What happens when you write a series
only to end up with lots of leftover heroes . . .
You write another series to use them, of course!
This series is the marriage of two things. First, my attachment to a leftover hero from the Heiress series, Lord Stoneville, who captured the imagination of my readers (a lot of people expected him to be Cousin Michael) . And second, my interest in an actual historical family from the Georgian period: the Earl of Barrymore and his siblings.
The Earl of Barrymore's parents died when he was very young (he was 4 years old at his father's death, 11 at his mother's), leaving him and three siblings to grow up spoiled by their grandmother. All four were quite wild, and they all had nicknames. He was called Hellgate, one of his brothers was called Cripplegate (because of a club foot), and the other was Newgate (the only prison he’d never been in). Their sister was Billingsgate, because she cursed like a fishwife. I’ve always been fascinated by them. He was incredibly multi-talented and romantic, though sadly he died at 24. If you want to read more about the siblings, you can find more information at The Regency Collection. And at Google Books, you can find the entire biography of the Earl of Barrymore.
I stole a few details from the facts about this interesting family, made my guy Oliver the oldest sibling, and, voila, another noble family emerged—the Sharpes.
Oliver (the Marquess of Stoneville), Jarret, Minerva, Gabriel, and Celia were deprived of their parents as a result of a tragedy that happened nineteen years ago. It sent them into free fall, which is where they've been ever since. Their rich maternal grandmother, not of the nobility, has been supporting them, but now she has issued an ultimatum—marry or be cut off. And not just one of them, but all of them. Now they're scrambling to decide what to do with their lives. Do they give in to Gran's demands? Or do they fight to thwart her somehow? You'll have to read the books to discover the answer!
Some of the Heiress characters will show up from time to time (Stoneville's friends, after all, married heiresses or teachers from the school), and some of the characters from the Heiress series are sure to have a place in this series. If you want to vote for whom you'd most like to see appear in a later book, you can do so here. But if you haven't read the Heiress series, you won't be lost at all—these books are definitely self-contained stories. I hope you'll try them out!
In the two decades since a tragic “accident” took the lives of his parents, Oliver Sharpe, the Marquess of Stoneville, has survived the scandal surrounding that fateful night by living as an unrepentant rakehell. Now, with his grandmother Hetty promising to disinherit him if he doesn’t wed, he plans to fulfill the bargain in true Sharpe style—by bringing home a fake fiancé from a brothel! But his scheme backfires when he foils a robbery and rescues an American beauty in a dire predicament. Maria Butterfield came to London to find her missing fiancé, but her prior engagement won’t stop Oliver from getting what he wants—her in his bed. His rebellious charade may call Hetty’s bluff, but it’s soon made all too real—by a love that tempts him to be a hellion no more.
Mired in scandal after his parents’ mysterious deaths, notorious gambler Lord Jarret Sharpe agrees to tamely run the family’s brewery for a year if his Machiavellian grandmother rescinds her ultimatum that he marry. But the gambler in him can’t resist when beguiling Annabel Lake proposes a wager. If she wins their card game, he must help save her family’s foundering brewery. But if he wins, she must spend a night in his bed. The outcome sets off a chain of events that threatens to destroy all his plans…and unveils the secret Annabel has held for so long. When Jarret discovers the darker reason behind her wager, he forces her into another one—and this time he intends to win not just her body, but her heart.
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Book 1: 
Book 2: 
