Available at last!
When the uncle of a six-year-old marquess threatens to take him from his widowed mother, as well as urge her to marry his rakish son, Victoire, Marchioness of Brynthorpe, hires a war-weary band of ex-soldiers as bodyguards. The resulting clash reverberates from Wiltshire to London as Captain Fox, the Stone Soldier, turns out to be far more than his military rank implies.
Violent conflict, an unexpected and rocky romance, close-held secrets—all to the tune of comments and advice from five resident phantoms. Yet even when our hero and heroine see sunny skies at last, one more problem rears its ugly head.
The Stone Soldier began life as Gothic #13, the title: The Phantom Voices of Lark House; the setting, one of my favorite places—Stonehenge. But somewhere—perhaps a quarter of the way into the book—I realized the story I was writing didn't match the criteria. The heroine was not isolated. The only threats to her life were the possible kidnapping of her son and a forced marriage. And, as often as she quarreled with her hired protector, she never suspected him of an intention to harm her. Oops. Bye-bye, Gothic. Even though the story was far from the glitter of London ballrooms, I was writing a Regency Historical Romance with strong elements of Adventure and the Paranormal (while somehow maintaining those comedic touches we all enjoy in lighter Regency Romances).
So, I plunged into a search for a new title, and amid all the lame ones I scribbled on a legal pad, The Stone Soldier and the Lady leaped out a me. I also realized featuring the hero in the title was particularly apt, as I was strongly influenced by a need to redeem the tragic character of the Major in The Abandoned Daughter. Hopefully, I have managed that in The Stone Soldier and the Lady.
The Stone Soldier and the Lady is available at Amazon and most e-book vendors (or will be shortly). I hope you'll take a look and, of course, write a review! Thank you, gracias, merci, grazie, danke, spasiba!
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Grace note: Hopefully, the oft-postponed list of Regency Sub-genres will make it to Mosaic Moments in my next blog.
