Moonlight Masquerade free Saturday 19 /Sunday 20 /Monday 21 March
It’s ages since I’ve run a free promotion of any of my books. However, since it looks like the new one isn’t going to be ready to publish this weekend as I’d hoped (unless my editor puts on a real spurt) I thought I’d give away the first of the series as a little present. When it actually becomes free seems to depend on what time zone you live in, but it’s meant to begin 8am Western Standard Time (i.e. Saturday morning in Seattle.)
The first manuscript of Moonlight Masquerade was completed in 1976. It was called The Silk Purse at that point. Much of the plot rested on the fact that the heroine, then called Arabella Higgins, was from the North of England and had to learn how to speak posh etc. Full of hope and confidence I sent the manuscript to the publisher Robert Hale, Ltd. I think, looking back, it wasn’t bad for a first effort (which is pretty much what Mr Hale said too.) He made some suggestions and said he would look at it again if I revised it. However, by that time I was working on Dangerous Escapade, which was accepted, and I put The Silk Purse away in a dark drawer and forgot about it. I dug it out and edited it extensively about 20 years later when it became The Master of Hawkwood. It was very much the same plot as The Silk Purse, but I took out the over-used plot devices about the Northern accent and her learning to behave in Society.
I put it away for another 10 years or so while I worked on my comedy sketch writing, but I remembered it when I wanted to write a series of mildly erotic Regency novels with the Masquerade theme. So, sweet, innocent little Arabella was transformed into innocent, but enterprising, Merry Trent, Hawkwood became younger and a lot more dangerous and the book became a whole lot more fun!
Here’s the blurb:
No longer a schoolgirl, but not yet out, Merry Trent can only watch and envy the fashionable London throng in the spring of 1815. Determined to enjoy at least one adventure she borrows boy’s clothes and attends a masquerade in disguise. But the handsome, world-weary Marquis of Hawkwood sees through her deception and determines to know more of the masked Beauty he names Rosalind. Meanwhile, Merry’s matchmaking mother has designs on Hawkwood and contrives that he and Merry should be invited to the same house-party at splendid Doverton Park. There Hawkwood woos prim Miss Trent in decorous form by day, while spending his nights trysting with the far more exciting Rosalind. How Merry resolves this tangle and Hawkwood learns that life still holds some surprises make this a Regency romance in the best tradition of masked balls, jilted lovers and happy endings.