Tag: Blog Tours

Reflection: What We Learned from Julie Garwood

Posted June 13, 2023 by Holly in Discussions, Promotions | 11 Comments

I decided to repost this after hearing about the death of our beloved author. While I never had the privilege of meeting Julie Garwood, her writing helped shape the person I am now, and I will forever be grateful to her for all the lessons she taught me.

Rest in Peace
Julia Elizabeth Garwood
DECEMBER 26, 1944 – JUNE 8, 2023


originally published on July 5, 2017

With the release of Wired, Julie Garwood’s latest FBI/Buchanan novel, Rowena, Casee and I took the time to reflect on our first Garwood, our love for her and how her novels shaped our reading..and our lives, as silly as it may sound. We learned a lot about ourselves, the world and our reading preferences from those early Garwood novels.

What We Learned from Julie Garwood

Casee: The first book I read by JG was Honor’s Splendour. The first thing I really noticed was the selflessness of Madelyne. All she ever wanted was to escape her brother. Yet when she had the chance, she stayed to help his enemy. The second thing that really stuck with me was the humor. JG has a way of writing humor that remains with you long after you have finished one of her books. Honor’s Splendour is still one of my favorite books to this day.

Holly: My first Julie Garwood book was Killjoy, a contemporary romantic suspense novel. It was also my first foray into romance (outside of a few brief illicit Harlequin’s from my t(w)een years). I don’t remember a lot of the finer details now, but the happy ending was enough to convince me to pick up more books by her. My second read was The Gift. While it will never be my favorite, the historical setting and spunky heroine had me clamoring for more. It wasn’t long before I’d glommed her entire backlist. I fell into each new tale, fully immersed in the lives of these fictional historical characters.

Although these books aren’t perfect, I learned a lot from reading them. The heroines were all strong enough to know their own minds; to endure trials and tribulations without faltering. They were honest and kind, and often had to work around men (and women) who wanted to suppress them. But in the end they came out on top. The heroes were all strong, manly alpha-types who didn’t need nothing and no one..until a tiny slip of a woman strolled into their lives and flipped everything upside down.

I remember reading Honor’s Splendour and just melting when Duncan realized he loved Madelyne, long before she realized she loved him in return. Judith and Frances-Catherine, from The Secret, taught me that best friends really are forever, and can endure anything. Even backgrounds as far apart as English and Highland Scots.

When Nicholaa defeated Royce in The Prize with nothing more than a sling and a rock, I cheered. And when he realized he hated the woman he’d forced her to become by trying to mold her into what he thought a woman should be, I realized it was better to be yourself than change to fit someone else’s mold.

Even now, more years than I care to admit later, I can pick up a Garwood novel and be transported.

Rowena: For me, Julie Garwood will always be the author that taught me what true friendship looks like. From Judith Elizabeth and Frances Catherine to Ramsey and Brodick and Connor, Quinlan and Crispin, there are plenty of friendships that look a lot like family. Friendships that are solid and true. Sure, they don’t always get along and they fight sometimes but at the end of the day, they have your back and you have theirs.

I’m fortunate to have found friendships just like those with a little help from Julie Garwood herself. I met Holly and Casee on the JGBB and we came together through our shared love of Garwood’s books. We’re not perfect by any means but I still love them and know that they love me. Like Judith and Frances Catherine, there isn’t a thing that I wouldn’t do for them.

It doesn’t matter how many times I read these books, the thing that always sticks out to me are the friendships. I adored how Judith traveled to freaking Scotland to be there for her best friend and how there wasn’t a thing that Quinlan and Crispin wouldn’t do for Connor. The knowledge that no matter where they were or what was waiting for them at the end of the tunnel, they would walk through fire for each other and I loved that. The loyalty, the camaraderie, the friendships…those are my favorite things and Julie Garwood captures them so effortlessly. It’s why she’s one of my favorite authors.

About the Author

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It’s no surprise that Julie Garwood became a writer. Growing up in a large family of Irish heritage, she took to storytelling naturally. “The Irish relish getting all the details of every situation,” she explains. “Add in the fact that I was the sixth of seven children. Early in life I learned that self-expression had to be forceful, imaginative, and quick.”

Creating stories was always a passion for Julie, but she didn’t focus on making it a career until the youngest of her three children entered school. After the publications of two young adult books, she turned her interests to historical fiction. Her first novel, GENTLE WARRIOR, was published in 1985, and there has been a steady parade of bestsellers ever since. Today more than 40-million copies of her books are in print, and they are translated in dozens of languages around the world. One of her most popular novels, FOR THE ROSES, was adapted for a HALLMARK HALL OF FAME production on CBS.

Whether the setting be medieval Scotland, Regency England, frontier Montana, or modern-day Louisiana, her themes are consistent: family, loyalty, and honor. Readers claim that it’s the humor as well as poignancy of her novels that keep them coming back for more. Julie described her goals this way: “I want my readers to laugh and cry and fall in love. Basically, I want them to escape into another world for a little while and afterwards to feel as though they’ve been on a great adventure.”

Julie lives in Leawood, Kansas, and is currently working on her next novel.


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Blog Tour: The Scent of Murder by Kylie Logan

Posted May 8, 2019 by Holly in Promotions | 2 Comments

THE SCENT OF MURDER (May 7, 2019) by Kylie Logan is the start of a new series featuring Jazz Ramsey, a cadaver dog handler. When she and her newest trainee, Luther, find a body during a routine training exercise, things get complicated.

Blog Tour: The Scent of Murder by Kylie LoganThe Scent of Murder by Kylie Logan
Series: Jazz Ramsey #1
Also in this series: The Scent of Murder
Publisher: Minotaur
Publication Date: May 7, 2019
Genres: Suspense
Pages: 320
Add It: Goodreads
Amazon | Barnes & Noble | The Ripped Bodice | Google Play Books
Series Rating: three-stars

First in a new series from national bestselling author Kylie Logan, The Scent of Murder is a riveting mystery following Jazz Ramsey as she trains cadaver dogs.

The way Jazz Ramsey figures it, life is pretty good. She’s thirty-five years old and owns her own home in one of Cleveland’s most diverse, artsy, and interesting neighborhoods. She has a job she likes as an administrative assistant at an all-girls school, and a volunteer interest she’s passionate about—Jazz is a cadaver dog handler.

Jazz is working with Luther, a cadaver dog in training. Luther is still learning cadaver work, so Jazz is putting him through his paces at an abandoned building that will soon be turned into pricey condos. When Luther signals a find, Jazz is stunned to see the body of a young woman who is dressed in black and wearing the kind of make-up and jewelry that Jazz used to see on the Goth kids back in high school.

She’s even more shocked when she realizes that beneath the tattoos and the piercings and all that pale make up is a familiar face.

The lead detective on the case is an old lover, and the murdered woman is an old student. Jazz finds herself sucked into the case, obsessed with learning the truth.

Excerpt

CHAPTER 1

It had rained that afternoon and the sidewalks were still wet. When the last of the evening light hit them, the slate squares reflected Jazz Ramsey’s neighborhood—streetlights, and the neon signs that flashed from the windows of the trendy pubs, and a watery rendering of St. John Cantius church, an urban Monet masterpiece, its tan brick walls and bell tower blurred.

Even though it was officially spring, the wind off Lake Erie was wicked. Jazz bundled her shoulder-length brown hair into a loose ponytail and pulled up the hood of her sweatshirt, then hunched further into her North Face jacket. She stopped at a corner, waiting for the light to change, and was pleased when Luther sat down at her side even without a command.

“Good dog,” she was sure to tell him at the same time she breathed in the combined smell of damp earth and the discarded bag from Taco Bell crumpled near the curb.

To Luther’s credit, he ignored whatever bits and bites of Mexican cuisine might still be in the bag. But then, he’d been trained to follow dif­ferent scents. When the light changed, he trotted along when Jazz crossed the street, his pace as brisk as hers, and the way he pricked his ears and cocked his head, she knew he sensed the exhilaration that vibrated from her hand through his leash. Luther knew it was almost time to get down to business.

Here, College Avenue started its downhill trek into the Cleveland Flats, the city’s once-booming industrial heart. These days, Clevelanders were more likely to work in health care or IT than in foundries and factories, but one hundred years ago, this was the route thousands of workers took each
day from their homes in blue-collar Tremont—it was simply called the South Side then—to the fiery furnaces that produced America’s steel.

“We’re not going far,” Jazz assured Luther at the same time she noticed the couple who stumbled out of the Treehouse just up ahead made sure to give the massive German shepherd a wide berth. “Just over here,” she told him once they’d passed the open door to the bar and the blaring music that seeped onto the street wasn’t quite so loud. “Over to the new condos.”

They stopped outside a sturdy brick building nearly ninety years old with solid walls and a slate roof. By the end of summer, Jazz imagined there would be gleaming glass in the window frames where there was plywood now, and window boxes, too, no doubt, and cars parked outside that reflected the status-conscious success of the young professionals she’d heard were already lined up to buy.

But not tonight.

Tonight the building was empty and dark and she had it all to herself.

It was the perfect place to put Luther through his paces.

Still hanging on to the dog’s leash with one hand, Jazz fished the key from her pocket with the other and silently thanked Ken Zelinsky, the site supervisor, who’d agreed to give her an hour’s time inside the building.

It wasn’t easy to find urban training sites for a human remains detection dog.

She swung open the door and slanted Luther a look. “So what do you think?”

Luther sat, his tail thumping out a rhythm of excitement on the front stoop, and before she unhooked his leash, Jazz did a quick run-through of what she’d learned from his owner.

Luther was a little over two years old, good-natured. He could be as playful as any pup, but he had a serious side, too. Like now, when he had to work.

“He’s a smart dog,” Greg Johnson had insisted when he begged Jazz to help with the final stages of Luther’s training. “He just needs some reinforcement from a really good handler. That’s you, Jazz.”

It was.

Or at least it used to be.

These days, Jazz was feeling a little rusty. She was out of practice, not in the mood. It was one of the reasons that, after hemming and hawing and finding excuse after excuse, she’d finally agreed to Greg’s request. She needed to shake herself out of her funk, and to her way of thinking, there was no better way to do that than with a dog.

She stepped into the long, narrow entryway of the building with its rows of broken mailboxes along one wall, and shut the front door behind her. The eerie quiet of years of neglect closed around her along with the smell of dampness and decay, rotted wiring and musty tiles carried by an errant breeze. Feeling her way, she unsnapped the leash from Luther’s collar and gave him the command she’d devised for all the dogs she worked with because it was less ghoulish than saying “Find the dead guy!”

“Find Henry!” she told him, and she stepped back and out of Luther’s way.

Like all HRD dogs, Luther was that rare combination— independent enough to go off on his own and loyal enough to owner and handler to need praise. But he didn’t know Jazz well, and smart dog that he was, he wanted to be certain. He glanced over his shoulder at her.

“You know what to do, Luther. You don’t need Greg here to tell you.” She swept a hand along her side. “Find Henry!”

In fact, what Jazz hoped the dog would do was clear both the first and second floors in record time and head up to the third floor where that afternoon she’d hidden a human tooth (a donation from her mother, Claire, who, at the age of fifty-two, had decided she wanted the kind of sparkling smile she’d seen on so many models and had begun to see an orthodontist). Human teeth contained enough scent to attract a properly trained dog’s attention. If Luther was on his game—and she hoped he was because she hated the thought of telling Greg his dog wasn’t ready for the grueling volunteer work done by dogs and handlers—he would locate the tooth, signal by barking three times, and chomp on the treat she would use as a reward while she secured the scene and made a simulated call to the cops, just as she would do if they made a real find.

“You gonna get a move on or what?” she asked Luther, her voice falling flat against the pitted plaster. “Find Henry!”

In a flash of black and sable, the dog took off down the darkened hallway.

After nearly ten years training and handling cadaver dogs, Jazz knew the ropes. She couldn’t give Luther a hint about where to go or what he was looking for so she kept back, letting him work, refusing to influence him by her demeanor or her movements. She heard his claws scramble on the tile floor somewhere in the dark up ahead, flicked on her high-powered flashlight, and followed.

Some dogs, like pointers, are air sniffers. Some, like bloodhounds, keep their noses to the ground. No matter their breed, cadaver dogs, by virtue of their work, have to be proficient at both. They are trained as trailing dogs to pick up the scent that has fallen from decomposing bodies onto the ground, and as air-scenting dogs as well, so they can detect any smell of decomposition that’s carried on the breeze. By the time she located him in a back room of what had once been a four-room working-class apartment, Luther was hard at work.

His eyes focused and every inch of his muscular body at the ready, he drew in a breath then hurried back and forth, side to side, through what had once been a kitchen, in an attempt to catch the strongest scent.

Not here. On the third floor.

Jazz knew better than to say it. Part of an HRD dog’s gift was to eliminate one area so dog and handler could move on to the next. Luther was doing his job, and he was doing it well.

She had to remember to compliment Greg on his training methods.

Nose to the floor, his ears pricked, Luther cleared the kitchen and headed into the back bedrooms. Jazz kicked a piece of fallen tile out of the way, but she kept her place. She would wait quietly until the dog emerged from the back rooms and when he headed out into the hallway, she would follow.

At least that was her plan.

Until Luther barked.

Once.

Twice.

Three times.

Blog Tour

About Kylie Logan

Photo of author Kylie Logan in a purple shirt

KYLIE LOGAN is the national bestselling author of The League of Literary Ladies Mysteries, the Button Box Mysteries, the Chili Cook-Off Mysteries, and the Ethnic Eats Mysteries. The Scent of Murder is the first in a new series.


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Blog Tour Excerpt: Toxic Game by Christine Feehan

Posted March 5, 2019 by Casee in Features | 0 Comments

Toxic Game is book #15 in Feehan’s GhostWalker series. Feehan returns us to Joe Spagnola’s team and brings us the story of GhostWalker Draden Freeman. When Draden is infected with a disease that was created to kill the woman that is meant for him, Draden will do anything to save her. This book is different from the others in this series somehow. I couldn’t quite put my finger on it, even when I was writing my review. It might have been the desperation of the characters, knowing that their deaths were imminent.

I hope you enjoy the excerpt!

Blog Tour Excerpt: Toxic Game by Christine FeehanToxic Game (GhostWalker #15) by Christine Feehan
Series: GhostWalker #15
Also in this series: Lethal Game
Publisher: Berkley
Publication Date: March 12, 2019
Point-of-View: Alternating Third
Genres: Paranormal Romance
Pages: 416
Add It: Goodreads
Amazon | Barnes & Noble | The Ripped Bodice | Google Play Books
Series Rating: four-stars

On a rescue mission in the heart of the Indonesian jungle, Dr. Draden Freeman and his GhostWalker team need to extract the wounded as quickly as possible—or risk spreading a deadly virus unleashed by a terrorist cell. When Draden gets infected, he forces his team to leave him behind. He won’t risk exposing anyone else. He intends to find the ones responsible and go out in a blaze of glory....

Shylah Cosmos’s mission is to track the virus and remain unseen. Her enhanced senses tell her that the gorgeous man eradicating the terrorists one by one is a GhostWalker—and his lethal precision takes her breath away. When he’s hit by a lucky shot, she can’t stop herself from stepping in, not knowing that by saving his life she’s exposed herself to the virus.

There’s no telling how much time Draden and Shylah have left. Racing to find a cure, they quickly realize that they’ve found their perfect partner just in time to lose everything. But even as the virus threatens to consume their bodies, they’ve never felt more alive..


 

Order the Book:

AMAZON || BARNES AND NOBLE || KOBO

Excerpt

The last of the helicopters had lifted from the ground, gunners providing cover for him, spraying the tree line to keep the terrorists from taking aim at Draden. Diego and Malichai used automatics to aid the gunners as Joe and Gino worked on the wounded. A rope was dropped down as the chopper circled back. Draden kept running as gunfire erupted from the cover of the forest. Bullets spat around him.

The chopper came slipping out of the sky toward him, coming in low, the rope flying like a slinky tail. Behind him, the forest went strangely silent. No gunfire. He didn’t stop. He leapt for the rope, his gloved hands catching hold, the jerk so strong it nearly pulled his arms out of their sockets. Still, his enhanced strength allowed him to hang on while the chopper began to climb.

He was twenty feet up when he felt the sting in his thigh, and his heart stuttered with instant awareness. He glanced down to see a dart protruding from his muscle and knew why the terrorists’ weapons had gone silent. They had a sniper, and he wasn’t armed with a bullet. He was armed with a virus. If Draden went up into the helicopter, he was condemning everyone in it to the same death as those in the village. Without real conscious thought, he let go of the rope, dropping out of the sky and back to earth.

Virus injection. It was the best information he could give them, so they would know to leave him behind.

Malichai was staring down at him, their eyes meeting as he fell away. He saw Malichai practically dive from the helicopter, but Diego caught at him, holding him back. Draden landed in a crouch, his enhanced DNA allowing his legs to act like springs to absorb the shock. He somersaulted forward and stood up, facing the forest, his arms spread wide. Let them shoot him if they wanted, but if they didn’t, he was infecting the bastards. He began walking toward the edge of all those trees and brush.

Draden. What the hell happened? Joe’s voice slipped into his mind. It was faded, as if the distance was already too far. He heard the helicopter circling back so Joe would be able to reach him. He pictured Joe holding a weapon on the crew. He could get that intense.

By the time he reached the trees, the MSS members had faded away, leaving him to die however the villagers had. He’d seen the reports the Indonesian government had shared with the WHO. It was one of the reasons his team had been in the region. Two team members were two of the leading scientists developing treatments, therapies and pharmaceuticals in the field of viruses.

Infected with the virus.

Draden had taken the time to finish both his doctorate and MD, to be an asset to others on his team. He’d dabbled in biochemistry but finished his undergrad degree, a BS in genetics. Stanford offered a dual MD and PhD program and he’d taken advantage of that. He’d gotten his MD as an infectious disease doctor and his PhD in microbiology and immunology. He found it ironic that he would be dying of a weaponized virus after all that work to earn his degrees. Determined to be of some use, he decided to record everything he could about his symptoms, along with any suppositions he might have before he put a bullet in his head. He’d leave final conclusions for them.

Tell Trap and Wyatt I’ll leave behind a recording. Don’t know if they can use whatever I find, but they should remotely be able to access my recorder without touching the device.

I’m sorry, man. Trap and Wyatt may have ideas.

Draden knew, just from the earlier reports, that their ideas would be too late. The virus acted too fast. He would be dead before Joe had time to make it back to the States.

GhostWalkers


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Blog Tour Review: Toxic Game by Christine Feehan

Posted March 5, 2019 by Casee in Reviews | 0 Comments

Blog Tour Review: Toxic Game by Christine FeehanReviewer: Casee
Toxic Game by Christine Feehan
Series: GhostWalkers #15
Also in this series: Predatory Game, Street Game, Ruthless Game, Shadow Game, Power Game, Murder Game, Covert Game, Phantom Game, Ghostly Game
Publisher: Berkley
Publication Date: March 5, 2019
Format: eARC
Source: Publisher
Point-of-View: Alternating Third
Genres: Paranormal Romance
Pages: 416
Add It: Goodreads
Amazon | Barnes & Noble | The Ripped Bodice | Google Play Books
Series Rating: four-stars

On a rescue mission in the heart of the Indonesian jungle, Dr. Draden Freeman and his GhostWalker team need to extract the wounded as quickly as possible—or risk spreading a deadly virus unleashed by a terrorist cell. When Draden gets infected, he forces his team to leave him behind. He won’t risk exposing anyone else. He intends to find the ones responsible and go out in a blaze of glory....

Shylah Cosmos’s mission is to track the virus and remain unseen. Her enhanced senses tell her that the gorgeous man eradicating the terrorists one by one is a GhostWalker—and his lethal precision takes her breath away. When he’s hit by a lucky shot, she can’t stop herself from stepping in, not knowing that by saving his life she’s exposed herself to the virus.

There’s no telling how much time Draden and Shylah have left. Racing to find a cure, they quickly realize that they’ve found their perfect partner just in time to lose everything. But even as the virus threatens to consume their bodies, they’ve never felt more alive.

I wanted to like this book more than I actually did. Especially when I read this from Feehan’s website:

“This could possibly be the most romantic couple I’ve ever written in any of my series. I was surprised by both of them many times which made writing this book so much fun for me.”

I was super excited because 1) GhostWalkers! 2) Most romantic! 3) GhostWalkers! Okay, so I’m a little obsessed with the GhostWalker series, it’s true. I’ve come to expect a lot from the series. When I say a lot, I mean a lot. This one was so incredibly rushed. That doesn’t mean it wasn’t good, just that it didn’t work for me.

Draden Freeman is on a rescue mission when he is infected with a deadly virus. Knowing he needs to force his team to leave him behind, he does just that. His plan is to bring as many terrorist responsible for spreading the virus as possible before he dies. And he knows he’s going to die. The village the the terrorists took out with the virus attests to that brutal fact. Then he meets Shylah Cosmos, one of Peter Whitney’s orphan girls. She’s there on her own mission. While following him, she saves him inadvertently infecting herself. Draden is furious, but can’t help but be attracted to Shylah’s calm and acceptance of her fate.

Shylah is in the Indonesian jungle to track down the three scientists that are responsible for creating the virus. Her job isn’t to bring them in. Her job is to kill them and bring their research in. It’s only as her and Draden start working together that they realize that the virus wasn’t make as a biological weapon. It was made for Shylah herself. Peter Whitney doesn’t like when his girls escape and Shylah is the only one that can fight off whatever virus is injected into her body. It was only by chance that the scientists created a weapon to which there was no antidote. Or could there possibly be one?

The speed in which Draden and Shylah fell in love was a matter of days. The only thing that made in believable was that they both believed they were going to die. Otherwise it was just completely implausible. Even with Whitney and his imprinting of the men and women, it was still too fast. The rest of the book was actually pretty good, even the scientific part of it. I always admire how much research Feehan puts into her books. While I’m clueless as to whether the info is accurate, it sure seems like it is.

Rating: 3.75 out of 5.

GhostWalkers


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Blog Tour: Wilde in Love by Eloisa James Scanvenger Hunt

Posted November 1, 2017 by Rowena in Giveaways, Promotions | 1 Comment

Good morning, Book Binge readers! Our friends over at Avon Romance have put together a fun scavenger hunt for Wilde in Love by Eloisa James and we are thrilled to be participating in it. This book promises to kick off the Wildes of Lindow Castle series with a fabulous romance and we’re here for it.

Wilde in Love by Eloisa James
Series: The Wildes of Lindow Castle #1
Release Date: October 31, 2017
Publisher: Harper Collins, Avon
Genres: Historical, Romance

Lord Alaric Wilde, son of the Duke of Lindow, is the most celebrated man in England, revered for his dangerous adventures and rakish good looks. Arriving home from years abroad, he has no idea of his own celebrity until his boat is met by mobs of screaming ladies. Alaric escapes to his father’s castle, but just as he grasps that he’s not only famous but notorious, he encounters the very private, very witty, Miss Willa Ffynche.

Willa presents the façade of a serene young lady to the world. Her love of books and bawdy jokes is purely for the delight of her intimate friends. She wants nothing to do with a man whose private life is splashed over every newspaper.

Alaric has never met a woman he wanted for his own . . . until he meets Willa. He’s never lost a battle.

But a spirited woman like Willa isn’t going to make it easy. . . .

The first book in Eloisa James’s dazzling new series set in the Georgian period glows with her trademark wit and sexy charm—and introduces a large, eccentric family. Readers will love the Wildes of Lindow Castle!

Eloisa James is here today to help us keep the scavenger hunt party going so check it out…

Order the Book:

AMAZON || BARNES AND NOBLE || GOOGLE || KOBO

Guest Post

Hello!

I’m so thrilled to be introducing my new series and the amazing, eccentric cast of characters that stars in it — including the Duke of Lindow, his third duchess, his ten children, his ward, his twin sister, a peacock… Wilde in Love takes place at Lindow Castle during a house party to celebrate the engagement of Lord Roland Northbridge Wilde—known to his friends as North—to Miss Diana Belgrave.

Book Binge is kind enough to help me introduce the Wildes to the world. This blog is part of a scavenger hunt, and you’ll find a contest form here on my website for you to fill out after visiting each blog. (or you could just grab Wilde in Love and learn all about the characters that way!).

Daily prizes range from an adorable skunk purse to a complete collection of my 20+ Avon novels. — be sure to check my Facebook page here every day to find the new blog link! Good luck!

Today we are highlighting North, the future Duke of Lindow, who is wildly (ha) in love with his fiancée. Diana’s feelings are less clear!

5 Reasons to Respect Lord Roland Northbridge Wilde

  1. He fell instantly in love with Miss Diana Belgrave (the feeling wasn’t mutual).
  2. He put on a towering wig and yellow heels to impress the lovely Diana (it didn’t work).
  3. He’s the current Marquess of Saltersley, but the title belonged to his dead brother, so he refuses it.
  4. He’d much rather be designing mansions than living in a rambling castle.
  5. He doesn’t want to be the future Duke of Lindow, but he accepts his fate.

Sign up for Five Fabulous Things here and hopefully you’ll win a prize! Did you know that I give away five fabulous gifts every month in my newsletter? Sign up now so you can win everything from advance review copies of my books to presents I pick up in England and Italy!

Giveaway Alert

Our stop on the scavenger hunt is giving away a set of the Desperate Duchesses series and a peacock keychain. Just visit the link below, fill out the form and you’ll be entered.

GIVEAWAY FORM FOR THE DESPERATE DUCHESSES SERIES

Good luck!

About the Author

Eloisa James

WEBSITE | TWITTER | FACEBOOK | INSTAGRAM | PINTEREST | TUMBLR | GOODREADS

New York Times bestselling author Eloisa James writes historical romances for HarperCollins Publishers. Her novels have been published to great acclaim. A reviewer from USA Today wrote of Eloisa’s very first book that she “found herself devouring the book like a dieter with a Hershey bar”; later People Magazine raved that “romance writing does not get much better than this.” Her novels have repeatedly received starred reviews from Publishers’ Weekly and Library Journal and regularly appear on the best-seller lists.

After graduating from Harvard University, Eloisa got an M.Phil. from Oxford University, a Ph.D. from Yale and eventually became a Shakespeare professor, publishing an academic book with Oxford University Press. Currently she is an associate professor and head of the Creative Writing program at Fordham University in New York City. Her “double life” is a source of fascination to the media and her readers. In her professorial guise, she’s written a New York Times op-ed defending romance, as well as articles published everywhere from women’s magazines such as More to writers’ journals such as the Romance Writers’ Report.

Eloisa…on her double life:

When I’m not writing novels, I’m a Shakespeare professor. It’s rather like having two lives. The other day I bought a delicious pink suit to tape a television segment on romance; I’ll never wear that suit to teach in, nor even to give a paper at the Shakespeare Association of America conference. It’s like being Superman, with power suits for both lives. Yet the literature professor in me certainly plays into my romances. The Taming of the Duke (April 2006) has obvious Shakespearean resonances, as do many of my novels. I often weave early modern poetry into my work; the same novel might contain bits of Catullus, Shakespeare and anonymous bawdy ballads from the 16th century.

When I rip off my power suit, whether it’s academic or romantic, underneath is the rather tired, chocolate-stained sweatshirt of a mom. Just as I use Shakespeare in my romances, I almost always employ my experiences as a mother. When I wrote about a miscarriage in Midnight Pleasures, I used my own fears of premature birth; when the little girl in Fool For Love threw up and threw up, I described my own daughter, who had that unsavory habit for well over her first year of life.

So I’m a writer, a professor, a mother – and a wife. My husband Alessandro is Italian, born in Florence. We spend the lazy summer months with his mother and sister in Italy. It always strikes me as a huge irony that as a romance writer I find myself married to a knight, a cavaliere, as you say in Italian.

One more thing…I’m a friend. I have girlfriends who are writers and girlfriends who are Shakespeare professors. And I have girlfriends who are romance readers. In fact, we have something of a community going on my website. Please stop by and join the conversation on my readers’ pages.


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