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. 

Where I shamelessly brag, just a teensy weensy little bit.

The dictionary defines mediocre as:

me·di·o·cre

   [mee-dee-oh-ker]  

adjective

1.Of only ordinary or moderate quality; neither good nor bad; barely adequate: The car gets onlymediocre mileage, but it's fun to drive. Synonyms: undistinguished, commonplace, pedestrian,everyday; run-of-the-mill.

For the majority of my life, that word has more or less defined me in a nutshell. In school I was a solid B student. I never failed anything (except Algebra 2 – thanks Mr. Given) and I was never in trouble, but I never really stood out either. Don’t get me wrong. I did stuff. I participated. I was on the x-country team, played basketball, was in band and chorus, a member of the foreign language club, prom committee, and let’s not forget vice-president of the national honor society (how that happened I still don’t have a clue). But I didn’t excel. I wasn’t notable. I was, for all intensive purposes “barely adequate”.

I’ve never known what it feels like to be the best at something. And I still don’t, but this morning I woke up and checked my newest release on Amazon and I got to feel pretty damn close.

This is the part where I brag a little bit. Yes, I know it’s rude and obnoxious. Yes, I apologize in advance. But I’m going to do it anyways, because I worked hard and because it may never happen again and because, well, because I want to.

So here we go.

See that? That's my book! The Spinster and the Duke. My plucky little novella that I never really thought anyone would like. See those words? The ones in bold? The ones that say Amazon Best Sellers Rank? #911, baby. And below that, my new two favorite numbers. 

Good ol' number 10 and 11. 

Yeah, I know. It's not #1 (like that would ever happen) and it's not the New York Times bestseller list and it's really not even all that important or notable in the grand scheme of things. But it feels important and notable to ME, because for the first time I can say I'm not mediocre at something. Achieving the 11th best selling book in Regency Romance isn't "commonplace" or "pedestrian". It's awesome. Well, at least it feels awesome. 

That's it. That's all I really have to say. In a few hours the rankings will change and I'll most likely drop back down, but for this one moment in time, for this one screenshot, I get to feel excited. So in the words of the infamous Carrie Bradshaw: 

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.