We set the scene for our book by the way we meet our main characters. Does the reader like them? Have we picked up their lives at an interesting or crucial moment? Are they showing a little of who they really are? Is there a hook that intrigues — perhaps something that tells us the nature of the coming conflict?

Sometimes, I start a story several times, looking for that right place in my characters’ lives to bring them onto the page. Sometimes, I start with a secondary character or even (in one case) one who kicked off the whole sequence of events for the heroine, but was dead before the rest of the story takes place. In today’s excerpt, I introduce the hero of The Realm of Silence, less than a fortnight away from publication on my website shop, and so only just a work-in-progress in the most technical of senses.

Please feel free to drop your own excerpts in the comments (just heroes, please. I’m saving villains and heroines for a later blog.)

Gil Rutledge sat in the small garden to the side of the Crown and Eagle, and frowned at the spread provided for his breakfast. Grilled trout with white butter sauce, soft-boiled eggs, grilled kidney, sausages, mashed potatoes, bacon, a beef pie, two different kinds of breads (one lightly toasted), bread rolls, a selection of preserves, and a dish of stewed peaches, all cooked to perfection and none of it appealing.

Two days with his sister, Madelina, had left old guilt sitting heavy in his stomach, choking his throat and souring his digestion. And the errand he faced had yet to face did not improve his appetite.

He cut the corner from a slice of toast and loaded it with bits of bacon and a spoonful of egg. He was too old a campaigner to allow loss of appetite to stop him from refuelling. He washed the mouthful down with a sip from his coffee. It was the one part of the breakfast Moffat had not trusted to the inn kitchen. His soldier-servant insisted on preparing it himself, since he knew how Gil like it.

No. Not his soldier-servant. Not anymore. His valet, butler, factotum. Manservant. Yes, his manservant.

Gil raised the cup to the shade of his despised older brother. “This is the worst trick you’ve played on me yet,” he muttered. The viscount’s death had landed the estranged exile with a title he never wanted, a bankrupt estate, a frail frightened sister-in-law and her two little daughters—left to his guardianship but fled from his home—and an endless snarl of legal and financial problems. And then there were Gil’s mother and his younger sister. His mission in leaving Gloucestershire had been to avoid war with the first and make peace with the second.

With a sigh, he took another sip, and loaded his fork again. The sooner he managed to swallow some of this meal, the sooner he could be on the road.