Some of you may have noticed that many of my stories feature characters with disabilities. This is a topic close to my heart. I have lived most of my life with chronic illness, and have a brother who is blind, several relatives either permanent or temporary wheelchair users, a son with brain damage and various family members challenged by mental illness of one kind or another.
The idea for the hero in my latest newsletter subscriber story came out of my day job. I’m a consultant for a firm of plain English writers and trainers, and we did a field trip to the laboratory of a new client — a medical research organisation. Their mission is to solve unsolvable medical problems. The first of these, so the founder told us, was non-invasive treatment of strawberry birthmarks. These are disfiguring vascular tumours that mostly go away of their own accord, but can sometimes grow in places that cause damage and can even threaten the child’s life. The treatment used to be unpleasant, invasive, and costly. And now, thanks to this research group, it is non-invasive and cheap.
Which set me wondering how a Regency family whose child had a strawberry birthmark might have coped. Eric, or Wreck as his family called him, was the result. In my story, he was the third son of an aristocratic family, sent as a baby to a remote estate, and raised by a loving Nanny, with occasional visits from his mother who was horrified by him.
Then the second son died, and Wreck needed to be retrieved in case he might one day succeed to the title. The mother sent him to Italy for surgical treatment. My story begins when he comes home. Subscribe to my newsletter if you want to know what happens next. I’m sending the newsletter out this week.
Betrayed by her father, Marsaili Campbell risks her life to recover what he has stolen from her. But when she’s kidnapped and wagered away, she has no one to help her escape other than the very man she’s spent the past three years trying to forget—Highland warrior Callum Grant. She once gave her heart and her innocence to the handsome Scot, only to regret her naive decisions. Still, with more enemies than she can battle alone, she needs an ally, even if she must hide the truth of her circumstances from him.
As a little girl I loved to create fantasy worlds and then give all my friends roles to play. Of course, I was always the heroine! Books have always been an escape for me and brought me so much pleasure, but it didn’t occur to me that I could possibly be a writer for a living until I was in a career that was not my passion. One day, I decided I wanted to craft stories like the ones I loved, and with a great leap of faith I quit my day job and decided to try to make my dream come true. I discovered my passion, and I have never looked back. I feel incredibly blessed and fortunate that I have been able to make a career out of sharing the stories that are in my head! I write Scottish Medieval Romance, Regency Romance, and I have even written a Paranormal Romance book. And because I have the best readers in the world, I have hit the USA Today bestseller list several times.
The Long Way Home by Jessica Cale: Cale never disappoints. I’ve read books 1, 2, and 4 of the Southwark Saga, and every book is different: different mood, different characters, different emotions in the reader. The Long Way Home is a darling of a book, with a sweet hero and heroine I adored. Jake is still my favourite Cale hero so far, but Alice is my top Cale heroine. Set against a different background than Cale’s other books, The Long Way Home takes the Southwark bargirl into the centre of the corrupt and dissolute French court, beautifully rendered and meticulously researched. As a reader, I trusted Cale would get Alice and Jack safely out, but when I forgot I was reading, I was really worried for them.
The Islands of Chaldea by Diana Wynne Jones, completed by Ursula Jones: I was shocked and dismayed when I heard this great writer had died. Her stories have been enriching my life since my teenage years. I’ve reread my favourites many times, and always eagerly seized on her new releases. But I didn’t expect another one eight years after her death. Thanks to her sister, who pored over the draft looking for the clues that would help her finish the story, I spent one delightful evening following Aileen, her aunt, and other assorted characters on a quest to rescue the son of the High King and reunite the islands. It is a quest story with the typical Wynne Jones down-to-earth fantasy world and quirky, very human, characters. Except for the cat, who is very much a cat. I have no idea where Wynne Jones left off and Jones began. The story is seamless.
Past Crimes, by Ashley Gardner: I’d already bought and read ‘The Necklace Affair’ as a novella, since I love the Captain Lacey Regency Mysteries, but I grabbed this when I found out it had two other novellas from two other series by the same author. ‘A Soupcon of Poison’ introduces the characters in the Victorian series The Below Stairs Mysteries, which the author is writing as Jennifer Ashley. The heroine is a chef. The hero is a mysterious figure who moves between upstairs and downstairs, and whose charming ways both intrigue and worry the heroine. When her employer dies after eating a meal she prepared, be prepared for some interesting twists and turns on the way to discovery of the real murderer. “Blood Debts’ is set in Ancient Rome, and follows the ex-gladiator Leonadis as he tries to clear himself of murder, look after others who might be accused, find the real murderer, and protect Cassia, the capable scribe-slave that some unknown benefactor has sent to look after him.
The Revenge of the Corsairs by Elizabeth Ellen Carter: I’ve been putting off reading this because I knew from the first Corsair book that when I started I’d be hooked. And I was. And I lost two evenings. Captive of the Corsairs saw the rescue of that book’s heroine and her cousin, Laura. In Revenge, we turn our focus to Laura. Traumatised and pregnant, she is not ready to accept the love of Elias, one of her rescuers. A better hero was never penned. He deserved to win the woman he loved, but Carter didn’t make it easy. Laura’s struggles to recover her equilibrium made total sense, but by the time she makes her choice it might be too late. Rabia, the third wife of Laura’s captor and rapist, has lost her own son and wants Laura’s. You can get this from the blurb, but I’ll say no more. I loved this book, and am impatiently waiting for the next in the series.
