Scarsdale Publishing

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Cover reveal — House of Thorns

 

Later this month, all going well, Scarsdale will publish House of Thorns as part of their Inconvenient Marriage series. Last week, they sent me the cover. What do you think? I’ll give you preorder links as soon as I have them.

House of Thorns

Bear Gavenor has fled the marriage mart for the familiarity of his work; restoring abandoned country manors to sell to the newly rich. He doesn’t expect to find a potential wife stealing his roses.

Lying gossip has driven Rosa Neatham from respectable employment, and now she has been turned out of her home to make way for the new owner. But a fleeting return to collect some roses for her ailing father changes her fortunes.

In a marriage that offers more inconvenience than convenience, can this unlikely couple beat gossip, misunderstandings, and their own self doubts to find happiness?

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The first meeting on WIP Wednesday

This crucial scene in a romance novel is sometimes called the meet cute. Received wisdom is that it needs to happen early in the book, perhaps on the first page. Myself, I’ve never been good at Rules, so I’ve written books where the meet cute is delayed — in one case, until the middle of the book. (But I did have an alternative hero as a stand-in for the first half.)

This week, I’m inviting authors to give me their meet cute, that first meeting when sparks fly. Mine is from House of Thorns, which is coming out as part of the Scarsdale Publishing Marriages of Inconvenience line, and which I’m currently editing. Does it count as a meet cute if the heroine is unconscious?

The intruder stealing his roses had lovely ankles.

Bear Gavenor paused at the corner of the house, the better to enjoy the sight. The scraping of wood on stone had drawn him from the warmth of the kitchen, where the only fire in this overgrown cottage kept the unseasonable chill at bay. He placed each foot carefully and silently—not from stealth but from long habit. The woman perched precariously on the rickety ladder seemed oblivious to his presence.

Or, his sour experiences in London suggested, she knew full well, and her display was for his benefit. Certainly, the sight was having an effect. Her skirt rose as she stretched, showing worn but neat walking boots. Her inadequate jacket molded to curves that dried his mouth. Wind plastered her skirts to lower curves that had him hardening in an instant, visions of plunder screaming into his mind.

It had been too long since his last willing widow.

Disgust at his own weakness as much as irritation at the invasion of his privacy, fueled Bear’s full-throated roar. “Who the hell are you, and what are you doing with my roses?”

She jerked around, then cried out as the rung she stood on snapped free of the upright. Bear lunged toward her as the ladder slid sideways. One upright caught on the tangle of rose branches and the other continued its descent. The woman threw out both hands but the branch she grasped snapped free and — before Bear could throw himself under her — she crashed onto the ground.

If the fall was deliberate — which would not surprise him after some of the things women had done to attract his attention — she had made too good a job of it. She lay still and white in a crumpled heap, her head lying on a corner of a flagstone in the path. He dropped to one knee beside her and slipped a hand into the rich hair. His fingers came away bloody.

As he ran his hands swiftly over the rest of her body, checking for anything that seemed twisted out of shape or that hurt enough to rouse her, a large drop of rain splashed onto his neck, followed by a spattering of more and then a deluge. He cursed as he lifted the woman and ran into the house through the garden doors that opened from the room he’d chosen for his study.

She was a bare handful, lighter than she should have been for her height, though well-endowed in all the right places. He set her on the sofa and straightened. He needed a doctor, but didn’t want to leave her while he fetched one. If the small village nearby even had a doctor.

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In praise of editors

I got the edits on House of Thorns back from Scarsdale Publishing a couple of days ago. This is the first time I’ve worked with a publisher, and so far I’m enjoying the experience. My draft looks, as one of my friends said about hers, as if Casey cut open a vein and bled all over it, but it’s going to be a much better book for her input.

It’s not the first time I’ve worked with an editor, of course. For a start, I am an editor. In my day job editing commercial and government documents into plain language I work with a whole team of editors. Nothing goes out of our office without being peer reviewed, so I’m edited all the time. From that experience, I came to fiction writing knowing the value of an educated eye. We get too close to our own work to be able to see its flaws — or, for that matter, its strengths. So I’ve employed editors since I started indie publishing, either paying for them or swapping manuscripts.

Good books are a collaborative process.

The author tells the story, perhaps entirely alone but more likely hashing out difficult plot points with a trusted friend, ringing or emailing specialists for a bit of expert knowledge, checking facts through research using information collected by other people. For my books set in places I’ve never been, I watch YouTube videos, read books (guide books, historians’ studies of the place and time, contemporary letters and diaries), study maps, go through local newspapers from the time period, and in many other ways draw on the work of others.

In my process, I then give it an edit and send it to beta readers; a group of early readers who will look at the half-cooked story and give me their reactions.

Another edit from me and it’s ready for the developmental editor to cut open a vein and bleed red ink everywhere.

My turn again. Time to make it better. I’ll often at this stage trial rewritten sections with the editor, or anyone else who will sit still long enough, until I’m sure I’ve got them right.

Next is a copy edit, and finally a proofread.

I say finally, but of course lots more has to happen. While the book has been off being rebuilt, tuned, and polished, we’ve been making the cover. And the production process involves adding the hair I tear out to the editor’s blood. Producing the stories you read is a very messy business. I’m looking forward to leaving that side of it to Scarsdale.

But that’s in the future for House of Thorns. Just for now I’m going to be grateful for editors.