O'Rourke's Heiress

Can the daughter of a jumped-up tradesman find happiness with a handsome and charming viscount, or does her destiny lie elsewhere? Perhaps with a man who isn't trying to kill her?



Because the Dartmoor scene used for the cover of O'Rourke's Heiress was so idyllic, my cover artists sent it to me separately so I could share it.

WARNING! O'Rourke's Heiress contains major spoilers for The Sometime Bride and Tarleton's Wife. I strongly recommend you read both those books before Heiress, which contains characters from each.

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If you've ever wondered what happened to the young men and women who married to suit their parents (as classic fictional heros and heroines never seem to), O'Rourke's Heiress is one example of "What if?" After all, I think most of us would agree we don't always get it right the first time around, and there should be a place in Romance for those who mess up - big time!

Cover blurb for O'Rourke's Heiress:

Although Terence O'Rourke would never admit it, he loves Beth Brockman. Beth, daughter of Tobias Brockman, the Merchant Midas, has loved her foster brother, Terence, for all seventeen years of her life. Both are bastards. Both owe everything to Tobias, who has one simple goal beyond making money: he wants his only child to marry a title.

Beth's protests are ignored as Terence sacrifices his own desires so she can marry the heir to an earldom. But disillusionment begins on Beth's wedding night. She is no longer a pampered princess. Her husband is master of her fate, her money, her person, her life. He can love her, starve her, beat her, sleep with as many women as he likes. He can abandon her . . . even kill her. And live happily ever after on her munificent dowry.

Occasionally, Beth sees flashes of the charming gentleman she thought she married. As a bitter winter on Dartmoor turns to spring, she struggles to make her marriage work. But events begin to suggest her husband is a madman or a murderer. Perhaps both.

Prior to Beth's wedding, Tobias Brockman sent Terence to Louisiana, where he assuages his anguish over Beth's marriage in the arms of an ambitious Creole, who clings to him all the way back to London. Where Terence discovers his "sacrifice" was in vain—his beloved Beth has suffered beatings by her husband, topped by a series of inexplicable accidents. A dash to Dartmoor reveals that the lovely, innocent young girl Terence once knew is totally disillusioned, determined never again to allow love into her life. Terence keeps trying, but their past mistakes continue to haunt them. Happily Ever After seems impossible for this pair of star-crossed lovers, but sometimes Fate does the strangest things . . .

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Next blog: The recipe for Coronation Chicken prepared for a luncheon prior to Queen Elizabeth's coronation way back when.

Thanks for stopping by!

Love At Your Own Risk

Love At Your Own Risk was my first print novel, part of Kensington's Precious Gem line way back in August 2000. The name, however, was changed to what I considered the overused generic, He Said, She Said. Why? Because the Marketing Department considered "risk" a no-no, a word that would put readers off. Sigh. Other editorial changes have also been put back to the original. For example, my line, "He had lips that looked like they never smiled" was changed to, "He had kissable lips." Aargh!

In any event, Love At Your Own Risk, is now available online from Kindle and Smashwords and should be available soon for Nook, Sony, Palm, and other e-readers. Blurb below.

Love At Your Own Risk

After winning a case she wished she'd lost (the defendant was a rapist), defense attorney Victoria Kent rushes off to her parents' vacation cottage on Cape Cod, only to find herself nose-to-nose with a 9mm Glock. It seems the cottage is rented. By John Paolillo, a homicide detective from New Haven who has been sentenced to two weeks' "rest" after hitting a defense attorney.

John offers to share—after all, the cottage has a separate basement apartment. Reluctantly, Vicki agrees. Alas, John has another problem—his car died. Inevitably, they end up exploring the outer Cape together and manage to fool themselves into thinking people with diametrically opposite views of the law can become a couple. Their relationship even survives a surprise visit from Vicki's alleged fiancé. But when they leave Cape Cod's less well-known byways to walk the teeming streets of Provincetown, disaster strikes.

Vicki rushes back to Boston. John returns to New Haven. They've reached a no hope situation. Unless some wise soul can find a way past the basic conflict that has split them apart.

Grace Note: My love of Cape Cod inspired this classic romance with the outer Cape as the most important secondary character. Hopefully, Love At Your Own Risk will inspire you to visit this very special place where the Pilgrims first set foot on our continent. And, yes, First Encounter Beach is included in the story.

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Coming next: Reflections on Thanksgiving

Thanks for stopping by. Grace

The Sometime Bride

After two months of re-editing and formatting, all 144,763 words of The Sometime Bride are making their debut on Kindle and Smashwords (with Nook, Sony, Palm, & other e-readers in the near future). This is the book where I inadvertently broke all the rules of romance. But when I read it again, more than 15 years after I wrote it and 11 years since its first publication, I discovered The Sometime Bride still qualified as the best book I ever wrote. You can read 20% for free on Smashwords (link below), and I'd love to hear what you think. Does my rule-breaking offend? Or perhaps it isn't really noticeable? Or does it possibly add to the book's appeal?




Catherine Audley, the daughter of Britain's spymaster on the Iberian Peninsula, is far more sophisticated than most young women her age, which doesn't protect her from the machinations of her father, a husband of convenience, or the unrelenting demands of a long war. Over seven years of a first-hand, and highly personal, view of the Peninsular War, she matures into a woman who is finally able to go toe-to-toe with the enigmatic young man to whom she has given years of unquestioning devotion. Only to discover that love cannot compensate for betrayal of trust. Or can it?

While masquerading as an ox-cart driver, the young Englishman known as Blas the Bastard meets Catherine Audley, and his life is changed forever. It is 1807 and France is about to invade Portugal. To protect Cat's father, his gaming establishment in Lisbon, and the British spy network on the Peninsula, Blas proposes a "paper" marriage between himself and young Catherine. She is fourteen; he, twenty-one—both too young for the responsibilities they must assume. Blas is arrogant, dashing, occasionally reckless, totally bound up in the demands of the war, and oblivious to the looming disastrous conflict with his sometime wife.

When Cat finally discovers how badly Blas has deceived her, a monumental clash is inevitable. In no way does the triumph of allied troops in 1814 guarantee a happy ending for two people for whom the war was a personal disaster. Is she a sometime bride, the "widow" of a man who never existed? Is she Blas's well-rewarded, but discarded mistress? Or is she a beloved wife whose only rival is her husband's determined expediency in a time of war?

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The Sometime Bride is both an Historical Romance and a heavily researched Historical novel, detailing the seven years of the Peninsular War as seen through the eyes of our young hero and heroine. And of course it has an Epilogue about that most famous battle of all, Waterloo.

Below are the links to The Sometime Bride at Kindle and Smashwords. The Smashword's link allows a 20% free read.

http://www.smashwords.com/books/view/100234


http://www.amazon.com/The-Sometime-Bride-ebook/dp/B0060ZHODK/ref=sr_1_1?s=digital-text&ie=UTF8&qid=1320159903&sr=1-1


Coming soon: my novella, Mistletoe Moment - due out November 10 from the Cotillion line of Ellora's Cave

Grace, who writes as Blair Bancrft

More on RULES FOR ROMANCE

Inspiration for this blog:
The Sometime Bride, written c. 1993, e-published in 2000 by Starlight Writer Publications, soon to be uploaded to Kindle, Smashwords, Nook, Sony, Palm, etc.


As I plowed my way through The Sometime Bride, re-editing all 144,763 words of it, I made a mental list of things I now know not to do when writing a book. But the only things I actually changed were places where experience has given me a better insight into sentence structure. For example, making occasional sentences more active. I left all the other horrible beginner’s “mistakes”exactly as they were.

Why?

Because it’s still the best book I ever wrote.

What did I do “wrong”?

I wrote in the style of the books I had been reading for the previous forty years, not in the style dictated by romance how-to books (which I didn’t know existed).

The Sometime Bride is too long.

The heroine is too young.

Bride is too historical - it even offers historical news bulletins!

The hero and heroine are separated for long periods of time.

The hero and heroine have separate adventures.

Just about everybody has a point of view, which inevitably leads to head-hopping.

The hero commits adultery in the first few pages.

The hero takes the heroine to an herbalist for birth control information.

Foreign languages—Portuguese, Spanish & French—are not translated.

The expediency of war kicks romance to the gutter.


It’s still the best book I ever wrote - the true book of my heart.


I’m sure I’ve failed to mention other broken romance rules, but you get the idea. Bride is a long and challenging read. It’s also fun and fascinating, as we watch a young girl become a woman during the course of the Peninsular War. Cover & blurb will be featured on my next blog.

I hope to have The Sometime Bride ready for upload shortly after I get back from an RWA conference in St. Augustine. If I don’t get lost on the Ghost Tour!

Until then, enjoy the lovely month of October.

Rules for Romance?

SHOULD ROMANCE NOVELS HAVE RULES?

I started re-editing my very first book yesterday, and all the questions and doubts I’ve had about “rules” for romance came crashing back at me. I wrote The Sometime Bride when I knew nothing about rules. When I thought I was the only romance author on the Florida Gulf Coast. Beyond page numbering and double spacing, which I’d learned from typing manuscripts for my mother, a children’s book author, I knew nothing.

And yet, The Sometime Bride is the best book I ever wrote. Where did I learn, besides hearing about writing at my mother’s knee? I learned by reading, which is still the best writer’s primer around. And I learned from the disastrous novels I’d tried to write while my children were young. I simply couldn’t do it. (And I have great admiration for those who manage it!) They were so bad that even my loving mother suggested I might not be cut out to be an author. (And what a glorious moment a number of years later when she said, “You’re better than I ever was.”

And the book that followed, Tarleton’s Wife (with its own set of broken rules), is the second best book I ever wrote. After that . . . after that I began learning the “rules.” Not just by joining RWA, but by the harder lesson of Ballantine telling me they’d be interested in The Sometime Bride if the heroine age wasn’t fourteen. I refused (putting paid to a possibly glorious career), and I refused the same request from an e-publisher more than a decade later. I simply couldn’t do it. My heroine was who she was, a girl of fourteen who grows into a woman of twenty-one over the course of the Peninsular War.

Who published The Sometime Bride? In the early days of e-publishing a newly formed company, Starlight Writer Publications, requested Tarleton’s Wife, evidently after one of the editors read it as a contest judge. They also published Bride, not caring that it was 1) too long; 2) too historical; 3) a bit too literate; that 4) the heroine was fourteen; 5) there were too many POVs; 6) a touch of adultery; 7) head-hopping; and, oh yes, 8) continent hopping. Whatever heinous rule you can name, I broke it.

The Sometime Bride is still the best book I ever wrote. (Talk about the Book of my Heart!) But e-publishers have gone soft now. Who can blame them in this economy? No more chances on novels outside the box. No tolerance for anything but “He said, She said.” Just the romance, ma’am. That’s all we want. Told as simply as possible, but beef up the sex.

Yet the most amazing thing happened recently. A little book, set in the twelfth century, whose only recognition was a nomination for an Eppie, the “Oscar” of the e-book industry, suddenly blossomed when I changed its name and uploaded it to Kindle & Smashwords, being careful to list it under Historical as well as Historical Romance. The Captive Heiress has soared to #1 in two Kindle categories. It trails only The Temporary Earl as the most-downloaded of my nine indie-pubbed books. A true historical with many real characters. Heroine age nine at the beginning. No sex. Wow!

Encouraged by the sales of The Captive Heiress, I began re-editing The Sometime Bride for indie pub. Except I’m scarcely changing a word. It’s historical, it’s Regency, but a classic Regency Historical it’s defintely not. I simply shake my head as I read it and think, “Did I actually write that?” I hope to have it ready for upload as soon as I receive the cover art, promised for October. But it will still be the same book I wrote before I learned the rules, the book that works the way I wrote it. And would be ruined by imposing “rules” on it.

Career-wise, I sometimes wonder what would have happened if I’d gone along with Ballantine’s request so many years ago. Who knows, I might be famous. And wealthy. But The Sometime Bride wouldn’t be the book I wrote way back in the early 90s. Did I cut off my nose to spite my face, as the saying goes? Very likely. And yet as I read it now, I know I was right. This is the way it was in Lisbon, London, and Paris from 1807 to 1815. And I thank indie publishing for giving me the opportunity to once again present Bride in its uncut, unadulterated form.

Your comments on your own experiences with—or opinions of—the “rules of romance” are greatly encouraged.

Grace

My books can be found on Kindle, Smashwords, Nook, Sony, Palm, and other e-readers. Please look for books by Blair Bancroft.

SHADOWED PARADISE

When Claire Langdon’s affluent, near-fairytale life in New York is shattered by scandal, she and her eight-year-old son Jamie take refuge with her grandmother in Florida. Once a bright, confident young woman, Claire has been so badly hurt that when she stumbles onto a genuine downhome hero, learning to trust, to love again, seem beyond her reach. She is also forced to deal with the discovery that there are more serious dangers in Florida than alligators, snakes, spiders, and macho males. Like a serial killer, with her name on his list.

Brad Blue is the son of a Russian defector (from Cold War days); his mother, the daughter of one of Florida’s wealthiest cattle barons. (And, yes, Florida is the largest cattle-producing state east of the Mississippi.) Still under forty, Brad is retired from one of Uncle Sam’s many secretive “alphabet” agencies. He’s tough and lonely and more than ready to settle down to family life, but convincing Claire Langdon to marry him is one of his most difficult assignments. Almost as difficult as discovering the identity of the killer who is stalking female real estate agents in Calusa County, Florida.

From the moment Claire and Brad meet in the midst of a flooded bridge, cultural shock wars with romantic attraction. On top of that, they both have pasts that don’t bear close scrutiny. But when Brad offers Claire the job of “sitting” one of his model homes out back of beyond, she accepts. Which is just fine with the killer.

The killer plays a prominent, if anonymous, role throughout the book, gloating over his kills, attempting to justify them. And finally meeting Claire, face to face.

Reviews:

“Marvelously versatile, wondrously creative, intelligently written and sensuously inventive, Bancroft’s Shadowed Paradise adds new meaning to the term ‘romantic suspense.’ . . .as fresh as tomorrow and seriously scary. I loved it.”
Celia Merenyi, A Romance Review

“Shadowed Paradise contains all the elements I so enjoy in a book, excellent dialogue, great character development and fine descriptive scenes. The romance is steamy, the suspense is taut and exciting, and the result is a supremely satisfying, well-developed read, guaranteed to keep you glued throughout.”
Astrid Kinn, Romance Reviews Today

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Grace Note: Shadowed Paradise is the first of my Romantic Suspense backlist to be uploaded to Kindle, Smashwords, Nook, Sony, and other e-readers. The sequel, Paradise Burning, should follow by the end of August. And please remember that free reads of 20% of each of my books is available at Smashwords. www.smashwords.com

Thanks for stopping by!

Grace, who writes as Blair Bancroft

Alecyn de Beauclaire, an orphaned heiress, is taken captive at age nine by the Earl of Rocheford who wants to enjoy the income from her estates. Her first friend in the strange new world at Castle Rocheford is Ranulf Mort à Mer, a descendant of Vikings and a penniless squire with no hope of ever being able to afford a horse and armor so he can become a knight. As the years go by, their friendship is unwavering, even when tested by the preaching of monks who declare that all women are evil and should be shunned.

When Alecyn is almost fourteen (a marriageable age in Medieval times) King Henry II makes Alecyn his ward. She is thrilled because she knows the king will want to keep her money for himself and, therefore, will not marry her off for several more years. Perhaps there is still time for Ranulf to become a knight and distinguish himself in battle.

In her position as companion/entertainer to the royal children and songstress to the royal court, Alecyn learns not only the epic romance of chivalry, but the dark side of romance as she witnesses the love/hate relationship between the king and queen. Ranulf, meanwhile, learns to fight side by side with a new friend, William Marshall. But even Ranulf’s eventual elevation to knighthood is not sufficient to qualify for the hand of an heiress to four fine estates.

Until, one day, Queen Eleanor goes for a hunt on her lands in the Aquitaine, and Ranulf and his friend, William Marshall, are among her escorts. Perhaps, just perhaps, if the three young people survive captivity by Eleanor’s rebellious knights, they may have a future after all. But which young knight will King Henry choose for Alecyn?

Special Note:

The Captive Heiress was written as a painless way for people from nine to ninety to learn about Medieval times, particularly the tumultuous twelfth century. In addition to a look at the dramatic lives of King Henry and Eleanor, readers will catch a glimpse of the early days of their many children, including Richard and John who became famous through the Robin Hood legend. Another very important character is William Marshall, often called the greatest knight who ever lived. Please see the “Whatever Happened to . . .” section at the back of the book for the rest of the story of the many real characters in The Captive Heiress.

Warning: marriages were often contracted at birth, and girls commonly married at age fourteen, so modern sensibilities need to be set aside. This is the way it was.

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My 8-year-old guest blogger - in a move reminiscent of some of her older counterparts! - has not yet finished her blog entry, so here's my latest DIY pub entry. (Some of you may remember the original, Roses in the Mist.) The Captive Heiress is available on Amazon's Kindle and in various formats on Smashwords. It should be available directly from Nook and Sony in the near future. Coming in late August: Shadowed Paradise & Paradise Burning, both contemporary romantic suspense from my backlist.

Thanks for stopping by. Hopefully, young Hailey's tale will be available soon . . .

Grace

A Season for Love

What a long time for Blogspot to be down! I think Florida must have been on the bottom of the list to be restored. A Season for Love went up on Smashwords and Kindle nearly two weeks ago, and this is the first day I've been able to post. In other news, I've submitted Mistletoe Magic, a novella destined for an EC Cotillion Christmas anthology. As my first effort of less than 50,000 words, it was an interesting experience. And surprisingly satisfying for such a simple tale.

Below please find the lovely cover created by Delle Jacobs and a blurb for A Season for Love. The original Signet blurb failed to indicate this is a double love story. I hope I've managed to rectify that omission. Please tell me what you think.




The Duke of Longville, in need of an heir, is about to take a second wife—a sturdy young widow who followed the drum during Britain’s campaigns on the Peninsula and has proved her fertility by producing a child. But two weeks before the wedding, his long-estranged daughter arrives on his doorstep with a shocking announcement that tumbles all their lives into confusion.

The widowed Lady Eugenia Wharton, almost as strong-willed as her betrothed, has no illusions about why the Duke of Longville wishes to marry her. Unfortunately, that has not kept her from falling in love with him. Their future is destined for some memorable clashes, as she challenges his conviction that he is always right.

The duke’s daughter, Lady Caroline Carlington, has been raised in a home with egalitarian leanings. She does not want to make her come-out in London society, she does not approve of the ton, and she most particularly does not want a step-mother. And then one night in the duke’s bookroom, she meets exactly the type of useless nobleman she most abhors, a charming fribble named Anthony Norville. Caroline is startled by a sudden, if reluctant, attraction—until she discovers he is the brother of the woman who is about to become her despised step-mother. Which would make Tony Norville her uncle!

Anthony Norville, Viscount Frayne, is heir to an earldom. Resenting his father keeping him from the fight against Napoleon, he has retreated behind a façade of airy charm. Until he is caught in the conflict between Lady Caroline and his sister, and the side effects of the war reach London, forcing him to discover new depths within himself.

It takes riot, ransom, and considerable mental readjustment before both pairs of Regency lovers are reconciled against the unrest in London at the time of Waterloo.

Review:

“In a delightful dance worthy of any Regency Ball, Ms. Bancroft interweaves her characters into one fresh and cohesive romance, letting each find their desires in an effortlessly smooth narrative. . . . Blair Bancroft has captured the Regency and has a firm grasp on its nuances and idiosyncrasies.” Celia Merenyi, A Romance Review

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Coming soon: Part 2 of Writing 101 - Nuts & Bolts

Thanks for stopping by!

Grace

A Gamble on Love

I absolutely love the look on the heroine's face, above. She perfectly fits the daring, if desperate, young heroine in A Gamble on Love, previously published as The Lady and the Cit. When Delle Jacobs found this image, I liked it so much that I changed Miss Amelia's Trevor's hair color to match! I also tweaked a number of other things, including adding a definition of "Cit," as I hope the indie versions of my Regency novels will appeal to an audience broader than our loyal Regency aficionados.

Interesting sidenote: I uploaded Gamble on Wednesday, April 27, but soon discovered we indie authors may have been too enthusiastic about our brave new world. When I uploaded Lady Silence to Smashwords, I was #12 in line for being "smashed"; i. e., translated to various e-formats. Last Wednesday, to my horror, I was told Gamble was #3026! So it may take a while before it pops up on the Smashwords list. However, on Friday night I got "the call" from Kindle (via e-mail, of course). A Gamble on Love had made it to the Kindle store. Yay, hurray, two Regencies down and four more to go.

Below is the blurb for A Gamble on Love. The reviews are for the February 2005 Signet publication of The Lady and the Cit.

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Miss Aurelia Trevor has a problem. Until she reaches the age of twenty-five, she will have no control over her beloved Pevensey Park, and by that time her unscrupulous uncle will have run the property into the ground. Marriage to someone other than her uncle’s leering son is her only way out, but, one by one, she rejects the men on her list of suitors. In desperation, Aurelia does the unthinkable. She hires a solicitor to find her a husband strong enough to stand up to both her uncle and her cousin. And soon learns the truth of that old adage: Be careful what you wish for.

Thomas Lanning is a man of City. Unlike Aurelia, who stands to inherit vast land and wealth, he has made his own place in the world. He is not at all tempted by the suggestion of marriage to an heiress, but other considerations, such as a power base for a seat in Parliament, tweak his interest. Plus an unexpected twinge of chivalry when he hears the full extent of Miss Trevor’s difficulties with her uncle and his family.

Aurelia, who only wants to live in peace on her acres, finds she has acquired a ready-made family in Thomas’s younger sister and brother, as well as a head-strong husband whose campagin for MP fills her household with a shockingly odd assortment of characters. It seems her marriage of convenience is fast becoming a marriage of inconvenience. Just how far will this strong- willed pair bend to accommodate each other? And will they do it before it’s too late?

Reviews:

“Blair Bancroft’s warm and tender [novel] boasts a great heroine in Aurelia: She’s attractive, courageous, vulnerable and intelligent.” Robin Taylor, Romantic Times

“Reading how they gradually learn to like and eventually love each other is wonderful. Blair Bancroft is now definitely one of my favorite traditional Regency authors and this book is a prime example of why.” Nicole Hulst, Romance Junkies

“Set against a backdrop of rural politics (and a fascinating look at the early world of “buying” votes) this is a story that entrances, enlightens and endears.” Celia at A Romance Review

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Thanks so much for stopping by. A recent spate of contest-judging has led me to a blog next week I'm thinking of titling, "Writing 101." Come on back.

Grace