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Gambled Away

gideoncoin2So you know that anthology me and Molly O’Keefe have been teasing FOREVER?? Well it’s coming out on May 31 and tomorrow we reveal the cover at Heroes and Heartbreakers! It’s called Gambled Away:

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.

Tomorrow will also be the first time we officially reveal the full list of contributing authors. I’ve posted summaries of all the stories! Can you guess who the authors are and who wrote each story?? (Some of the summaries have pretty big clues in them, but some I think might stump you!)

Mini-stories: happy Purim!

Final story index:

#1: “Sukey and Toogood doing something super-domestic, and they get in a fight about how to do it, but then they have to make up”

#2:  “Sukey and Toogood at the end of a long day.”

#3: Ash and Rafe celebrating Purim

#4: “In for a Penny costume party” (mostly about Percy and Louisa)

#5: Mrs. Khaleel’s job interview at the vicarage

Hi all! It’s Purim, maybe the best holiday ever? The story of Purim was one of my favorite stories as a kid, I made my mom tell it to me all the time. Vashti and Esther are bosses and hamantaschen are delicious. So to celebrate, I’m writing mini-stories!

Give me a prompt, related to any of the characters or to the world of any of my books, and I will write you at least 100 words of fiction in response.

I will do as many as I can tomorrow and Saturday…after that all bets are off.

Go!

All or Nothing: Chapter One!

Well…we didn’t make it to Round 2 of the DABWAHA. But we were pretty darn close! (Like, 3 votes close.) So I’m not posting the first two chapters of my upcoming novella All or Nothing, but I AM posting just the first chapter early, as a thank you.

Chapter 1

London
June 1819

Simon Radcliffe-Gould didn’t even know why he kept coming back to this gaming hell.

Continue reading “All or Nothing: Chapter One!”

DABWAHA voting for True Pretenses is open NOW!

DABWAHA voting for True Pretenses is open NOW! (Until midnight Eastern time.)

It is neck and neck! I am TWO VOTES ahead right now. We could really do this!

Please vote! Please get your friends and housemates and family members and coworkers to vote!

Vote here: http://dabwaha.com/

glad feeling

Remember, if I get through this round, I will post the first two chapters of my upcoming novella All or Nothing, in which shy architect Simon Radcliffe-Gould asks irrepressible gambling den hostess Maggie da Silva to pose as his mistress so he can actually get some work done during his ex-boyfriend’s scandalous house party.

To motivate you, here are the first 500 words:

Continue reading “DABWAHA voting for True Pretenses is open NOW!”

Scholarly Re-covers 4: the DABWAHA Edition!

So way back in 2013 I noticed that Booklikes was using the wrong cover for Cecilia Grant’s A Gentleman Undone: a Polish-language scholarly book on medieval history with a distinctly scholarly-book cover. And then, a meme was born: re-cover romance novels to look like academic works. The rest is history.

You can see all past covers (by me and other authors) at this Pinterest board.

Today, to celebrate my DABWAHA nomination (don’t forget to vote for True Pretenses tomorrow, Friday the 18th, from noon to midnight Eastern time) I’ll be making covers for other books in the contest! Let me know if you’ve got requests. To start off, here are covers for arch-nemeses Theresa Romain and Jeannie Lin!

Continue reading “Scholarly Re-covers 4: the DABWAHA Edition!”

True Pretenses is in the DABWAHA!

So, y’all did it—True Pretenses made the Reader Nominated category in the DABWAHA!!!

True Pretenses wordswag graphic reading "He laughed a little. 'You have no idea how arousing I find the idea of you voting for me in the DABWAHA.'"

(The DABWAHA is like March Madness for romance novels. It’s awesome. Basically, you predict which books will win a reader vote in each bracket and then the person who comes closest to predicting the actual results wins.)

Don’t forget to fill out your bracket!

Voting for the first bracket will be on the DABWAHA site this Thursday and Friday (3/17-18).

The full schedule.

Here is what I will do for each round I make it through:

If I make it to Round 2, I will post the first two chapters of my upcoming novella, All or Nothing, about an architect who asks a gambling den hostess to pose as his mistress so he can actually get some work done during his ex-boyfriend’s scandalous house party.

If I make it to Round 3, I will post my school photos from grades K-8. If you think you might ever want to blackmail me I highly recommend you make sure I get to Round 3 because there is some great material in there.

If I make it to Round 4, I will livetweet the Paul Giamatti John Adams mini-series.

If I make it to Round 5 (the final four), I will record myself reading the Nick Is A Vampire And Phoebe Is A Dragon story.

If I make it to Round 6 (Championship round!), I will record my own episode of “Drunk History.” (Poll to choose topic!)

If I win…look, even coming up with something for that is jinxing myself. But it will be awesome, I promise!

Theresa Romain, ladies and gentlemen!

ETA: the giveaway is closed. Kim won!

Readers, thanks for visiting! Today, Theresa Romain and I are chatting about our recent historical romances. Mine is Listen to the Moon; hers is A Gentleman’s Game.

Theresa Romain author photoTheresa Romain is the author of a dozen historical romances, including the Romance of the Turf trilogy and the Royal Rewards series. She loves having coffee with friends, baking with her daughter, and reading (preferably alone). Please find her on Facebook or Twitter, and visit her website at http://theresaromain.com for free short stories and excerpts.

Theresa is the bomb, y’all! And someone I am deeply honored to have drunk blue Klingon drinks with.

This is part 2 of 2 of the conversation. You can find the beginning on Theresa’s blog here. And please stick around to comment, because we’re offering a book + snack giveaway on each site!

A little orientation before we start:

gentleman's game coverIn A Gentleman’s Game, when valuable racehorses fall ill before a rich stakes race, Nathaniel Chandler must work with his father’s mysterious new secretary, Rosalind Agate, to protect the horses and get them safely across England to Epsom. Along the road, Rosalind and Nathaniel fall for each other—but she’s keeping some secrets that will tear them apart. Read the first chapter here.

And in Listen to the Moon, John Toogood is a very starchy, very proper valet…who’s currently out of a job. Sukey Grimes is a maid-of-all-work with a big mouth and a mean boss. The local vicar is looking for a married couple to head his staff of servants….Read the first chapter here.

You may remember we were talking about the Romance of the Turf series and the other Chandler siblings’ books…

Continue reading “Theresa Romain, ladies and gentlemen!”

Riskies post: Box pews

I have a blog post up at Risky Regencies today about Anglican church layouts, seating, and box pews in the Regency.

I had never heard of box pews until I started writing the Lively St. Lemeston series! However, they were much more common in England during the Regency than bench-style pews. Wikipedia explains:

“Box pews provided privacy and allowed the family to sit together. In the 17th century they could include windows, curtains, tables and even fireplaces, and were treated as personal property that could be willed to legatees. Sometimes the paneling was so high it was difficult to see out, and the privacy was used as a cover for non-devotional activity….By the eighteenth century it became normal to install formal box pews instead of random personal constructions. This provided a more classic line to the church, although Sir Christopher Wren objected to pews in his churches. With the mid-19th century church reforms, box pews were generally swept away and replaced by bench pews. However a number of examples still remain in various churches throughout the United Kingdom.”

Note that part of the church reforms involved changing how clergymen were paid—fees from renting pews provided a good chunk of their salaries previously, so they resisted replacing them with more efficient seating.

Read the rest. (There are a lot more illustrations!)

Contest: Ever After Box coupon code

This contest is now closed. MaryG won the box.

sweet_tooth_product

You’ve heard about Jeannie Lin’s new brainchild, the Ever After Box, right? It’s a subscription box service for romance readers! As the website explains:

Ever After Box is a subscription box for romance readers that delivers great reads and romance community collectibles centered around a fun theme each month. Each box contains at least one book plus 3-5 gift items. Items include exclusive fan merchandise, bookmarks, cool product finds and more! All in a pretty box!

You can see what was in their first box here (the theme was coffee).

February’s theme is dessert, and anyone who’s read my books probably knows I love dessert. I teamed up with Elisabeth Lane from Cooking Up Romance to contribute something fun to the box, so Jeannie and her team are letting me give away one free box! I have a coupon code to give away to one lucky commenter.

Contest rules:

1. Comment on this post to enter.
2. The winner will be chosen at random using random.org.
3. US only.
4. Open for entries through February 18, 2016.
5. This is a single use code and will expire on Feb 23. It can be used to either get the SWEET TOOTH box free, OR to sign up for the monthly subscription and get the first box free.

If you’d like to be alerted when new contests go up, you can sign up for my newsletter.

Good luck!

Funny search terms: October 2015 – Jan 2016

These are all terms people searched for that somehow brought them to my site!

October

download romance novel sweet disorder by rose lerner [fuck you pirates is all I have to say about that. October was a sadly unfunny months for search terms!]

November

one special feature like thorn prickle in lilly
today hasband looking waif sex brighton [???]
petticoats that rustle
how many books has theresa romain written [9 not counting novellas, if I’m counting correctly]

December

short story on smell of sweet and sound of coins
forced to be lillie the maid by my wife
who is called as a rough diamond and must first be polished before he shines by dryden? [answer: chaucer; honestly dryden really embarrassed himself with that one]
turkey with pineapple recipe [I include this because I have no idea how this brought anyone to my site, I would NEVER cook that]

January

i never eat muscatel grapes meanimg [answer: it’s a quote from the count of monte cristo]
meaning of a man ain t nothing but a man [i get this one all the time! how many people are googling this and why??? it just means that a man ain’t nothing but a man, it’s not code!]
putting butter choclate on breasts kissng story [BUTTER CHOCOLATE????]