Books
In the Prince's Bed Scoop
- I came up with the Royal Brotherhood series idea while toying with having three noble half-brothers share the same mother. I was always intrigued by the idea of three lords joined in a connection they don't exactly approve of. My critique partner Rexanne Becnel also had a character in one of her books, a bastard son of a king, whom I loved and she'd never written a book about. One night, my idea melded with my wish that she'd develop her character, and voila, a series was born. After that lightning-bolt moment, I never looked back.
- My editor suggested the fortune-hunting angle. Since I'd always wanted to write a fortune-hunter book (Amanda Quick's Surrender is my alltime favorite in that theme), I decided that was a good idea.
- Want to know more about my personal connection to this book? Check out my letter to readers on the Waldenbooks site.
- The scandalous book my heroine refers to constantly was my invention, but it was based on various scandalous chapbooks circulating at the time, including one entitled The Whore's Rhetorick (check out this link for a four-volume set of other such books from the period and earlier). I figured there could very well have been a Rake's Rhetorick, too.
- Alec's expertise with horses was grounded in reality. There were several well-known trick riders at this time. The most famous, Philip Astley, was himself a cavalry officer and is widely considered the originator of the modern circus. Astley's Royal Amphitheatre was a popular source of entertainment for Regency audiences--plenty of young misses flocked to see the huge equestrian dramas (called hippodramas) performed onstage and the tricks and clown antics performed in the sawdust ring.
- There really was an English officer who served first with the Portuguese army and then later the British army. He ended up as a Major-General. So it's conceivable that an Englishman might have helped the Portuguese cavalry like Alec does and then be offered a position in the British army (although Alec refuses the position).
Inside Scoop from Characters
All about Town
by A Lady of Fashion
Have you heard the latest, my dears? Alexander Black, newly risen to the title of Earl of Iversley, has thundered into town with a mission to marry, and all the young misses are a-twitter. They say he needs a fortune, though he denies it. He’s rumored to be quite the rogue, so we were surprised to see him dancing attendance on Miss Katherine Merivale in the very presence of her almost fiancé, Sir Sydney Lovelace.
That upstanding miss will never tolerate Iversley’s antics, not after a lifetime of embarrassment at the hands of her late roguish father. Although someone claimed to see them at Astley’s, dressed in costume and performing on the stage, this correspondent does not believe it for one minute. Miss Merivale means to make a respectable match, and no one who has ever heard the earl’s outrageous wit would ever believe him respectable, no matter how lofty his title.
How to Distinguish a Gentleman from a Rogue
by Miss Katherine Merivale
- A gentleman will ask for a dance; a rogue will blackmail you into one.
- Gentlemen do not kiss you in the moonlight.
- A gentleman will ask for a kiss; a rogue will seduce you into one.
- Rogues are often more interesting than gentlemen, more’s the pity.
- A gentleman will respect your chaperone; a rogue will flatter her into shirking her duties.
- You can lead a rogue to church, but you can’t make him marry.