Book series

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Spotlight on backlist The Darkness Within

To save her, he must lose her

Ever since he escaped his childhood abuser, Max has killed for a living—first as a sniper and assassin in the war against Napoleon, and later ridding the world of those whose power on those around them allowed them to commit evil without fear of punishment.

The dead burden what is left of his soul, and he wants to retire, and kill no more. When a search for a missing comrade takes him into a religious community, he feels as if he has found a home for the first time in his life.

But there are cracks in the innocent surface the village shows its visitors. Max discovers hints at what lies beneath even as he falls for Serenity, who has recently been appointed Goddess-Elect, the designated virgin to take her place as three-month wife of the community’s leader, the Incarnate One.

The secrets of the community are worse than the secrets that burden Max’s soul. They put Serenity and others in dreadful danger. To save her, he must lose her, for if he draws on his hard-won skills, she will recoil from the darkness of his soul.

More about The Darkness Within

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Guerilla warfare in the Peninsular War

My heroine in An Unpitied Sacrifice was part of the Spanish resistance to Napoleon’s invasion. This resistance was not only in the hands of regular forces. Ordinary Spanish people also fought against the invaders. These guerilleros, as they called themselves (from which we get the name guerrilla), constantly harassed the French army. One Prussian officer fighting for the French said: “Wherever we arrived, they disappeared, whenever we left, they arrived — they were everywhere and nowhere, they had no tangible center which could be attacked.”

For the most part, until the last stages of the war, the French were undefeated on the open battlefield, but their tactics and plans were less successful against irregular troops who could disappear into the population with ease and who knew the country like the back of their hand.

They were given official authorisation and support by the Spanish command, who in 1808 decreed the formation of guerrilla troops, and in 1809 gave them the right to keep any money, supplies and equipment they were able to take from the French.

In one notable case in 1811, a force of between 3000, and 4,500 men ambushed a French convoy, defeating 1,600 troops and taking 150 wagons of supplies and 1,050 Spanish and Portugese prisoners. The convoy was valued at 4 million reales.

In 1812, the reported number of guerilleros was 38, 520, divided into 22 bands. Counter measures proved largely ineffective, as they have against guerrilla warfare ever since.

It might have taken the allied armies to finally push the French out of Spain in 1813, but many historians argue that the Spanish irregular forces made it possible.

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Spotlight on An Unpitied Sacrifice

When bad men combine, the good must associate; else they will fall, one by one, an unpitied sacrifice in a contemptible struggle.” Edmund Burke

Brought together by war, Valeria Izquierdos and Harry Redepenning had only a few short months as a couple before the war parted them again.

That war is long over when she brings a group of war brides and children to England. Her friends seek their soldier husbands. Valeria wants to find Harry or, if Harry’s long silence means he is dead, his father. Her eldest child deserves to know his English family.

Harry has never forgotten, or ceased to mourn, the warrior wife he married in the midst of war, and lost to a French ambush years ago. His courtship of a suitable wife is a practical matter, not involving the heart that has been numb since Valeria’s death.

The Redepenning family greet Valeria with suspicion, but when Harry joyously confirms her identity, they welcome her and her children with open arms—not just Kiko, whose Redepenning eyes mark him as Harry’s son, but also the daughter she adopted and the younger son who origins she has disclosed only to Harry.

But as Valeria, Harry, and the children begin living as a family, another, private, war looms before them. The lady who had been smugly awaiting Harry’s proposal is less than pleased with the couple’s reunion. She and her parents set out to destroy Valeria’s reputation, and find willing accomplices.

An old foe of the Redepennings has combined forces with a man who blames Valeria for his brother’s death, and who wants Valeria’s youngest child. A rival of Harry’s from the army would be glad to hurt Harry however he can. These enemies will stop at nothing to destroy not only Harry and Valeria, but also their family.

https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0GNNV18BP

https://books2read.com/u/479JAA

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A Giveaway Opportunity and some lovely books, including my Grasp the Thorn

Warning: may result in swooning, hopeless daydreaming, and your next favorite read. Air Affair Giveaway!

Leslie Vollard, the author of the book Air Affair, has a giveaway you’ll love.

One lucky reader will receive a grand prize book basket and historical stationery kit, while a second will enjoy a cozy book lover’s basket—perfect for late-night romance indulgence. Plus the “to-do’s” for the Giveaway involve historical romances from other authors, including yours truly.

📚 https://litring.com/giveaway/air-affair-historical-romance-giveaway/

My book in the promotion is Grasp the Thorn, and I’ve made it free until April 3rd. Since Chaos Come Again is on sale as part of my March sales books, this means you can get the first two Lion’s Zoo books for the rest of March at only $1.49. So run, don’t walk, to your favourite bookseller.

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Get the rest of the series on sale–Golden Redepennings going cheap

To celebrate the release of book 6 in the Golden Redepennings series, the previous books are on sale until March 31st.

Farewell to Kindness–Free https://books2read.com/FarewelltoKindness

A Raging Madness–$2.49 USD https://books2read.com/ARagingMadness

The Realm of Silence–$2.49 USD https://books2read.com/TheRealmofSilence

Unkept Promises–$2.49 USD https://books2read.com/Unkept-Promises

The Flavour of Our Deeds $2.49 USD https://books2read.com/FoOD

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March sale on ebooks 8th to 31st

Jude’s March sale books are Chasing the Tale: Volume II, a lunch-time reads collection of 10 stories, Chaos Come Again, the first book in the series Lion’s Zoo, and The Duke’s Price, a novella about a governess who must chose between two wicked dukes to save her pupil.

Chasing the Tale: Volume II https://books2read.com/u/4X8VGL

Chaos Come Again https://books2read.com/CCAgain

The Duke’s Price https://books2read.com/u/4A0gGK

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A Pawn in Someone Else’s Game in WIP Wednesday

Unpitied Sacrifice, which is currently on prerelease, includes a very polite kidnapper. Preorder links at: https://books2read.com/u/479JAA

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Valeria’s worst fear was not realised. Or not immediately, in any case. She was not taken to Delacroix, but to a small anonymous building in the Whitehall district of London, where she was shown to a bedchamber and left alone.

It was a small room, but pleasantly decorated and furnished, with striped wallpaper in a pleasant pale green, dark green linen curtains, an iron bedstead well provided with linen, blankets, and quilts, a bedside table, a washstand, a small table with a single upright chair, and even an easy chair, upholstered in a print that repeated the colours of the wallpaper and curtains, with pink accents. The room’s one window was too high to offer a view of anything but the upper boughs of a tree and a rectangle of sky

She had been provided with washing water, drinking water, a night rail, a change of linen, and even a book to read—poems by the seventeenth century English cleric John Donne. When the setting sun painted the sky outside her high window, a knock on the door and the rattle of the key in the lock presaged the arrival of her abductor and two other men. The abductor carried a tray, which he put on the table.

“Dinner, Mrs Redepenning. I shall return to collect the tray in one hour. Do you need a woman to assist you with preparing for bed?”

“I shall manage, thank you,” Valeria replied. Her dress laced at the sides and her stays at the front. She did not bother to ask any questions. He had ignored every attempt throughout their trip to London, either not speaking at all or replying on a completely different topic.

The abductor bowed, and began to withdraw. “Wait!” Actually, Valeria did have a question. “How might I address you?”

A quick twitch of his lips instantly suppressed never quite became a smile, but the man’s eyes were amused, only Heaven knew why. “John will do, Mrs Redepenning,” he said.

Valeria inclined her head. “Thank you for my dinner, Mr John,” she said.

It was a pleasant dinner, too. She removed the cover from one plate to disclose slices of tender chicken in a tasty gravy, a variety of root vegetables, peas, and beans. The other revealed a slice of apple pie, presumably to be eaten with the custard in one of the jugs on the tray.

The other jug contained cream, and there was a teapot and a bowl of sugar. Also, a small decanter and a wine glass.

Crockery, glassware, and silverware, too, all of which could be turned into weapons. Did they regard her as such a small threat? Perhaps not. The man John had not, after all, ventured into her room alone.

Perhaps it was that, as John had promised, they were treating her with respect. But what did they want? This was the question that quenched her appetite and kept her from sleeping, although the meal was delicious and bed comfortable. What on earth did they want?

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Spotlight on The Night Dancers

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0GFY9FDMJ

Certain that the Marquess of Teign is behind her cousin’s disappearance, investigator Melody Blackmore enters his mansion disguised as a man. Tasked with discovering how Teign’s sons are leaving their tower prison or having food and other items brought in, she soon realizes that the sons are also the marquess’s victims. As her interest in the eldest of the brothers grows, she joins them all in a campaign to bring Teign down.

Allan Sheppard, the Earl of Kemble, is the eldest of Teign’s ten sons. He is weighed down by his frequent failures to protect his brothers from Teign’s beatings and abuse, but determined to keep them as safe as he can until his youngest brother is no longer under Teign’s guardianship.

All they must to do is fool the most recent investigator sent to find out their secrets. But Mel Black is not like the others, and Allan finds that an alliance with her gives the brothers the chance to not only survive, but to thrive.

However, Teign will stop at nothing to punish his sons for escaping him. Only Allan’s and Melody’s growing commitment to one another keeps them steadfast as they uncover evidence of evil beyond imagining.

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WIP Wednesday A day in the life

In this excerpt from An Unpitied Sacrifice, we see Harry and Valeria settling into married life.

Waking up in Harry’s arms every morning was very nice. Not nice in the way it had been in that small village in the Spanish mountains, when they both woke with an urgent need to express their love in the most physical of ways.

Harry had either lost all desire for her, or he understood the mere thought of such intimacy shook Valeria’s frail hold on her emotions. And on her senses and her digestion. Bursting into tears, passing out, and throwing up would kill the mood, especially if she did all three at once.

It was a hurdle she would have to get over. They would have to get over, for they were married for life, and she refused to allow that fiend Antoine to ruin Harry’s life as well as her own. So far, though, she had not even been able to find the strength to raise the topic.

But they were together, she and Harry, and he had accepted her two extra children. She had everything she had hoped for during the journey to England. That she now hoped for more was testament to the courage Harry was giving her. Let them get the other women settled and then they could address her fears, and perhaps overcome them.

She smiled at the thought, and Harry, who at some point during her cogitations had opened his startlingly blue eyes, smiled back. “Good morning, my love,” he said. “A penny for your thoughts.”

“I was just thinking how nice it is to wake up in your arms, Harry,” she told him.

“Very nice,” he agreed, and saluted her cheek with a friendly kiss, such as a brother might give a sister. And as he rolled onto his back and stretched both of his arms above his head, there was a knock on the door.

“Isabella with our coffee,” Harry said. So far, the Spanish woman was working out very well as her maid.

Harry slipped out from under the covers, shrugged into his banyan and crossed to the door. “Good morning, Isabella,” he was saying as he opened it, and then, “Tom! Valeria, it is my man Tom with our coffee. Welcome back, Tom. You’ve heard then, about our changes?”

Valeria could hear the murmur of a reply, but not the actual words. Harry replied with instructions.

“Tell Mrs Rodriguez that Mrs Redepenning will need her in fifteen minutes. I’ve taken the next room for my dressing room, and will meet you there at the same time. You might like to familiarize yourself with the room while Mrs Redepenning and I drink our coffee. I have a meeting this morning, and shall be going out at ten o’clock.”

“Business, Harry?” Valeria asked, as he came back across their room with the tray holding the coffee pot, cups, and other coffee makings.

“A meeting with my father and a lawyer,” Harry said. “What are your plans this morning, dearest?”

Valeria groaned. “A final fitting for some of my gowns, including the one for your godmother’s ball.”

“Poor Valeria,” teased Harry, handing her a cup of coffee made just the way she liked it. “After my meeting, shall I come and pick you and my sisters up and take you out for tea and cakes? As a compensation for the torture you’ve suffered?”

“It is torture!” Valeria protested, laughing. She frowned, trying to think of an explanation that made sense to her, as well as Harry. “Fashion the way Susan knows it is almost a weapon. At the very least, it is a language that all of Society knows and that I must learn. The fabrics themselves, the trimmings, the colours, even the cut—all say something about my status and wealth, and therefore yours.”

“It sounds like nonsense,” said Harry.

Valeria huffed out a breath and shook her head. “It matters to too many people for me to treat it as nonsense, my dearest love. We shall raise our children with all the advantages of being part of the Redepenning family, but even the Redepennings cannot fly in the face of social opinion. If my clothing helps Society to accept me, then that shall ease the way of our children. I can do this, Harry.”

“I am confident you can,” Harry agreed. “If you think it important, my love, then I shall stop teasing. Just don’t let Susan bully you.”

Valeria chuckled. “I have not changed that much, Harry,” she told him.

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Second-chance love in WIP Wednesday

I’m just sending An Unpitied Sacrifice out to beta readers, and thought you might like an excerpt. My hero and heroine are together for the first time in five years. And what do you think of the cover?

The floor of the small room was as hard as Harry expected, and he’d grown used to occupying soft beds in the past couple of years. However, he was warm enough, and if he could not sleep, he had much to think about, both planning for the future and anguishing over his darling’s past.

His determination to stay under the same roof as Valeria was rewarded in the early hours of the morning when she came to see him. He was drowsing when the opening of the door jerked him upright, and the unique smell of his own woman soothed the battle instincts that had roused him. There she was, peering around the door, a candle in her hand.

“Harry, are you awake?” she whispered.

“Yes. Is there a problem, beloved? What can I do to help?”

“Nothing. That is, there is no problem. It is just that I could not sleep. So much to think about.”

“I am the same.” He shifted so he was leaning against the back of the chair and lifted the blankets. “Come and sit beside me, beloved, and share your worries and your hopes with me, and I shall do the same with you.”

The fact she did not hesitate gave him hope for the future. She put the candle on the little table beside the chair, sat on the floor beside him, and even accepted his arm around her and leaned back against his shoulder.

Harry tucked the blankets around her with his other hand.

“Lord Renshaw was nice to my friends,” Valeria said. “They like him.”

“Alex,” he corrected. “He is your brother, so you can call him Alex, as his other sisters do.”

Alex had argued about Harry staying, but not as much as Harry expected. He had left for home without Harry, promising to tell Father Valeria really was whom she claimed to be, and Harry was refusing to be parted from her again.

“Tell Father we shall call to see him tomorrow morning,” Harry had said.

“Your brother is protective of his family,” Valeria said. “When I called in the afternoon, he was suspicious of me, and not very nice. But tonight, he discovered I really am your wife.”

“Therefore,” Harry said, continuing her line of thought, “you are part of his family and he will protect you. And the children. And even your friends and their children. That is how Alex is.”

“I think I like Alex,” said Valeria. “I understand being protective.”

Harry nodded. In that way, Alex and Valeria were very much alike. Both would cheerfully give their life to protect those they regarded as their own, and both could be hostile to any perceived threats.

“My family is now your family,” Harry said. “Father will be delighted to have three new grandchildren. He was already excited when I spoke to him, before Alex and I came over last night. Shall we take them with us when we call on Father in the morning?”

“All of them?” Valeria asked. “Rian too?”

“I think it best if we make no difference between them,” said Harry. “Rian shall be my son as much as Enrique. Kiko, as you call him.”

“I named our son Enrique after you,” Valeria said softly. “It means ‘ruler of the home’. Did you know that?”

“Our eldest son rules the home?” Harry asked, smiling at the thought.

“You do, too, Harry. I saw that with your brother. Yes, he is protective of you, but he also accepts your authority and looks to you for guidance.”

Perhaps she was right. Harry had not thought about it, but then he took it for granted that his brothers and cousins would take his lead. He changed the subject. “What does Zorian mean? It is not a name I am familiar with.”

“It is used among the Basque,” she told him. “But I think elsewhere, too. It means ‘happiness’. That is what I wish for him, Harry. That the disaster of his origins does not touch his life. And in general, he is a happy child. As for Marie, her full name is Marie-Therese. Therese for her own mother, and Marie for the mother of us all.”

She was relaxed and warm at his side. He could not see her face, but she sounded as if she was smiling.

“Tell me about them,” Harry coaxed. “Kiko is the leader. Rian is happy. What else, and what of Marie?”

They sat by the light of Valeria’s candle and talked about their children until Valeria’s head grew heavy on Harry’s shoulder. Then he blew out the candle, lowered them both into the nest of blankets, and slept peacefully with her in his arms.