Dianna & Miles - WHERE ARE YOU?

Since the release of The Spinster and the Duke, I have been getting weekly e-mails demanding to know where the heck Dianna and Miles' story is. I'll be honest. When Dianna made her first appearance in The Runaway Duchess, her sole mission in life was to be Charlotte's best friend. Then - as often happens - I began to dream up a little backstory for her. Busy, neglectful parents. A kind, albeit absentminded aunt (who is, of course, Abigail Mannish, the heroine in The Spinster and the Duke). And a fiancee who, for reasons not yet explained, more or less dumped her at the altar before heading off for parts unknown. Oh, Miles. You naughty, naughty man. 

After The Runaway Duchess was completed and published, I tried to move onto something else, but surprisingly it was Abigail, not Dianna, who I couldn't get out of my head. So I sat down and wrote a followup novella to accompany TRD. 

The Spinster and the Duke was released last September. Since then I've released one novella and one full length (young-adult) novel. I am currently working on a new historical romance, the first in a trilogy, which will be released this April. While The Duke of St. Giles will take place in Regency England, it will introduce a whole new cast of characters, headed up by the oh-so-handsome (and very cheeky) West Green and the woman he kidnaps and holds for ransom, Lady Emily Wilmington. 

Right now, that's where all of my creative energy is going. However, once The Duke of St. Giles has been released, I feel fairly confident in saying I'm ready to begin Dianna and Miles' story. 

If you've followed my blog in the past, you know I am not the sort of writer who can force things. Ideas come as they come, and while I absolutely adore Dianna and think she more than deserves her own story, I haven't been ready to write it quite yet. 

I will say I have a title in mind, and am planning on it being a full-length novel like The Runaway Duchess. For any and all updates make sure to follow me on Facebook, as I tend to post there much more often than I do here. 

I also want to say thank you. Thank you to all the readers who loved The Runaway Duchess and The Spinster and the Duke enough to send me an e-mail demanding to know if Dianna and Miles are getting their own happily-ever-after. I am happy to say that YES, they are -- although I'm not quite sure how 'happily' it's going to start. 

The Spinster & the Duke

I am happy to announce that The Spinster and the Duke has been officially released! Right now it is available exclusively on Amazon as an ebook, but remember -- even if you do not have a kindle you can still read ebooks on your phone, computer, ipad, tablet, blackberry, etc (for FREE!). 

The Spinster and the Duke was a little different for me in that the characters are much older than the average hero and heroine in romance novels. Reginald is fifty-two. Abigail is forty-seven. They were in love as young adults, but went on to live separate lives: Reginald married and moved to France and Abigail devoted her life to caring for her niece Dianna (a character who plays a large role in The Runaway Duchess). 

I am not sure when or why main characters in their early twenties became so popular. I know I've read some books where the heroine is as young as eighteen, which, now that I'm twenty-six, seems flat out ridiculous. I still wasn't quite sure how to iron my clothes at eighteen (okay, okay, so I still don't really get it) let alone prepared to meet the love of my life. 

And yet, in romance novels (and other ones too, especially YA and New Adult) that is precisely what happens. A twenty something woman meets a twenty something man. Some angst follows, a few good ol' fashioned fights, they make up in the end and go on to live happily-ever-after. I know how it goes. I've been guilty of writing the same exact formula myself. But for The Spinster and the Duke I wanted something different. I wanted something out of the box. I wanted something challenging. 

Abigail was never supposed to get her own story. While she does appear as a secondary character in the The Runaway Duchess, she was really only there to play chaperon for Charlotte (the heroine) and Dianna (her best friend and Abigail's niece). When I finished TRD I actually sat down and began to write Dianna's story, but I couldn't get past the first couple of chapters. Another voice kept needling me. Yep, you guessed it. Abigail. 

Now, don't get me wrong. I'm not a crazy person. Okay, maybe sometimes (although, on the off chance my boyfriend is reading this, I'm never crazy -- I swear). What I'm trying to say is Abigail didn't actually talk to me. But she wouldn't get out of my head either. I felt like a terrible person for giving her such a sad back story: a sweet, loving girl with her heart on her sleeve who fell in love with a dashing duke, only to have her heart broken when he left her. The most interesting part about it all, the part that stuck out in my mind and made it a story worth telling, is that Abigail wasn't angry with Reginald. In fact, she maybe - quite possibly - still loved him... and even after all these years, he still loved her. 

Could two people who loved each other as babies (which is how I prefer to think of anyone under the age of twenty and no, I'm not having a premature life crisis okay maybe a little) still love each other as grown adults? Does love, true love, have an expiration date? That's what I set out to explore in The Spinster and the Duke... and I guess you'll just have to read it to find out what happens! 

Young and blissfully in love, Reginald and Abigail were once engaged to be married. Their lives should have ended in happily-ever-after, but he was destined to be a duke and she was the third daughter of a baron. Curtailing to his mother’s demands, Reginald broke the engagement… and Abigail’s heart.

Thirty years have passed since then. Now a confirmed spinster, Abigail has forgiven the boy she loved, but she has never forgotten the man. When Reginald unexpectedly returns to England she wants nothing to do with him, fearful of stirring up old feelings that should have died long ago.

Reginald made the worst mistake of his life when he left Abigail. She is the only woman he has ever loved, and he is willing to risk everything to get her back. But once lost trust does not come easily, and Abigail is reluctant to give her heart away a second time. 

Can Reginald and Abigail come to terms with their painful past? Or are some second chances best left untaken? Find out in The Spinster and the Duke, the newest novella from historical romance author Jillian Eaton.

A Full Cast of Characters

In any good romantic novel, play, or movie there is always a clearly defined hero and heroine. But no story would be complete without an accompanying cast, and The Runaway Duchess is no exception.

I've always loved reading (and writing) character driven stories. In The Runaway Duchess, you will get a chance to meet not only the hero (Gavin Graystone) and his feisty heroine (Charlotte Vanderley) but their friends and family as well.

In the Wedded Women Quartet readers are introduced to four best friends, women who grew close to each other in school and maintained that close relationship through heartbreak, husbands, marriages, and children. In The Runaway Duchess Charlotte has one best friend who she turns to when she needs advice, or simply a shoulder to cry on.

Short and plump and perfectly adorable with blond ringlets, rosy cheeks, and dancing blue eyes Dianna had been friends with Charlotte since childhood and the two women rarely went a day without seeing each other. [TRD excerpt, Chapter Two] 

Normally quiet and reserved and unfailingly proper, Dianna finds herself in unfamiliar territory when she wakes up in Charlotte's room after attending a masquerade ball the night before. 

       Dianna sat up on one elbow and squinted blearily in Charlotte’s general direction. Her hair was a halo of messy blond curls around her face and she was still wearing her costume; Charlotte having been unable to peel her out of it before she collapsed into bed upon their return.  “I was foxed, you say?” She pursed her lips. “I have never been foxed before. Did I enjoy myself?”

“Immensely.”

“How do you know?”

Charlotte paused in the act of plucking yet another dress from the depths of the armoire. Frowning, she held it up and tried to gauge the color in the dim lighting. Was it navy blue or plum purple? “How did I know what?” she asked absently.

“That I had indulged in too much champagne.”

“You hung out of the carriage window on the way home and burst into song.” Blue, she decided. Most definitely blue. Folding it in half, she tossed it on top of the others and reached inside for one more.

“I did not,” Dianna breathed.

“You most certainly did.” Charlotte popped out of the armoire holding a traveling cloak to her chest. “Since I was the one who had to pull you back inside before you killed yourself, I should know better than anyone.”

“I was a hoyden,” Dianna said, not sounding entirely displeased by the notion.

“Of the first order,” Charlotte agreed. [TRD excerpt, Chapter Ten]

There is also Charlotte's mother (Bettina Vanderley), a woman who, at heart, wants the best for her daughter but doesn't always go about it in the best of ways. 

“I will not marry him.” Standing with her arms crossed and her jaw set, twenty-one-year-old Charlotte Vanderley shook her head from side to side, sending her unruly mass of red curls whipping across her face. “He is old and grotesque and I would not want him if he were the last man on earth!”

“Pin your hair up dear, you look like a heathen.” Unimpressed by her daughter’s belligerence, Lady Bettina Vanderley sipped her tea and smoothed a wrinkle from her skirts. Always impeccably dressed and well put together, nothing grated on Bettina’s nerves quite like a coiffure that was loose or a stay that was not pulled tight.

A woman of quiet reserve and a spine of steel, she blamed every single one of her gray hairs on Charlotte and often wondered what she had done so wrong to deserve such a troublesome child. There was no denying the girl her beauty (and for that Bettina took full credit) but as for everything else… Well, it was well known the late Lord Vanderley had always been much too indulgent with his only daughter. And this, Bettina thought sourly as she took in Charlotte’s flushed cheeks and the rebellious gleam in her hazel eyes, is the result. [TRD excerpt, Chapter One]

Gavin's closest friend (not that he would ever admit to having one) is Ernie, his valet. A plucky, humorous fellow, Ernie plays a small (albeit very important) part in bringing Gavin and Charlotte together, as seen from this small excerpt. 

 Ernie had never seen his boss in such a state before, snapping orders left and right. Something had certainly gotten up under his britches, and he was pretty sure he knew what – or rather, who – that was.

He just never thought he would live to see the day the notoriously hard hearted Gavin Graystone fell in love. And to fall for such a slip of a girl… Ernie grinned. He wondered how long it would take for his boss to figure out he had taken the big jump. Gavin was a tough man. Some would even say a cruel one, although he certainly had his reasons, though few were privy to them.

Rocking back on his heels Ernie crossed his arms and rubbed his chin where a pitiful excuse for a beard grew. He tugged it thoughtfully.

He owed Gavin his life, a debt he had been struggling to repay for nearly half a decade, ever since Gavin lifted him up – quite literally – from the gutter, shook the filth from his clothes, and made him his person valet (among other less glamorous job titles). Maybe, at long last, he’d finally found a way to repay him… if his new bride was agreeable, of course. [TRD excerpt, Chapter Thirteen]

Other character's pop up throughout the novel [Dianna's eccentric aunt, the nefarious duke to which Charlotte is unwillingly engaged, and Gavin's butler, to name a few] but hopefully these three piqued your interest. And don't forget, The Runaway Duchess will be available on Amazon TOMORROW! So look for it then. :) 

That Time I Didn't Post for 12 Days...

Remember that? I do.

In the words of Michelle Tanner, how rude!

My only excuse is that I've been busy with life. A life that, coincidentally enough, includes finishing up A Runaway Duchess so it's all packaged up and ready to go May 10th. I am super, super, SUPER excited to be releasing my first full length novel. The experience has certainly been different than writing a novella, and I'm incredibly nervous  really pumped to see how ARD will be received. 

In some ways, writing a novel is much easier than writing a novella. For one, you have more time and space to play with the character's story. You can elaborate on their background and histories. You can toss more challenges their way. You have more room to bring other characters into the mix. Of course, all those things can make the entire process more difficult, as well.

I have never been very good at writing "filler". I like to get right to the punch line from the get go. Right to the heart of the conflict, if you will. I've read many books where the hero and heroine don't even meet until the seventh or eight chapter, which is all fine and good, but I can't write like that. I'm too impatient.

In all four Wedded Women Quartet novellas the hero & heroine know each other already. With the exception of Grace, they're all married. If I were to stretch those stories out to novels, I most likely would have began with when they met for the first time. Instead, I allowed that to become back story, and thrust the reader into the thick of it from the get go. Some people like that. Some people don't. 

In TRD Charlotte and Gavin do not know each other when the novel begins. They meet by pure coincidence at a ball when they are both trying to escape public scrutiny. Due to extenuating circumstances and a little bit of fate, they have a whirlwind engagement that is anything but typical. 

One thing I did truly enjoy in writing TRD that I did not have the opportunity to do in the quartet novellas was creating secondary characters. One of my favorites is Lady Dianna Foxcroft, Charlotte's best friend and partner in crime. "Short and plump and perfectly adorable with blond ringlets, rosy cheeks, and dancing blue eyes" Dianna schemes right alongside Charlotte to help rescue her BFF from marriage to the Duke.  

Charlotte's maid Tabitha also plays a considerable role, as does Gavin's ill tempered butler. Bettina, Charlotte's mother, was quite fun to write, as wicked and frustrating as she could be.

In the end, I really liked bringing an entire cast of characters into play and hope to use at least some of them for future endeavors. 

Look for Charlotte, Gavin, and the rest of the crew in  just TWO WEEKS when The Runaway Duchess goes up on Amazon! Until then, if you haven't already, make sure to add it to your Goodreads TBR list by clicking right here.