopping hooves of some conveyance drew to a stop outside. She jumped up and pulled the door open. Mr. Blackshear – Will – was already out of the hackney and halfway up the steps, his face lit with a smile that would have exactly mirrored her own, had she the lopsided quality and the irregularity between the front teeth.

He cut a rather Byronic figure in his carelessly draped greatcoat, with his cheeks unshaven and one of those faddish handkerchiefs in place of a cravat. The very picture of a man poised to ruin himself in romantic fashion, a pigeon ripe for the plucking, which of course was the role they’d agreed he would play.

‘Come in.’ She stepped back. ‘I’m ready. Just let me fetch my reticule.’ In fact she’d left it on the hallway table and had only to turn away, swipe it up, and turn back. But in that interval his countenance underwent a change. She faced him again to find his smile gone, his gaze pitched to the bottom of her cloak, his attention keen as a bird-dog’s.

‘I’ve never seen this gown,’ he said, and his eyes rebounded to hers with an unvoiced question. ‘Ah, yes. Well, you’d better have a look now so it won’t distract you at some critical moment.’ Often enough she’d spoken flippantly of this gown and its powers, but her insouciance now rang false in her own ears. When she caught her cloak’s edges and swung them apart, she found she must look elsewhere than at his face.

Like him, she had a role to play: courtesan trolling for a moneyed protector. He knew that. He wouldn’t be shocked to find her wearing something a bit brazen. Still her nerves prickled along the cut edges of her too-short chemise, and the knots of her garters felt conspicuous as a man’s ill-timed erection. Well, he’d seen it. Now they could go.

She shrugged to flip the edges of her cloak to, and – ‘Wait.’ His voice came out half strangled and his hand shot across to stop her covering herself. ‘What is it?’ But she could imagine. You can’t possibly go out in that. Do you have any idea what sort of men frequent these places? At least put a petticoat on.

‘Nothing. Just… wait.” She let herself look at him. He didn’t notice. His hand still gripped her right wrist, holding that side of the cloak away, and his gaze ran over and over her gown as though he would never see it again and must fix the sight in his memory. She heard him draw a breath through his teeth. A sizzle ran from the nape of her neck right up over her scalp, and some base part of her brain scrambled to life. Take him upstairs. The hells can wait. You’ll never have a better chance.

That base part could say whatever it liked. What would her maid think of her, after all that talk of respectability, and Mr. Blackshear’s propriety? What would she think of herself, throwing off this worked-for, planned-for expedition to get a bit of what any man could give her? This man alone had put his trust in her abilities, his fortunes in her hands. She knew better than to misprize that.

‘Well, then.’ He let her cloak fall and took a step back. His voice wasn’t quite steady and his smile, when he raised his eyes to hers, seemed something he must sustain by force of will. ‘I presume that’s the gown a gentleman ought to like?’

‘It seemed appropriate for the occasion.’ ‘Exceedingly so. I think I just forgot my own name.’ His smile came naturally then, an easy admission of his own fallibility, an assurance that their partnership could absorb and transcend a scandalous gown and the animal response it inspired. He half-turned and crooked an elbow to her. ‘Ready to bring Oldfield’s to its knees?’ And indeed she’d never been readier for anything in her life.”

***   ***   ***

I hope you took the time to read these special excerpts and I wish you’d let me know what you think of them. I have had the privilege to read both ARC’s and have reviewed a Lady and a Gentleman for Romance Reader At Heart website (clicking on the names will get you there) so please check it out. BUT, don’t take just my word for it! Check out some of the buzz around the blogosphere … Dear Author; Kay’s Blog; Rakehell; Happy Ever After/USA Today are just a few out there that are raving about Cecilia Grant and her impressive writing. I sure count her as one of the best discoveries of 2011, and can’t wait to find out what the future holds for her. Welcome to my Keeper Shelf, Ms. Grant. I have no doubt you’ll be there for some time to come.

Time to ‘catch up’ with my RRAH Reviews…

Hello my Bookworms! Now about those AWESOME cup cakes?! Just click on the link and you’ll find yourself in a cup cake Heaven!

It has been a hell of a short winter and almost no snow here in the Windy City, but we can deal with that. How was your winter? Have you had much snow and low temps? And your health? Have you set yourself behind with things that needed done, either at work or home?

I’ve had some set becks, mostly in keeping my RRAH reviews up-to date, but the set-back I hated the most is my bout with back pain, which took me of my healthy eating habit and the result of too much medication.had me gain all the weight I’ve lost….and that bums me out BIG TIME!

I can tell you that as of now, I’ve started the weight loss again, and hoping this time it sticks… I’m on my second cortisone shot and in two weeks I’ll be on my third one, and then REHAB! I so hope this will work, but my Doc tells me it might take me six months to a year to fully recover and move the disk back into its original position, and that’s a bummer as well, but must be done, so I push on…

You know what the best thing is about all this?! I got to read and review some good books, even though it would take me forever to sit, stand and KNEEL by the comp, I did them, however I haven’t brought them to you and since I’m feeling all bright and happy on such a great sunny day here in my Chicago Town, I’m happy to tell you about some of the books I reviewed for Romance Reader At Heart. You already might have read some, but it would be fun to hear your thoughts on them just the same.

EMILY AND THE DARK ANGEL by Jo Beverley was “…another of Ms. Beverley’s well-written and well-plotted stories, with sharp dialogue and full of witty and fun characters.

I found out that this book is part of a series which began with LORD WRAYBOURNE’S BETROTHAL, continued with THE STANFORTH SECRET and THE STOLEN BRIDE. Besides EMILY AND THE DARK ANGEL, LORD WRAYBOURNE’S BETROTHAL is the only other one I’ve read. I’ll make it a point to get the other two, as I’d like nothing better than to find out the love story of those characters as well.”

WHAT A DUKE WANTS by Lavinia Kent was ” …a fast paced, fun, and very entertaining read with a predictable plot, yet it will make you feel warm and fuzzy all over.”

My thoughts on WICKED SEDUCTION by Jade Lee  are “…There’s not a thing that I didn’t like about WICKED SEDUCTION, and there’s a lot to recommend it. All the characters, secondary included, were very vivid, extremely well-developed, and the romance full of tender moments. I liked the interaction between Kit and Maddy, and I would be remiss not to mention the love scenes!

WICKED SEDUCTION is one book that you won’t be able to put down ‘till you’re done.”

BECAUSE YOUR MINE by Lisa Kleypas is as good as all of her books that came before and after this one so “…If you’ve never read any of Lisa Kleypas’ books before, you may as well start with this one. You’ll enjoy its pace, dialogue, laugh-out-loud moments and the love scenes that are tender, yet sensual.

The prequel to this story is SOMEWHERE I’LL FIND YOU, and it is as good as this story, so you may as well get both! Both are Keeper worthy.”

A LADY AWAKENED by Cecilia Grant is in one word UNIQUE “…This is not your typical cookie cutter romance, despite its trope. By choosing this plot, the author took a gamble in giving us the slower pace and fully developing her players first, main and secondary, thus making them very real and the plot easy to accept. I’d say the gamble paid off, as I enjoyed this Victorian tale very much, and I’m looking forward to Ms. Grant’s future tales. Welcome to my Keeper shelf, Ms. Grant!”

THE UNEXPECTED MISS BENNET by Patrice Sarath made me feel so fuzzy and warm all over  ”…Oh, and to see and get a chance to catch up with everyone was pure bliss!

What I liked the best was this author’s prose, which was as close as one can get to Austen’s; and with it, she kept me grounded, so I hardly felt the transition from the original.

I highly recommend THE UNEXPECTED MISS BENNET to all Austen fans. As a matter a fact, this is a must for them, and it’s a definite keeper for me. I’ll still be tied up in knots, but possibly less so after this wonderful book.”

In BRAZEN by Margo Maguire  “…It was interesting to watch a high society Lady fall for this hard-living Captain, especially because neither took their feelings seriously, at first. They both thought each other unsuitable for anything but an affair. However, as much as I loved the hero, try as I might, the heroine just left me cold. Only a handful of scenes have I thought her at least a bit warm (and most of those are the sensual ones).

In the end, BRAZEN was not a bad read. I enjoyed its pace and the hero, as well as the mystery, so I’ll recommend it, but will probably give it away”

RECKLESS ANGEL by Jane Feather  just blew me away, and I think you should all get it. My favorite “…paragraph is at the end of this tale, as Daniel is watching her sleep, thinking… ”Daniel gazed upon his sleeping wife and wondered how such a wondrous, magical creature has been shaped, how such a loving and giving spirit could have emerged from the arid soil of her childhood. And he had wondered what he had done to deserve the gift of her love, the measurable joy of her self to inform his life.”

RECKLESS ANGEL is a romance with sensual overtones that should make Ms. Feather proud. She has achieved a perfect balance of romance and history by introducing us to England as it was at the time of civil strife, and gifting us with characters that were three-dimensional. Combined with a very plausible plot and a quick pace, this makes for a wonderful, extremely entertaining and fun read. I would go so far as to even recommend it to sixteen-year-olds! There are no overly explicit scenes in this book that would make it inappropriate for this generation, or for that matter, any generation. I highly recommend it, and strongly urge you to ignore the negative reviews of this delightful romance story.”

And I’m finishing off with one of the best books I’ve ever read and that’s HOW THE MARQUESS WAS WON by Julie Anne Long. What follows is a romance that will melt your heart. Everything was so well written that I was left panting, sighing, and praying that this author NEVER stops writing!

The characters, plot, setting, secondary characters, pace and prose were out of this world! I swear, you’ll be devouring the pages with such speed that you just might have to reread it at a slower speed as soon as you finish it.

Julie Ann Long is fast becoming an author to be pre-ordered! I am looking forward to her very, VERY long writing career. As with all her other books—not just this series—this one’s keeper shelf worthy and a reread MUST!”

Well, there you have it! I would love to know if you’ve read any of these yet, or if they’re still on your TBR. If you haven’t had the chance to buy it yet, let me know which one of these you’re missing and you never know, we might just GIVE you that one!