‘When You Give a Duke a Diamond’ by Shana Galen

BOOK BLURB: He had a perfectly orderly life…

William, the sixth Duke of Pelham, enjoys his punctual, securely structured life. Orderly and predictable—that’s the way he likes it. But he’s in the public eye, and the scandal sheets will make up anything to sell papers. When the gossip papers link him to Juliette, one of the most beautiful and celebrated courtesans in London, chaos doesn’t begin to describe what happens next…Until she came along…

Juliette is nicknamed the Duchess of Dalliance and has the cream of the nobility at her beck and call. It’s disruptive to have the duke who is the biggest catch on the Marriage Mart scaring her other suitors away. Then she discovers William’s darkest secret and decides what he needs in his life is the kind of excitement only she can provide…

EXCERPT: 

“You’re coming with me,” he told her. “I don’t know what’s frightening you, but you can explain in my coach.”

“I’m not…” But she looked over her shoulder and seemed to reconsider. “Very well. You do realize, Your Grace”—somehow she made the title sound like an epithet—“that your actions tonight only confirm the rumors about us and incite new ones.”

Reluctantly, Pelham looked over his own shoulder. A crowd of onlookers was watching them, most of them murmuring and whispering behind their hands. He scowled at them, and several scurried away. Others took a step back.

“I’ll squash any further rumors,” Pelham said between clenched teeth.

“Wonderful,” she muttered.

He signaled to his coachman, and his carriage was beside them in mere moments. A footman opened the door and handed the duchess up. He was right beside her. Once inside, he closed the curtains and instructed his coachman to wait.

He turned his attention to the woman across from him and tried not to stare. The color was high in her cheeks, and her eyes were bright. He did not think it possible, but she was even lovelier than when he’d first seen her tonight.

His gaze—completely of its own accord—flicked to her mouth. She’d rouged it, because it was far too perfectly red to be natural. It reminded him of some exotic fruit, and he desperately wanted to sample it. One kiss…

He tightened his hands on his knees. What was wrong with him? He couldn’t kiss her. She wasn’t an acceptable kissing partner in the least. She was a courtesan—a whore. She seduced men for money, and he was falling under her spell.

She narrowed her icy blue eyes at him. “Why are you looking at me like that?”

FEATURED AUTHOR: Shana Galen

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Behind the Scenes with Bastien and Raeven from Shana Galen’s ‘The Rogue Pirate’s Bride’

First of all, I want to say thanks so much to Melanie for inviting me back to b2b. It’s always a pleasure! Last time I blogged, I let Sophia from Lord and Lady Spy do most of the talking. This time I thought I’d bring Bastien and Raeven from The Rogue Pirate’s Bride. If anyone knows what was going on behind-the-scenes, it’s these two.

Shana: So, who wants to go first?

Raeven: I will.

Bastien: Shocking. You’re usually so meek and mild.

Raeven: No one was speaking to you, pirate.

Bastien: How many times do I have to tell you? I’m a privateer.

Shana: Imagine living with this day in and day out!

Raeven: Day in and day out? It took you forever to write our book. At one point, you didn’t write for three months.

Shana: Raeven, I had a baby in the middle of the book. I was too busy and tired to write. I still turned the book in on time.

Bastien: Then why didn’t it come out as scheduled, and why am I now a rogue pirate? I object to this title most strenuously.

Shana: I’m sorry, Bastien. Basically, what happened was the book was scheduled to release in April 2011 as The Making of a Rogue.

Bastien: Which fit perfectly with the titles of my brothers’ books, The Making of a Duchess and The Making of a Gentleman.

Shana: Right. The cover was similar too. But then my publisher decided to go bolder and to do something completely different, something similar to the cover for Lord and Lady Spy, which everyone loved.

Raeven: Why didn’t I get to be a spy? That sounds exciting.

Shana: Anyway, we had to push the publication back and the cover was changed as well as the title. Nothing inside the cover changed. It’s still the same book.

Bastien: Except now I’m labeled a pirate.

Raeven: You are a pirate. And let’s talk about ships and sailing, Shana. What were all those XXes about? Half the time I didn’t know what I was supposed to be doing or where I was going.

Shana: Raeven, I told you not to mention that.

Bastien: The woman cannot keep secrets.

Shana: Since the secret is out…I’ve always wanted to write a pirate—I mean, privateer—book, and so when I got this opportunity I jumped at it. Except when I started writing, I realized I didn’t know very much about ships or sailing or pirates.

Bastien: Or privateers. There is a difference.

Shana: Right. But I had a newborn baby and not much time to research, so I thought I would do it later. I put XX everywhere I needed to look something up.

Raeven: That explains why I skulk along the XX and shimmy down the XX.

Bastien: I kind of like the sound of that.

Shana: I finally realized I couldn’t write the book that way and I had to ask my dad for help.

Raeven: Oh, I hate that.

Shana: My dad is a bit more understanding than yours, Raeven. Of course, he’s not a British Admiral, and I never ran off with a pirate.

Raeven: He’s a privateer, Shana.

Shana: Anyway, my dad knows a lot about ships and sailing, so he loaned me some books and worked with me on the shipboard scenes and that was how I did a lot of research. Anything else?

Bastien: Mel probably wants to know where you got the idea for the book. People always ask you that.

Shana: Oh, good point, Bastien. In one of the earlier books I make a vague reference to the Harcourt brothers playing pirate. I say something along the lines of Bastien was always Captain Cutlass. That fit because I knew Bastien was the adventurous one of the three.

Bastien: Of course.

Shana: I sort of inadvertently set it up so this book had to be about a Captain Cutlass. And what better opponent for a pirate than an admiral’s daughter?

Raeven: Especially if that pirate killed the admiral’s daughter’s fiancé.

Bastien: He attacked me.

Raeven: Likely story. Everyone knows pirates lie.

Shana: So, Melanie, that’s a bit of the behind-the-scenes for The Rogue Pirate’s Bride. One thing is certain, my September 2012 book, which begins a new series about three glamorous Regency courtesans called The Three Diamonds, will not have any pirates. In fact, there isn’t even any water in When You Give a Duke a Diamond. Well, except for that one bathtub scene…

Have you ever gotten yourself into a sticky situation like mine (partway through the book I realized I didn’t know what I was doing!)? How did it turn out? I’m offering a chance to win one of two copies of The Rogue Pirate’s Bride to U.S. and Canadian residents who comment! I’ll check back later and join the discussion.

Melanie here! Thanks so much for stopping by Shana, Raeven and Bastien! It was most enlightening to host you all.

Bookworms, I swear you’ll have your sea legs long after you’re done reading this sea adventure filled with drama, humor and action galore!

To read a long excerpt from the novel, click on the cover; to learn more about the author, click on her photo and to buy this MUST have book, click on the titles.

‘The Rogue Pirate’s Bride’ by Shana Galen

STORY: Revenge should be sweet, but it may cost him everything…

Out to avenge the death of his mentor, Bastien discovers himself astonishingly out of his depth when confronted with a beautiful, daring young woman who is out for his blood…

Forgiveness is unthinkable but it may be her only hope…

British Admiral’s daughter Raeven Russell believes Bastien responsible for her fiancé’s death. But once the fiery beauty crosses swords with Bastien, she’s not so sure she really wants him to change his wicked ways…

REVIEW: FINALY! I’ve waited for this book it seems for EVAH! By now y’all know how much I love this author’s work and as much as I was looking forward to this story, once I found out they were changing the title (I will ALWAYS refer to this novel as THE MAKING OF A ROGUE) and then the cover (which is not consistent to the series), I was getting anxiety attacks in regards to the content. See, this is what happens to someone like me who takes her ROMANCE reading to a whole new level. And for that, I give Shana Galen full credit. If she didn’t write her characters so well, I doubt my feelings would be engaged at all.

Well, I should not have fretted at all, although there is one itty-bitty thing that I would have preferred, and that is the Prologue. The other two books in the series, ‘The Making of a Duchess’ and ‘The Making of a Gentleman’, both start with the Prologue of the faithful night as peasants break in and I hoped this one would be as well because I wanted to find out how Bastien got away. So this is one more thing that ‘they’ changed, and changing these three things in the middle of the series (or in this case at the end of it) aggravated me to no end. However, after reading the story, I’m now past it and let me tell you my thoughts on this wonderful end to this series.

If you’ve never read The Son’s of Revolution and this is your first book in it, S.T.O.P. Do not read it…YET. Please, please find the other two and read them in order. You will be glad you did. This third installment can stand alone, but it shouldn’t. This is a series that you’ll enjoy so much more once you read Julian and Armand’s stories.

Sebastien Harcourt, Marquis of de Valere has survived that night, but scars he carries are not on the outside but rather buried deep inside his heart. He is certain that he’s lost his whole family to the fire and to survive he needs to be far away from France and boarding a ship he heads out to sea.

Raeven Russell is an Admiral’s daughter with vengeance in her heart. She aims to avenge the death of her fiancé who, it was reported, has been killed by Captain Cutlass and she is more than ready to face the bastard pirate. Nothing and no one will stand in her way when she spots him in a local tavern and challenges him to a sword fight.

Bastien, now known only as Captain Cutlass, is taken aback by a challenge of this young ‘man’ who wants to cut him to pieces, and fighting ‘him’ isn’t what he’s looking for. He has much more urgent business to attend to, like finding Jourdain, the pirate who killed the man who taught him everything he knows about ships and sailing. He’s been on his trail for a while now and he knows that he won’t rest until he gets his revenge.

What a shock he’s in for to find out that the ‘boy’ is no boy but a young woman! And here’s where we’re off on an adventure along our impetuous heroine.

This ending was bittersweet for me as I said goodbye to Harcourt’s (until the next re-read only). Ms. Galen delivers high sea drama, humor and action, so well that you better bring your sea legs along for this adventure!

You’ll root for these two as they pursue the enemy while facing their individual vendettas and help each other heal. Together they’ll face her father, English Navy, nasty pirates, their past and the de Valere family.

This is a wonderfully entertaining, fast pacing conclusion to the Sons of the Revolution series that had me laughing out loud and shedding a tear or two. Harcourt men, Julian, Armand and Bastien stole my heart and I thank Ms. Galen for bringing them all to life! Highly recommend it; not to be missed and always to be re-read!

*To buy this book, click on the cover*

*To learn more about the author, click on her name*

* I received a copy of this book from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review*