News

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Meet the hero and heroine of Love in Its Season

Meet Gwenillan Hughes

Gwen Hughes, is too tall and too independent to suit the bachelors of Reabridge. She has helped in her father’s farriery from the time she could toddle, and since her brother left for the wars and her father faded into second childhood, she has been the farrier.

She loves her work and is proud of the family business, but she is also tired. It’s the busiest time of the year for a farrier, when the big houses are preparing for the hunting season and the farms around Reabridge are bringing in the harvest. On top of that, she has a house to manage, meals to prepare, and an increasingly dependent father to look after.

The retired soldier who offers to help out with her father is a God-send, especially when he takes over the housework and cooking, as well. He says his motive is simply that he is at a loose end, and he enjoys helping people. Can Gwen dare to hope that she means more to him than that?

Meet Jack Wrath

After twenty-five years in the cavalry, Jack Wrath has resigned his commission and come home to England. Or not home. An orphan who enlisted when he was fourteen, he doesn’t have a home, and he is only in Reabridge because he brought his doctor home. After all the man saved him from losing all use of his arm after he took a bullet to the shoulder. Besides, someone had to make sure the poor beggar made it home.

Meeting Gwen Hughes strikes him all of a heap. There’s no point in courting her. She is far too good for an unemployed orphan of dubious origins. But he knows something about looking after dazed old men. He can help to make her life easier.

So he volunteers his services. He can help her through this busy season, but every day he loses more and more of his heart to this brave, clever, magnificent woman. When she finally sends him away, he will leave the best part of himself behind. Can he dare hope she will allow him to stay?

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Cover reveal Under the Harvest Moon

As the village of Reabridge in Cheshire prepares for the first Harvest Festival following Waterloo, families are overjoyed to welcome back their loved ones from the war.
But excitement quickly turns to mystery when mere weeks before the festival, an orphaned child turns up in the town—a toddler born near Toulouse to an English mother who left clues that tie her to Reabridge.

With two prominent families feuding for generations and the central event of the Harvest Moon festival looming, tensions rise, and secrets begin to surface.

Nine award winning and bestselling authors have combined their talents to create this engaging and enchanting collection of interrelated tales. Under the Harvest Moon promises an unforgettable read for fans of Regency romance.

Love in Its Season by Jude Knight

The Battle of Waterloo lost Jack Wrath the use of one arm and ended his career in the cavalry. With nothing better to do and nowhere else to go, he sees his doctor home to Reabridge—and stays because of Gwen, the female farrier he rescues from a lustful lord. After all his years of wandering, Gwen’s cottage feels like home.

Gwen Hughes is taller and stronger than many men, and runs her own business. Perhaps she intimidates the men of the town, but that is fine with her. She doesn’t have time for courtship. She’d be a fool to refuse Jack’s offer to help her father, who is in his second childhood, and even more of a fool to read too much into his kindness.

Under the harvest moon, two people who believe romance has passed them finally reach their season for love.

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Cover reveal for Lion’s Zoo

Coming up in June and July are the first two books in my series about exploring officers (we’d call them spies) from the Peninsular Wars, finding their feet and their lifetime love as civilians. Two more will follow this year

Lion’s Zoo

Once they were wounded children, each helpless against the adults who controlled their lives. Later, they became exploring officers with Wellington’s army, under Colonel Lionel O’Toole, known as Lion.

Famed for their varied skills and their intrepid courage, they were renowned for carrying out missions where others had failed.

Now Napoleon has fallen, they all have a new mission. Each must use his own unique abilities to carve a niche for himself in civilian life.

Lion, their wartime colonel, will use his influence as Earl of Ruthford to help, but he wants more for them. He hopes they will, like him, find a love that enriches their lives.

The first book, Chaos Come Again, tells the story of the colonel who gave the cadre of exploring officers their name. It takes the reader on a journey to Portugal and into the wickedness of a jealous heart.

It is based on the play Othello, by Shakespeare. But, of course, I give it a happy ending. I promise.

Book two, Grasp the Thorn, is a rewrite of a book I published several years ago under the name House of Thorns. My hero is known as Bear, and he’s a Regency house developer, buying up old estates, doing them up, and selling them to the newly rich. His bachelor life is disrupted when a lovely woman comes to steal the roses from the cottage he has just purchased.

Book three, One Hour of Freedom, started as part of a Superheroines project that got snarled in everyone’s other commitments. My heroine is called Electra. Her trust in the uncle who trained her as an assassin destroyed her relationship with Matthias Moriarty, or Bull, as he was known to the Zoo. Now, four years later, he is a Supervisor with the Thames River Police, and she has been sent to kill him. It will be out in September.

All of the books are gothic in tone, but Book four is the darkest. The Darkness Within tells the story of Max, who is haunted by all the people he has killed, and particularly the first. When he is sent to rescue a former comrade from a religious cult, he manages to fit in, like the Chameleon they used to call him. The peace of the community almost seduces him. But the secrets it hides are even darker than Max’s own. I’m hoping to have this one ready for December.

Chaos Come Again

Tormented by his past and by vile rumours, will this Regency Othello allow a liar he trusts to destroy the love between himself and his wife?

Grasp the Thorn

When secrets, self-doubts, and old feuds threaten to destroy their budding relationship, can they grasp the thorn of scandal to gather the rose of love?

 

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Don’t miss this chance to buy all five novels in the Golden Redepenning series at sale price.

I’ve held the standard price for my novels at $3.99 USD, because times are tough for so many people. But even then, with five novels in the series, that’s close to $20.

But not for the next twelve days. You can buy the box set for $4.99, which is half the box set price, and the newest novel, which is the 5th, for 99c. More than 1500 pages of adventure, suspense, romance, humour, and history for under $6.

This bargain price ends mid-April.

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Congratulations to the Grand Prize winner in my Lady Beast’s Bridegroom giveaway

 

I’ve just added together all the entries in the four weeks of giveaway (160 in total), put that number into a random number generator, and gone to find entry number 124, which was made in week 4 and belonged to Amy M.

I’ve sent Amy an email. I’m excited to know what story elements she comes up with!

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Week 4 of Lady Beast’s Bridegroom launch giveaway

Enter as many times as you can this week. This is your last chance at a weekly prize and the major prize, drawn after week 4 closes.

To celebrate the launch of the first book in my new series, A Twist in a Regency Tale, I’m running a four-week giveaway, with a free book each week plus great weekly prizes and a grand prize at the end.

Week 4 runs from 16 February to 22 February.

Here’s how it works

You can enter the giveaway, and go in the draw, by helping me share the good news about Lady Beast’s Bridegroom.

  1. Just download any or all of the memes and the video on my Lady Beast Bridegroom gallery page
  2. Share them on your social media–Facebook, Tiktok, Instagram, Twitter, Tumbler, Pinterest, anything at all you use. Use the hashtag #LadyBeast
  3. Share this post (the one you’re reading now). Use the hashtag #LadyBeast
  4. Leave a comment on this post–the Rafflecopter entry form says what I’d like you to comment on
  5. Enter the week 4 Lady Beast Rafflecopter,  which will give you space to note what you’ve done
  6. Keep sharing and enter many times every week!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Week 4 prize

Every entry in the rafflecopter will go in the draw. This means you could have multiple chances to win a prize.

The first 10 names drawn will each be sent a set of book-shaped earrings with the cover of Perchance to Dream (book 4 in the series).

Those 10 names will go back in the draw and one will win a $10 gift card. (USD value)

Grand prize

All entries from every week go into the grand prize draw, and the grand winner will be announced between 24 February and 28th February.

The grand winner receives:

  • the full set of four pairs of earrings, one for each novel being published in 2023
  • a $50 gift card (USD value)
  • a made-to-order story, written to include the winner’s ingredients.

Week 4 giveaway

This week, I’m giving away Revealed in Mist, a Regency adventure-romance with my detective hero and his beloved spy heroine.

Download from my shop–just go through check out and the price is free:  https://shop.judeknightauthor.com/index.php/product/revealed-in-mist/

Or download from BookFunnel: https://dl.bookfunnel.com/3mosso62it

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Week 2 of Lady Beast’s Bridegroom launch giveaway

To celebrate the launch of the first book in my new series, A Twist in a Regency Tale, I’m running a four-week giveaway, with a free book each week plus great weekly prizes and a grand prize at the end.

Week 2 runs from 2 February to 8 February.

Here’s how it works

You can enter the giveaway, and go in the draw, by helping me share the good news about Lady Beast’s Bridegroom.

  1. Just download any or all of the memes and the video on my Lady Beast Bridegroom gallery page
  2. Share them on your social media–Facebook, Tiktok, Instagram, Twitter, Tumbler, Pinterest, anything at all you use. Use the hashtag #LadyBeast
  3. Share this post (the one you’re reading now). Use the hashtag #LadyBeast
  4. Leave a comment on this post–the Rafflecopter entry form says what I’d like you to comment on
  5. Enter the week 2 Lady Beast Rafflecopter,  which will give you space to note what you’ve done
  6. Keep sharing and enter many times every week!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Week 2 prize

Every entry in the rafflecopter will go in the draw. This means you could have multiple chances to win a prize.

The first 10 names drawn will each be sent a set of book-shaped earrings with the cover of One Perfect Dance (book 2 in the series).

Those 10 names will go back in the draw and one will win a $10 gift card. (USD value)

Grand prize

All entries from every week go into the grand prize draw, and the grand winner will be announced between 24 February and 28th February.

The grand winner receives:

  • the full set of four pairs of earrings, one for each novel being published in 2023
  • a $50 gift card (USD value)
  • a made-to-order story, written to include the winner’s ingredients.

Week 2 giveaway

This week, I’m giving away To Wed a Proper Lady, the first book in The Return of the Mountain King

Download from my shop–just go through check out and the price is free: https://shop.judeknightauthor.com/index.php/product/to-wed-a-proper-lady-the-bluestocking-and-the-barbarian/

Or download from BookFunnel: https://dl.bookfunnel.com/y5ho64hrk7

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Coming soon

I’m sending my newsletter this coming week. I’m just waiting on pre-order links from Apple, Barnes & Noble, and Nook for next month’s publication of short stories, Chasing the Tale: Volume II. It’s up on Amazon now. Read more about Chasing the Tale: Volume II  and the stories in it on my book page.

I’ve finished writing the newsletter short story, The Lady in a White Gown, so that’s already to go. Thank you to the subscriber that sent me a painting to use as a jump off point.

The newsletter will also have news about books from author friends, and early notice of a box set from the Bluestocking Belles for Christmas. So if you’re a subscriber, watch your inbox.

Here’s the intro to The Lady in a White Gown.

Victoria glared at the white gown that hung on the dressing screen, ready for its starring role at tomorrow’s wedding. Her wedding. If, in fact, it happened.

It was not the gown that offended. In truth, she had thought it lovely three weeks ago, when the modiste had sketched it, and it was even more beautiful in reality. She had not chosen the colour. Her mother remembered the story her dear friend Lady Benfield had told about Lord Carney’s demand to be introduced to the lady in the white gown. At a ball where at least thirty of the young ladies wore white, he had seen only Victoria, and Mother found that very sweet.

“This gown shall remind him of that night,” she proclaimed. “It shall be so romantic. Besides, the Queen, for whom you were named, wore white when she was wed, and look what a happy marriage that was, poor dear lady.”

Victoria thought that wearing gowns she had chosen herself would be one of the many benefits of becoming a married woman, but she knew that saying so would merely send her mother into another lecture about behaviour unbecoming in a viscountess.

Mother was delighted that Victoria was marrying a viscount. To Victoria, Lord Carney’s title was a disincentive, but one he had overcome with his attentive charm. Until the betrothal was announced, at which point, he had disappeared entirely, though he’d claimed he would only be gone a day or two.

She sent the gown another scowl. She had argued for a coloured sash and trim. The palest of pale blues, the colour her mother had chosen, did not, in Victoria’s opinion, qualify as a colour. She was wearing a gown she did not choose to please a man she did not know.

Perhaps Lord Carney would not arrive back in London in time for the ceremony. Perhaps he had been in London all along, and had only pretended to have business at his estate. Perhaps she would be left at the altar!

Perhaps, if she was, it was for the best.

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Not enough spoons

I just want to apologise to newsletter subscribers. You will get your newsletter this month, and the different newsletter options I talked about last month shortly after.

I have another thousand or so words to write in your story for this month’s issue, and I’ve not been able to get them done. I have two novels and a novella that need to be finished by mid-December, which means a monthly word count I must meet, and various visitors plus trips away for medical appointments (one for my son and one for my husband) have kept me from my writing much for five of the last sixteen days, and at all for three.

I’ve learned to pace myself. If I veer into spoon deficit*, my chronic illness is going to steal more days.

But I’ve paced myself with a vengeance this month, writing when I can, even if only a few hundred words at a time. Today, I hit the halfway point for the month’s words. The novella is exactly where it should be, at 12,000 words, and I’m just 12,500 off my end of month target on Perchance to Dream, and 13,000 on Flavour of our Deeds. So tomorrow, I’m going to take some time out to finish The White Gown, and by the end of next week, you’ll have it in your hot little hands.

Thank you for your patience. It’ll be rewarded when I have a book out every month from next month until February 2024.

For an explanation of spoon theory, see this story. Or this graphic is a good way of how spoon theory works in practice.