Friday 22 November 2019

A Practical Arrangement

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It is a very strange feeling, approaching the end of a series. Part of me is delighted to be bringing the overall story to a satisfying conclusion. Part of me is looking forward to moving on to something new. Part of me is feeling just the teeniest bit bereft.

I have had the characters from the Furze House Irregulars in my head for two years now. Some of them - like Verity and Charles from A Rational Proposal - were very real to me right from the start. Others - like Ned from A Scholarly Application - didn’t exist at all until I began to write his story. The rest developed over the course of the books. One of the joys of writing this series has been the space it has given me to find out about all these people, to let them grow and deepen in character, to let them surprise me and take on a life of their own.

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The fourth and final book, A Practical Arrangement, will be out on New Year’s Day 2020, making it two years exactly from the start to the finish of the series. I’m going to miss them all.


When Benedict Fitzgilbert’s sister’s absence from London exposes him to society husband-hunters, Lilith suggests an assumed interest in her friend Julia Congreve as a practical arrangement to keep the Marriage Mart matriarchs off his back. But beautiful Julia is the epitome of a society butterfly, and Benedict is far too focused on hunting for the criminal mastermind ‘Flint’ to waste time on a masquerade.

Unfortunately, it seems the only way to distract Flint from the net closing in around him is to make Julia’s and Benedict’s attraction appear real.

The Furze House Irregulars: women of spirit, women of courage, women who don't see why, in this male-dominated Regency era, they should not also play their part in bringing wrong-doers to justice.
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Friday 19 April 2019

Jane Dixon-Smith

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My cover designer - the fabulously talented Jane Dixon-Smith - is on the Romantic Novelists' Association blog today talking about her work .

Read the interview here
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Wednesday 6 March 2019

A Scholarly Application

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I am very pleased to let you know A Scholarly Application - the third in the Furze House Irregulars series - is now up on Amazon, ready to be delivered to your Kindle on April 18th.

This third book was something of a challenge. After A Rational Proposal and A Respectable House, I knew the world of the series well, and was comfortable with all four of my heroines. I also knew three of my heroes reasonably intimately. But I had no idea at all about Lilith's Edward. Absolutely none. He was simply a name on the page. Terrifying. It wasn't until I came across a photo of David Bowie looking endearingly scruffy, with a blond fringe falling over his eyes, that I suddenly 'saw' Ned Makepeace and knew what made him tick.

Relief all round. I do hope you enjoy the result.



A Scholarly Application:

Society bluestocking Lilith Fitzgilbert is the last person anyone would expect to create a scandal. Maverick antiquarian Edward Makepeace is the last person anyone would expect to take on a female scholar. And when Lilith joins Edward’s excavation of the Devil’s Ditch near Newmarket, neither of them expect to find a dead butler. Nor, on top of everything else, do they expect to fall in love.

A Scholarly Application is the seventh of my Newmarket Regencies and the third in the Furze House Irregulars series featuring women of spirit, women of courage, women who don't see why, in this male-dominated Regency era, they should not also play their part in bringing wrong-doers to justice.
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Tuesday 5 February 2019

Shortlisted!

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The news is out and I am DELIGHTED to reveal "A Rational Proposal" has been shortlisted for a RoNA. The RoNAs always attract a tremendous range of excellent books. I'm so pleased that the readers liked mine enough to judge it one of the top five in its category.


"A Rational Proposal" is the first in the four-book Furze House Irregulars series set in Regency Newmarket and London and - once my head had stopped telling me I was an idiot and had adjusted to creating a series rather than a stand-alone - was great fun to write.


The RoNA awards ceremony is on 4th March. I'm looking forward to a grand evening with my RNA pals celebrating everyone's wonderful books!


Congratulations to all of us!
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