Here I am, a week before the release of Dangerous in Diamonds, all excited that this book will be in the hands of readers soon! I love this book. My editor loves this book. My publisher loves this book. Will every reader love it? Probably not, because that never happens. However, I had a wonderful time writing this story and bringing two of my most distinctive characters together.
Readers of The Rarest Blooms stories have met both Daphne Joyes and Tristan, Duke of Castleford throughout the series. Daphne is composed, collected, and a bit hard to read as a personality. The other women defer to her and depend on her, but there have also been hints regarding the mysteries that she has been hiding.
And Castleford—well, what can I say? He arrived in Ravishing in Red the way many of my favorite characters do, unexpectedly. He was a bad boy from the start, bad enough that I received a few emails complaining about his behavior. As the series continued, we came to know more about him. He may be an unrepentant hedonist, but, as one reader told me, he has a surprising heart of gold, and he rises out of his perpetual ennui to meddle in friends’ lives for the best of reasons. That he is arrogant in assuming everyone won’t mind when he does, and that his motivations also include relief at having something not bore him—well, that is what makes Castleford who he is.
Of course I had to put these two together! Castleford delights in finding ways to shatter Daphne’s ice queen composure, and Daphne inevitably will bring Castleford to his knees. Along the way there will be discoveries about both of them, humor and action. I promise readers that Castleford remains Castleford through it all. Does he reform? Well, partly, but a man partly reformed is a man still half bad.
I am busy starting my next series, but as April 26 approaches, my mind is much on The Rarest Blooms and all these characters with whom I have been living for several years. I firmly believe that as a writer I need to keep moving on, but in this case I am taking a few days to fondly look back too. I hope that you will give the series, and Dangerous in Diamond a try.
Madeline
The big news is that Sinful in Satin stayed on the NYTimes list for 4 weeks. This is a first for me, so it was very exciting. I really appreciate all the notes and emails that readers and booksellers have sent to me about the book, and the series.
I have now completed Dangerous in Diamonds, the fourth book in The Rarest Blooms series, and will get an excerpt up as soon as it gets the final seal of approval from my publisher. The Duke of Castleford was a lot of fun to write about, and I think that the story reflects the same man that readers have met in the prior stories. Even when we go into his head in this one, he still has that very individual way of looking at the world, and the story ended up with a lot of humor as a result. I have had a few readers express some regrets that Castleford will have to reform in order for his book to end in Happily Ever After for the heroine, which says something about how much some readers have enjoyed his incorrigible behavior. I promise you that while he slowly realizes Daphne is worth a few sacrifices, he intends to be at least half bad forever.
So now I am planning the next book (s). This is always exciting for me too. It is world building time because I will be starting a new series. I promise that I did not leave characters hanging from the last one. By the time Dangerous in Diamonds ends we know what happens with Katherine and the marquess (not together, though). As much as I loved The Rarest Blooms series, and all these characters, it is time to meet some new ones. They are forming even as I write this, and I will post another note once everything has fallen into place. In the meantime I get to play with ideas, and also clean my office which, during this series, with its fairly quick succession of deadlines, has become a disaster. I may even find some time to get back on Twitter!
Madeline
It was a very busy summer for me, with lots of travel and some quality family time. I started by spending a week helping a relative who had surgery. Then my husband and I took a vacation together— a “I can’t believe it was discounted that much” cruise of the Baltic, where we visited St. Petersburg, Stockholm, Copenhagen, and Helsinki. The RWA conference in Orlando came quickly on the heels of that, and suddenly the end of summer seemed to be around the corner! Which meant that my next book was around the corner too.
Sinful in Satin is the third book in The Rarest Blooms series, and its publication date is September 28. This story takes place mostly in London, where Celia, upon the death of her mother, the courtesan Alessandra Northrope, strikes out on her own, to build a life for herself after five years living in the country with Daphne Joyes. Her mother has not left her much, due to debts, but there is a modest house in a middle class neighborhood that might be spared from the creditors. Celia takes residence there, and plans her future.
To her shock, she learns that she will not be living alone. She has inherited a tenant along with the house. It is Jonathan Albrighton (whom readers of Provocative in Pearls briefly met.) Jonathan, the bastard son of an earl, has served the Home Office as an agent for a number of years, and even with the war being over he is still given the occasional mission. Now he is on a minor one—to discover if Alessandra left records of her patrons. If so, people in power would like them destroyed, because there had been a rumor that Alessandra passed pillow talk to a French spy during the war, and no man of society wants anyone suspecting that he might have been an unwitting accomplice. Jonathan has his own reasons for wanting to learn the truth about Alessandra, and soon has his own reasons for wanting to remain very close to Celia too.
From the moment they see each other one night, there is electricity between these two outsiders. Celia, trained to follow her mother’s path, and to see sensuality as a means to an end, finds herself wanting only one man, but knows an alliance with Jonathan would be impractical in the extreme. Jonathan, whose soul has been darkened by fate and experience, first wants Celia, then needs her, as she begins to illuminate his life. And all the while, as their attraction creates first tension, then eroticism, and finally love, their histories and the world’s expectations for them keep interfering.
Even as this book goes on sale, I will be finishing up the next story in the series. Dangerous in Diamonds is slated for publication in May of 2011. It is time for Castleford to get his comeuppance, and who better than the cool, composed Daphne Joyes to bring him to his knees? On the other hand, Daphne discovers that maintaining her reserve and poise is very difficult when Castleford casts his eye her way. Right now in the manuscript she is finding him a dangerous attraction, and his pursuit of her overwhelming.
In other news, I will be doing a little blog tour with Sinful in Satin’s release, and the information can be found on my appearances page. I will probably get my web site redesigned in the next few months too. And I am proud to be a part of The Penguin Group’s campaign to raise awareness of The Breast Cancer Research Foundation during the month of October, as they launch their Read Pink campaign. I will post information about that in the next week or so.
I am reviving my snail mailings to fans who want to receive them. If you want to be on that list, send your mailing address in a message to me via the link on my contacts page.
Madeline
