strong heroines, adorable heroes
This is a fan favorite—Jewish con artist from the slums tries to set up his brother with a small-town heiress who needs her dowry fast, but she likes him better—oops! Also there is Christmas and pretending to be in love…
“I loved everything about this book….Lerner writes with grace, style, and a sly, witty sensibility.” —New York Times bestselling author Courtney Milan
Or visit the True Pretenses book page to read the first chapter and learn more about the book.
I’m doing a giveaway for the paperback edition of True Pretenses. Check it out!
(US/Canada only, sorry readers who live elsewhere.)
Final story index:
#1: Toogood as a child at Tassell Hall.
#2: Rafe offscreen during True Pretenses.
#3: Jamie and Rafe and sheep-shearing.
#4: Imogen Makepeace buys a new dress.
#5: Little Rafe and Ash celebrate Passover.
#6: Ash tries to explain the scheduling of Ash Wednesday.
#7: Ash goes missing on Ash Wednesday.
#8: Little Ash and Rafe, SPOILERZZZZZZ.
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This is one of Ash’s favorite days of the year (Ash: “Rafe, it’s my day again!” Rafe: [groans] “That isn’t any funnier this year than it was last year, Ash.” Ash: [laughs and laughs]) and I wanted to do something to celebrate.
So give me a prompt, related to either of the Lively St. Lemeston books (Sweet Disorder and True Pretenses), and I will write you at least 100 words of fiction in response.
Open until midnight 2/18 (in your own time zone).
ETA: I’ve been asked what kind of prompts I’m looking for. I think what I was imagining was like, “I want to see tiny Rafe steal something,” etc., but if there’s another way you like to give prompts, I am open to whatever!
ETA2: I’m not sure I’ll get to any more of these today (Wednesday). They’re coming out a bit longer than I was expecting and I need to do some research for a few of them! This is so much fun, guys, thanks for loving these characters. All your prompts are awesome. Keep ’em coming, and I will work on them over the next few days. <3
I made an Ash/Lydia playlist for True Pretenses!
[image credit: “The flesh of hassaku fruit” by Froggieboy via Wikimedia Commons.]
When did you last let your heart decide?
The italicized songs are Ash, the bold are Lydia.
01 – Cry for Judas – Mountain Goats // 02 – Grown Woman – Beyoncé // 03 – The Crow – Dessa // 04 – Down to the Wire – Kris Delmhorst // 05 – A Ghost to Most – The Drive-by Truckers // 06 – A Whole New World – Aladdin // 07 – Treacherous – Taylor Swift // 08 – The Bargain Store – Dolly Parton // 09 – Wake Up – Ditty Bops // 10 – Do It Anyway – Ben Folds Five // 11 – Uptown Girl – Billy Joel
(OMG you guys if you have not seen the video of “Uptown Girl”…you need to. NOW.)
Readers, thanks for visiting! Today, Theresa Romain and I are chatting about our January historical romances, which both feature heiress heroines 
(mine: True Pretenses, and hers: Secrets of a Scandalous Heiress). But as we talked, we discovered many more things we wanted to talk about—everything from character casting to mall singers to “manflirting” as an aristocratic cultural marker.
This is part 2 of 2 of the chat. You can find the beginning on Theresa’s blog. And please stick around to comment, because we’re offering a book giveaway on each site!
When last you saw us on Theresa’s blog, Theresa was talking about the silly plans romance heroes make…
Continue reading “Welcome Theresa Romain and her awesome books!”
ETA: This contest is closed. Mary D. is the winner of the basket. The e-book winers are S2, Anita H., Lozza, Nancy Gilliland, and Taffygrrl. Congratulations, everyone!
True Pretenses comes out in just a few weeks! To celebrate, I’m giving away 5 e-books and a lovely gift basket of items, and this time, the basket is included. Only it’s not a literal basket…
Yes, the True Pretenses gift basket operates in a long con artist–fiction tradition of briefcases full of cash!
Continue reading “New contest: TRUE PRETENSES e-books, and a gift basket!”
So I have a tradition. Every time I release a book, I celebrate by posting a free short story based on a suggestion from a reader about the characters from my previous book. NB: All contain spoilers.
For In for a Penny, I wrote “Four Times Percy Garrett Didn’t Kiss [SPOILER REDACTED], and One Time He Did“.
For A Lily Among Thorns, I wrote “The way of a man with a maid“, about Deborah Hathaway’s first two weeks of marriage to Jonas…which do not go very smoothly.
For Sweet Disorder, I wrote “Poor child of Doubt and Death“, in which Nick is a vampire and Phoebe is a dragon and everything else is pretty much the same.
And now it’s time for me to take reader suggestions for a True Pretenses short story! This one will go up when the next Lively St. Lemeston book comes out. (Maybe next January with Listen to the Moon, but maybe sooner—I’m thinking about publishing a novella this summer…)
I’ll take suggestions of any kind, in any format, as detailed or vague as you like. What ifs, alternate universes, missing scenes, backstory, and future scenes are all fair game. Feel free to treat your comment like a mini-brainstorming session if you want!
You can see past suggestion posts here.
Legal stuff: by submitting a comment on this post, you permit Rose Lerner to develop your story idea without any expectation of financial compensation or remuneration. The resulting story will be available to readers free of charge.
Some suggestions to get the ball rolling:
1. Ash and Lydia are struck by lightning and swap bodies.
2. Ash and Rafe’s first Easter passing as Gentiles.
3. Lively St. Lemeston is a small but bustling space station and Ash is an intergalactic confidence trickster.
4. Jamie’s first Christmas vacation, home from Eton.
5. Mrs. Humphrey and Aunt Packham get locked in a cloakroom together at the Gooding Day Auction.
Comment section is SPOILER-FRIENDLY!
Announcing Con Movie Watchalong Wednesdays! A series of nine classic con films, hosted by the BFF (@Sonia_P_L) and me (@RoseLerner) on Twitter. Most of these are movies I haven’t seen and I’m super excited to discover them with you! We’ll be watching every other Wednesday starting September 17th and ending when my con artist book True Pretenses releases in January. We’ve staggered the times so hopefully folks on both coasts will have an opportunity to join in.
Watch the movies along with us and chat about them on Twitter using hashtag #cmwaw.
Schedule (summaries from imdb.com):
9/17/14, 3:30PM Pacific/6:30PM Eastern: “The Music Man” (1962). A con man comes to a Midwestern town with a scam using a boy’s marching band program, but things don’t go according to plan. Trailer
10/1/14, 6:30PM Pacific/9:30PM Eastern: “Catch Me If You Can” (2002), starring Leonardo DiCaprio and Tom Hanks. A true story about Frank Abagnale Jr., who, before his 19th birthday, successfully conned millions of dollars’ worth of checks as a Pan Am pilot, doctor, and legal prosecutor. Trailer
10/15/14, 3:30PM Pacific: “Anastasia” (1997), with the voices of Meg Ryan and John Cusack. The last surviving child of the Russian Royal Family hooks up with two con men to reunite with her grandmother, the Dowager Empress, while the undead Rasputin seeks her death. I feel like this is misleading because it doesn’t make it sound like a con! And also be prepared for me to rant a lot about the Romanovs. But whatever. The point is, DMITRI. I fell so hard for Dmitri when I saw this in theaters. That nose! Trailer
10/29, 6:30PM Pacific: “White Men Can’t Jump” (1992), starring Woody Harrelson, Wesley Snipes, and Rosie Perez. Black and white basketball hustlers join forces to double their chances. Trailer
11/12, 3:30PM Pacific: “The Rainmaker” (1956), starring Katherine Hepburn and Burt Lancaster. Lizzie Curry is on the verge of becoming a hopeless old maid. Her wit and intelligence and skills as a homemaker can’t make up for the fact that she’s just plain plain! Even the town sheriff, File, for whom she harbors a secrect yen, won’t take a chance—until the town suffers a drought and into the lives of Lizzie and her brothers and father comes one Bill Starbuck…profession: Rainmaker! Yes, please! Trailer
11/26 (Thanksgiving Wednesday!), 6:30PM Pacific: “The Grifters” (1990), a Martin Scorsese-produced thriller starring Anjelica Huston, John Cusack, and Annette Bening. A small-time conman has torn loyalties between his estranged mother and new girlfriend—both of whom are high-stakes grifters with their own angles to play. Trailer
12/10, 3:30PM Pacific: “Six Degrees of Separation” (1993), starring Will Smith, Stockard Channing, and Donald Sutherland. “An affluent New York couple find their lives touched, intruded upon, and compelled by a mysterious young black man who is never quite who he says he is.” Um, okay. Way to leave out the best part which is that Will Smith is passing himself off as Sidney Poitier’s son! Trailer
(One list that we used as a resource while planning this series remarked: “My high school staged a production of the play in which ‘Sidney Poiter’s son’ was played by a pale red head. Didn’t quite work.” I totally recommend reading the list. The compiler evaluates each movie based on the verisimilitude of the cons portrayed.)
12/24 (Christmas Eve!), 6:30PM Pacific: “The Brothers Bloom” (2008), starring Rachel Weisz, Mark Ruffalo, Adrian Brody, and Rinko Kikuchi. The Brothers Bloom are the best con men in the world, swindling millionaires with complex scenarios of lust and intrigue. Now they’ve decided to take on one last job—showing a beautiful and eccentric heiress the time of her life with a romantic adventure that takes them around the world.
This movie was the direct inspiration for True Pretenses because I loved it but I HATED the ending. I knew it was coming for the whole film, it was obviously the only thing that could happen, and I still desperately didn’t want it to happen. Trailer
And wrapping up on 1/14/15, 3:30PM Pacific with “The Sting” (1973), starring Paul Newman and Robert Redford. In 1930s Chicago, a young con man seeking revenge for his murdered partner teams up with a master of the big con to win a fortune from a criminal banker. I haven’t seen this but David Maurer, author of The Big Con (another book I drew on while writing Pretenses) sued Warner Brothers for $10 million dollars, claiming that they plagiarized his book in the screenplay. (Apparently the suit was settled out of court for $350k.) Trailer
EEEEE, the cover’s been finalized for True Pretenses (Lively St. Lemeston #2, coming in January 2015)!
I love it SO MUCH OMG OMG OMG. And doesn’t that guy remind you a little of David Duchovny?
Never steal a heart unless you can afford to lose your own.
Through sheer force of will, Ash Cohen raised himself and his younger brother from the London slums to become the best of confidence men. He’s heartbroken to learn Rafe wants out of the life, but determined to grant his brother his wish.
It seems simple: find a lonely, wealthy woman. If he can get her to fall in love with Rafe, his brother will be set. There’s just one problem—Ash can’t take his eyes off her.
Heiress Lydia Reeve is immediately drawn to the kind, unassuming stranger who asks to tour her family’s portrait gallery. And if she married, she could use the money from her dowry for her philanthropic schemes. The attraction seems mutual and oh so serendipitous—until she realizes Ash is determined to matchmake for his younger brother.
When Lydia’s passionate kiss puts Rafe’s future at risk, Ash is forced to reveal a terrible family secret. Rafe disappears, and Lydia asks Ash to marry her instead. Leaving Ash to wonder—did he choose the perfect woman for his brother, or for himself?
Warning: Contains secrets and pies.
I finished The Big Con by David Maurer, the book I was talking about in my last post. Look at these entries from the glossary:
The countess: Mrs. Maurer. Also the Raggle.
How sweet is that?? (“Raggle” is later defined as “an attractive young girl.”)
There was also this which, as a word origin geek, I thought was cool:
Gun moll. A thief-girl, especially a female pickpocket. The term has no connection with guns or with killing—as is sometimes suggested in the newspapers—but comes from Yiddish gonif, thief.
