Winter Blackthorne

  (Return to  Part One ) Georgiana checked for the fifth time in a row to make sure her bonnet strings were tied correctly. It wasn’t that she was stalling. She never would have stalled going to see Frances before… The Kiss. She’d hardly spoken two words to Frances after that confused moment of passion, and she needed to set their friendship back to rights.  Frances hadn’t even sent a note when she returned to London, and that stung. Georgiana had found out through a stray bit of gossip that Frances was back, and that no one was going to see her. There were whispers that Frances’ husband was in fits over her behavior, and everyone wanted to be clear that they were taking his side.   None of the fallout had hit Georgiana, mostly because everyone seemed to have forgotten that Georgiana had gone along as well.  People typically forgot Georgiana. She was plain, soft spoken, and good at fading into the background. She was firmly on the shelf now, but even when s...

London, 1816 Lady Frances was exceptionally good at doing the correct thing. Not the right thing; the correct one. She had acted extremely correctly growing up, obeying first her nurse maid, then her governess, and finally her chaperone. She had correctly married the youngest son of a marquees instead of eloping to Gretna Green with the blacksmith’s apprentice. She’d been a perfectly correct wife even when her husband was absent, managing his affairs and keeping up appearances socially as she was expected to do. No one had ever said a bad word about Frances, and not a whisper of scandal had ever touched her name. That was, until she’d run away to the continent with a traveling companion, ignoring communication from her parents and husband for months. She’d thrown herself a Grand Tour and gone to see the sights with her friend Georgiana Torchia in tow. They’d gone to Portugal, Spain and even France, once the war had ended and things had settled out. They’d made it all the way to Rome, ...

  1820, London Simon got out of the carriage and wanted to kiss the door in front of him. He was finally home. He’d been gone for an entire month to visit his younger brother, Erwin, and the entire trip had been exhausting.  For one, the lack of routine had kept Simon constantly on edge. Two, being away from his husband for so long was a trial at the best of times, and three, it had not been the best of times.  Erwin, Simon reluctantly admitted to himself, was a bit of a bore. Erwin could be an amusing conversationalist on his own, but every time his wife, Madelyn, walked into the room, Erwin groaned dramatically. “She’s always wanting something,” Erwin had complained. It seemed to Simon that all Madelyn wanted was to exist in her own home, but Erwin groused about her constantly. Then, worst of all, Erwin would end every conversation with, “You’ll understand when you’re married.” Simon had smiled and pretended like he didn’t want to kick something.  Simon opened the ...

I've just finished putting together my writing goals for next year, and I'm pretty happy with them! It FEELS realistic, though past evidence suggests otherwise. I wrote down all the books I want to write and my ideal release schedule.  I've decided to put aside submitting to publishers this year. Still a dream of mine, but I'm going to focus on self publishing for now. That way I can write shorter books, since my writing sweet spot is really around 50k.  My plan is to write 1k a day, with some variance for nano and a few other things, but mostly 1k per day. Based on what I've planned, that should mean I'll be releasing six books? That feels like a lot, so I'll see how that goes. I'm planning on writing a Christmas novel in July, because Christmas in July sounds fun, and that way I'll have plenty of time to get it ready for a November release. After all the heteronormative Christmas movies I watched this year, I just REALLY want to write an ace Christ...

 I've been dithering a lot over what to write lately. I was considering a contemporary Christmas novella, but I just couldn't get myself excited to write it. I also have a Victorian novel idea that I AM excited about, but I didn't want to start it before nanowrimo. I was thinking about this dilemma today, and then I was like, wait, what about Ettie's book? Before I even finished The Viscount Debacle, I knew Ettie would need her own book. She needs her own HEA!  I've had some ideas for how Ettie's book would go bouncing around in my brain, but nothing that caught well enough for me to want to write it. So I went a-googling through some historical articles and texts today, looking into some things I was thinking about adding, and the idea FINALLY bit me. I mocked up a cover and now I'm a good way through the outline. I'm super excited about this story! I already love writing Ettie, and her love interest Faye has at last solidified in my mind.  This book is...

 I have two new releases! First, Guarding Her Grumpy Billionaire, my contemporary anti-billionaire billionaire romance. I'm pretty excited about this one because I enjoyed writing an ace heroine. I might write a couple of follow up stories, but I have a few other things I want to work on first. It's on kindle unlimited, so if you have KU you can read it for free! Amazon Link Secondly, I'm finally publishing Viscount Debacle! It's my super sugary ace regency romance. I loved writing this, and there's still scenes in it that I find entertaining to reread even though I've edited it approximately five million times.  I'm not super happy with the cover I made? I don't know, it's okay. After fussing with it for a while I gave up and called it a day.  Amazon Link

I'm almost done with Guarding Her Grumpy Billionaire, and then I'll get started on my next novella! I was thinking Guarding would be 15k, but now I'm thinking it'll be around 11-12k, maybe? So it's short. A novelette instead of a novella. It's very fast paced and I'm letting it be what the story needs it to be. My plan is to participate in Camp Nano July by trying to write 100,000 words this month. This is a bit over 3k a day, so seems doable! I've already written 3,558 words for the first day, so I'm starting out on track. It won't be a traditional nano since I'm working on a bunch of novellas (and maybe a novel?) instead of one set, new manuscript, but I'm excited about it! I'm trying out putting my word counts into Write Track, so you can  follow along with my writing progress on Write Track .