Blair's Historical Romances

Grace note: I prepared this blog before going off to Boston and Cape Cod for ten days.  Hopefully, it makes sense!

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Having winged my way through loglines of my traditional Regencies, i thought I'd try the same with my Historicals. A fun challenge.

Listed in the order in which they were published, although I actually wrote The Sometime Bride first. 

TARLETON'S WIFE

The Regency Warrior Series, Book 1

At the battle of Corunna, a dying British major marries his dead colonel's daughter so she will have a home to return to. Eighteen months later she is making a new life for herself and the major's tenants—she is even involved in a budding romance—when the major returns - with a fiancée at his side.



First published  in 1999 - this cover is from the paperback version currently available from Ellora's Cave Blush (e-version also available).

THE SOMETIME BRIDE

The Regency Warrior series, Book 2

An epic tale of war, as seen through the eyes of two people much too young to be married, even in a marriage of convenience. A book of battles and spies, tragedy and deception. And a revealed betrayal that finally ends our heroine's seven years as a "sometime" bride.

First published in 2000

O'ROURKE'S HEIRESS

The Regency Warrior series, Book 3

Terence O'Rourke, the deus ex machina, who appears in the final chapters of Tarleton's Wife, gets his own book. The young Irish bastard has only one love in his life, the daughter of his employer, as much a bastard as he. Except her father's goal is for her to marry a title. Which leads to considerable suffering, abuse, and yet another bastard baby. With no happy ending in sight.

Those are wild Dartmoor ponies grazing on the cover.

ROGUE'S DESTINY
The Regency Warrior series, Book 4

An "also ran" in Tarleton's Wife and O'Rourke's Heiress, Jack Harding has risen from almost being hanged to the powerful head of a merchant prince's private army.* But he never gets the girl - until he meets his match in a feisty young lady from Québec. The only problem: someone is trying to kill her.

*The merchant prince is, of course, the father who wanted his only daughter to marry a title in O'Rourke's Heiress.

My all-time favorite cover

The Captive Heiress is my best-selling book in Britain. Since it was originally written with Young Adults in mind (with extensive research into the 12th century, plus an update at the end about what eventually happened to all the genuine historical characters), I presume teachers have been recommending it, for nothing else could account for such exceptional sales! Anyway, it's a lovely little tale, chock full of real people of the time, most notably, King Henry II and Eleanor of Aquitaine, plus their children who eventually become so well known in the Robin Hood tales, King Richard and Prince John. (And, of course, with John there was that little thing called the Magna Carta. ) My favorite, however, is my young hero's friend, William Marshall, who has come down in history as the greatest knight who ever lived, even ruling England during the minority of John's heir.

Logline:

A very young heiress is kidnapped so her guardian may enjoy her fortune until King Henry marries her off. Her only friend is a young squire who is so poor he cannot afford a horse and armor so he can become a knight. They eventually become part of the tumultuous court of King Henry and Eleanor, with no hope for a future together, until an attack on the queen leads to great changes for both William Marshall and our young squire.

A Steampunk Adventure

I had a ball writing AIRBORNE - THE HANOVER RESTORATION. Such fun to create alternative history and machines that never existed in the 19th century. Also, a young lady who is in love with a train! I also happily messed with the British succession, putting Wellington on the throne, while discarding the true inventor of the airship. I mean, what's Alternative History all about if you can't do as you please?

Logline:

A young miss believes she is traveling to the protection of her new guardian, only to discover he expects her to marry him! Not only is he a perfect stranger, but his household is full of odd machines, and, as if that weren't enough, he has involved her in a revolution - the push to put a young woman named Victoria on the English throne. 

BRIDES OF FALCONFELL 

a Regency Gothic, coming Fall 2013

Brides of Falconfell is not Goth, but a classic Gothic romance, written in first person because the heroine has to feel alone and beleagured. No peeking into anyone else's head, particularly the hero's. 

Before the great surge of the present romance market, Victoria Holt wrote magnificent Victorian Gothics; Mary Stewart set the standard for contemporary Gothics. They were marvelous, and this is my stab at bringing that genre back to life.

Logline:

A managing female is summoned to the wilds of Northumberland to nurse yet another member of her family, only to find her patient deceased and the widower anxious to marry a woman capable of putting his unruly house in order. The possibility of past murder looms, even as a second member of the household meets death. Is our heroine next? Add a dark hero, a motherless five-year-old, a self-professed witch, a couple of gay family connections, and a murderer or two, and, hopefully, we have all the ingredients of a classic Gothic novel.  

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Added June 25, 2013:

Yesterday, my daughter copied a photo to me that had been posted by the Portland Film Festival, asking if anyone could identify the people in the photo. She recognized it instantly, as she grew up with a large framed copy of the photo hanging on the wall of our house. It's an MGM studio portrait of its stars at the height of its glory, believed to be taken close to the end of WWII. I laboriously hand-copied the photo caption from our photo, typed it up, and posted it to the Film Festival. I'm enlarging the photo here so you can make your own identifications. (Hint: the older you are, the better.) Below the photo is my newly typed caption.

 The MGM caption is reproduced exactly as found, pasted beneath the famous photo:


M-G-M’s STUDIO BOSS MAYER AND HIS TOP TALENT

First row: Capt. James Stewart (on leave), Margaret Sullivan, Lucille Ball, Hedy Lamarr, Katherine Hepburn, Louis B. Mayer, Greer Garson, Irene Dunne, Susan Peters, Ginny Simms, Lionel Barrymore. Second row: Harry James (Betty Grable’s new husband), Brian Donlevy, Red Skelton, Mickey Rooney, William Powell, Wallace Beery, Spencer Tracy, Walter Pidgeon (with beard for Madame Curie role), Robert Taylor (with G.I. haircut for real life Navy role), Pierre Aumont, Lewis Stone, Gene Kelly, Jackie Jenkins. Third row: Tommy Dorsey, George Murphy, Jean Rogers, James Craig, Donna Reed, Van Johnson, Fay Bainter, Marsha Hunt, Ruth Hussey, Marjorie Main, Robert Benchley. Fourth row: Dame May Whitty (in costume for White Cliffs), Reginald Owen, Keenan Wynn, Diana Lewis (Bill Powell’s wife), Marilyn Maxwell, Esther Williams, Ann Richards, Martha Linden, Lee Bowman, Richard Carlson, Mary Astor.  Fifth row:  Blanche Ring, Sara Haden, Fay Holden, Bert Lahr, Frances Gifford, June Allyson, Richard Whorf, Frances Rafferty, Spring Byington, Connie Gilchrist, Gladys Cooper. Sixth row: Ben Blue, Chill Wills (in uniform for See Here, Private Hargrove), Keye Luke, Barry Nelson, Pfc. Desi Arnaz, Henry O’Neill, Bob Crosby, Rags Ragland.

Absent from this gilded gathering on camp tours or other assignments, were Lana Turner, Judy Garland, Charles Laughton, Laraine Day, Robert Young, Ann Sothern, Margaret O’Brien, Hubert Marshall and Robert Walker. In the armed forces are: Clark Gable, Robert Montgomery, Melvyn Douglas, Lew Ayres

 

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Thanks for stopping by.

Grace

For fuller descriptions and links to the above books, please see Blair's Books