strong heroines, adorable heroes
Who: 10 amazing historical romance authors–Joanna Bourne, Alyssa Cole, Isabel Cooper, Elizabeth Hoyt, Susanna Kearsley, Eva Leigh, Jeannie Lin, Molly O’Keefe, Deanna Raybourn, and yours truly!
What: A sweet party full of prizes! (Including a $50 Amazon gift card for one lucky guest!)
When: TODAY 6/8, 6-11PM Eastern time
Why: To celebrate our new releases, especially the Gambled Away anthology!
How: I don’t know, sometimes things just work out!!!
ETA: This giveaway is now closed. LSUReader won the gift basket, and Sherry, Meghan, Angela, Carolsue and Christina won the ebooks. Congratulations!
My new anthology Gambled Away is out today! To celebrate, I’m giving away 5 e-books and a lovely gift basket of items (basket not included)!
Pictured: Spokemodel T-Rex (not included) with select gift basket items.
Gambled Away is an anthology themed around one protagonist winning the other in a game of chance (my favorite trope!), with stories from Jeannie Lin, Molly O’Keefe, Isabel Cooper, Joanna Bourne, and of course, yours truly.
My new anthology with Jeannie Lin, Joanna Bourne, Molly O’Keefe, and Isabel Cooper is out today!!!
Okay so! I’m gonna talk about all the stories in this for a second. Because they are all SO SO GOOD OMG. It is honestly surreal to me to be doing an anthology with these authors. Wow. I have arrived. I am living the dream.
(The theme of the anthology, btw, is that one protagonist has to win the other at cards. My favorite trope!)
1. Mine. “All or Nothing.” This is my first self-published story and honestly I think I got a little drunk on it? This is a very personal, weird, nerdy little story about learning to be a grown-up with money, and setting boundaries in obsessive friendships, and kink, and how sometimes people won’t fucking shut up about kosher stuff when you’re Jewish and eating with them, and insecurity, and falling in love, and I hope you love it as much as I do. Also all the characters look like Nikita actors in my head (in particular the leads look like dreamboat couple Lyndsy Fonseca and Noah Bean), and every minor character in the first scene has a fannishly significant name. See how many you recognize!
Simon Radcliffe-Gould needs someone to run interference for him at his ex-boyfriend’s house party so he can actually design the garden folly he’s being paid to design, so he asks flashy gambling den hostess Maggie da Silva to pose as his mistress. I just love fake dating, what can I say?
2. “Liar’s Dice” by Jeannie Lin. OMG I could go on and on. Has Jeannie ever written anything ever that wasn’t note perfect? Be honest. The answer is no. This story is no exception and guess what, I have it on good authority that there will be MORE! more more more now plz. Okay. So Wei-wei is, in Jeannie’s words, “the straight A student who can do no wrong in her parents’ eyes, yet sneaks out of the house at night to meet up with her friends.“ Did I mention this story is linked to the Lotus Palace books? So Wei-wei sneaks out of the house dressed in one of Bai Huang’s discarded flamboyant Scarlet-Pimpernel robes to visit Ming-yu’s and Wu Kaifeng’s tea house, and while she’s out she runs into her brother’s disreputable associate Gao, who kind of reminds me of Han Solo except he doesn’t talk as much, and together they witness a murder! And then they have to investigate together and it is SO SO GOOD and Wei-wei is such a nerd and Gao is SO FUCKING INTO HER, there is this scene where she’s trying to explain to him about her favorite story where the hero and heroine turn into butterflies at the end, and he’s really trying to understand but he just can’t and OH MY GOD THEY ARE SO CUTE, GO READ IT NOW. GO. I’LL WAIT.
3. “Raising the Stakes” by Isabel Cooper. You may remember Isabel Cooper of Scottish Victorian dragon and also post-apocalyptic/Victorian time-travel My Fair Lady fame??? Yeah. So this story is set in 1930s California, and this tough-talking wisecracking two-bit con woman who’s sending money to the folks back home in Oklahoma wins a magic flute at poker, and now this magic elf has to do her bidding, so they decide to take down a crooked radio evangelist, and it is so so good. Sam is SO ADORABLE and she likes Cary Grant and her first instinct when faced with an immortal elf warrior is to buy him pancakes and I could just listen to her talk all day.
4. Molly O’Keefe’s “Redeemed.” If you like angsty stories about fucked-up, traumatized people who thought they could never love again BUT OH WAIT I GUESS THEY CAN, this is for you. Dr. James Madison (OH MY GOD STOP ASKING HIM, NO HE IS NOT NAMED AFTER THE PRESIDENT, JESUS, WHY DOES EVERYONE ASK THAT) is recovering from a chloroform addiction he developed because of his Civil War surgeon PTSD (he fought for the North, just FYI), and he’s living in a brothel, and then this creepy Confederate dude brings his weird creepy act through town where he makes this former Union spy girl sing in a big birdcage, and she’s weird and funny and desperate to escape and it turns out her handler is her abusive stepfather (sort of) who also has her addicted to morphine and laudanum, and Dr. Madison is like I’m no hero but THIS WILL NOT STAND, and they both claw their way towards being happy again, and it’s very beautiful. Also I hear that the hero is inspired by Val Kilmer’s Doc Holliday. IJS.
5. Joanna Bourne’s “Gideon in the Den of Thieves,” which is set entirely in Lazarus’s court which I know some of you are into (the heroine is a fence), and 13-year-old Hawker is there being Hawker but younger and slightly less good at his job (but already very good at his job), and honestly I feel like anything else I could say is just keeping you from your reading.
I’m taking part in a giant sale along with 40+ other historical romance authors this week: from May 22-28, you can get our books for $0.99!
Check out the site at http://historicalromancesale.wordpress.com and select your retail platform to see all the books. I’m discounting In for a Penny, my debut Regency about a charming wastrel who marries a Cit heiress and leaves his disreputable life (and friends!) behind to try and learn to manage his father’s ruined estate.
ETA: This contest is now closed.
So! In for a Penny, my debut book, is on sale for 99 cents this week along with over FORTY other historical romances.
Penny was heavily influenced by the Regency romances I was reading at the time (it’s kind of a retelling of Georgette Heyer’s A Civil Contract, and my very favorite Goodreads review EVER describes it as “a Georgette Heyer style historical romance but with sex & explicit fellatio”), so to celebrate, I’m giving away 7 formative romance from my personal library to 7 commenters!
HEYO!! My anthology with Molly O’Keefe, Jeannie Lin, Joanna Bourne and Isabel Cooper (on the theme of characters who are won (or lost) in games of chance) is available for preorder TODAY!
Get revenge. Pay a debt. Save a soul. Lose your heart.
Spanning centuries and continents, five brand-new novellas from beloved historical romance authors tell the stories of men and women who find themselves wagered in a game of chance and are forced to play for the highest stakes of all: love.
“Gideon and the Den of Thieves” by Joanna Bourne
London, 1793 – Soldier of fortune Gideon Gage has come home from halfway around the world, fully prepared to face down a ruthless gang to save his sister. But there’s one member of the gang he could never have been prepared for: fascinating Aimée, driven from her own home by the French Revolution and desperately in need of his help.
“Raising The Stakes” by Isabel Cooper
California, 1938 — When the flute she won in last night’s poker game unexpectedly summons an elven warrior bound to her service, two-bit con artist Sam takes quick advantage. With Talathan’s fairy powers at her command, her shakedown of a crooked preacher is a sure thing…but would she rather take a gamble on love?
“All or Nothing” by Rose Lerner
England, 1819 – Architect Simon Radcliffe-Gould needs someone to pose as his mistress so he can actually get some work done at a scandalous house party. Irrepressible gambling den hostess Maggie da Silva would rather be his mistress, but she’ll take what she can get…
“The Liar’s Dice” by Jeannie Lin
Tang Dynasty China, 849 A.D. — Lady Bai’s first taste of freedom brings her face to face with murder. A dangerous and enigmatic stranger becomes her closest ally as she investigates the crime, but can she trust her heart or her instincts when everyone is playing a game of liar’s dice?
“Redeemed” by Molly O’Keefe
Denver, 1868 — After agonizing years in the Civil War’s surgical tents, Union doctor James Madison has nothing left to lose. But when beautiful, tortured Helen Winters is the prize in a high-stakes game of poker, he goes all in to save her—and maybe his own soul.
Learn more: GambledAway.com
Read the first chapter of my story.
\o/\o/\o/ I am so proud of this story and this project! I can’t wait for you all to read it!!!
I have a blog post up at Risky Regencies today about eighteenth-century working-class poets!
There were actually a fair number of working class poets in eighteenth-century England, though their work has been excluded from the canon. A few of my personal favorites are:
1. Mary Collier. Wikipedia notes:
“She read Stephen Duck‘s The Thresher’s Labour (1730) and in response to his apparent disdain for labouring-class women, wrote the 246-line poem for which she is mainly remembered, The Woman’s Labour: an Epistle to Mr Stephen Duck. In this piece she catalogues the daily tasks of a working woman, both outside the home and, at the end of the day, within the home as well:
‘You sup, and go to Bed without delay,
And rest yourselves till the ensuing Day;
While we, alas! but little Sleep can have…'”
Come help Christy Carlyle celebrate the release of her third Avon Impulse novel, One Dangerous Desire! With a Facebook party full of readers, authors, and lots of prizes, we’re going to have fun. 🙂
As you can see, I’m hosting 8-8:20 Eastern time. I’ll be giving away 3 e-books so if you got Sweet Disorder free this week (if you haven’t yet, it’s not too late to pick it up along with eight other historical romances), this is your chance at the sequels!
(All times are EST)
7:00 – Author Christy Carlyle
7:20 – Darcy Burke
7:40 – Erica Monroe
8:00 – Rose Lerner
8:20 – Charis Michaels
8:40 – Ashlyn Macnamara
9:00 – Eileen Richards
9:20 – Lana Williams
9:40 – Christy Carlyle
HEYO!! Guess what?? This week me and SEVEN other authors are giving away FREE BOOKS!!!!
That’s right! Go here and get a direct download of any or all of the eight books pictured above, no muss no fuss!
I’m giving away Sweet Disorder, my Regency romance about a depressed veteran who’s trying to find a husband for a prickly widow to help his brother’s electoral campaign! The other books are:
Talk Sweetly to Me, by Courtney Milan. This book RULES. Black mathematician heroine, Irish advice columnist feminist hero, sexy astronomy, do you really need to know more??
Rise of a Queen, by Chanta Rand. Ghana, 1061 AD, she is a virgin widow who needs to be pregnant FAST, I am downloading the hell out of this!
Be Not Afraid by Alyssa Cole. Hamilton fans, you need this book! I haven’t read it (yet!) but Alyssa is magic so I know it’s great. The hero and heroine are both trying to win their freedom, but on opposite sides of the Revolutionary War!! I’ve heard Alyssa say it’s basically set offstage during “Guns and Ships,” OMG amazing, GET IT.
The Hidden Blade by Sherry Thomas. Late 19th century, biracial Chinese heroine trained in martial arts, traumatized English boy, their fates are linked, Sherry’s prose is the definition of lyrical, GO.
The Lawyer’s Luck by Piper Huguley. This story is so compelling, I could not put it down. Smart-mouthed enslaved heroine escaping to Canada, by-the-book lawyer hero riding circuit (despite being clueless about horses, it’s precious), he shoots her by mistake, they pretend to be married at one point IIRC, YES PLZ.
How to Catch a Wild Viscount by Tessa Dare. Looks like this is a prequel to the Wanton Dairymaid trilogy, how did I not know there was a prequel??? Looks like it’s a house party story about a hero with PTSD from the war and his childhood sweetheart and presumably an erotic novel about a wanton dairymaid!!
Star Dust by Emma Barry and Genevieve Turner. 1960s divorcee/astronaut romance????? SIGN ME UP!
The Gambled Away cover reveal is LIIIIIIVE! Come over to Heroes and Heartbreakers to ogle our beautiful cover and our jaw-dropping list of contributing authors (and confirm your guesses from yesterday)!!!