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Four years ago today I held my first Avon Romance novel in my hands, grinning like a besotted fool. A few days ago, I finished writing my seventh novel, LOVE IS A ROGUE. I can’t believe I’ve written seven books! I’m hosting a giveaway of HOW THE DUKE WAS WON, the book that started it all, on my so head over there for a chance to win! I’ll be revealing the cover for LOVE IS A ROGUE very soon so stay tuned and stay safe, my friends!

I’ll be appearing at several public events and signings at the Romance Writers of America’s National Conference in New York City this week including a romance panel discussion at and a Literacy Autographing with hundreds of other romance authors. Hope to see you there!

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I’m excited to announce that FOR THE DUKE’S EYES ONLY, the second book in my sexy SCHOOL FOR DUKES Regency romance series is on sale for only $1.99 in e-book for a limited time! This is the first time it’s gone on sale so get it while it’s hot!

The third book in the series, ONE FINE DUKE, will release on July 23rd �� only a few weeks away. ONE FINE DUKE features Miss Mina Penny who plays a small but key role in FOR THE DUKE’S EYES ONLY. Now’s your chance to meet Mina before the next book arrives!

And don’t forget to preorder ONE FINE DUKE. I know you’re going to love Mina and the Duke of Thorndon’s sweet, sunny, and sultry story:

I’ll be sending out a newsletter next week with an exclusive subscriber-only giveaway and an excerpt from ONE FINE DUKE so be sure to sign up for my newsletter on my homepage if you haven’t already.

I wouldn’t be here with you, Dear Reader, and I’m so very thankful for you.

xo,

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Have you signed up for my “A Few Favorite Things�� newsletter yet? I’ll be sending one out this week with an exclusive giveaway for newsletter subscribers only. for the chance to win these fabulous prizes!!��

I’m so thrilled to announce that has been named as a finalist in the Historical �� Short category of the 2018 RITA® awards. I was on a road trip when I received a morning call from Tessa Dare, one of my favorite authors, letting me know that I was a finalist!

Blame It on the Duke

In case you’re new to the subject, the RITA is the highest award of distinction in the romance publishing industry, and recognizes excellence in published romance novels and novellas.

Up to 2,000 romance novels and novellas from 13 different categories are judged each year in the RITA competition! After the first round of judging by fellow published romance authors, the competition narrows to approximately 100 finalists.

I’m in outstanding company �� a complete list of finalists and author photos can be found on the RWA website at in the Contests and Awards section. Congratulations to all the finalists!

Winners of the awards will be announced Thursday, July 19, 2018, at an Awards Ceremony to be held at the 38th Annual RWA Conference in Denver, Colorado. I can’t wait to celebrate with old friends and new and I hope to see you there!!

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I’m having so much fun at the in Spokane, Washington. I even sewed some of my own costumes! Highlights have included meeting so many dedicated, passionate historical romance readers, hanging out with fellow authors (and superstars) like Julia Quinn, Eloisa James, Cathy Maxwell, Jade Lee, Collette Cameron, Erica Ridley, Jess Michaels, Delilah Marvelle and so many more! We’ve laughed so much, indulged in Devon double cream at High Tea, discovered that you really can’t take cell phone photos wearing gloves, and played historical games at a high class gaming establishment. Wow. You can follow more of my adventures on my and check back soon for awesome giveaways with conference swag!

xo

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Please welcome author to the blog today! Lisa read her first historical romance when she was fourteen (Georgette Heyer’s Lady of Quality) and she’s thrilled to now be writing her own historical romances set in the beginning of the Regency era in the United Kingdom.

I thoroughly enjoyed her debut, You May Kiss the Bride, which introduced readers to the Penhallow Dynasty. loved it as well and called it “…a lingering homage to the heydey of the Regency historical romance.�� And said it was one of the best romances she ever read. Lisa’s visiting the blog today to celebrate the release of her second book,��The Laird Takes a Bride, with an interview and giveaway!

LB: What was the favorite part of your research for the book?

Lisa: My hero, Alasdair Penhallow, lives in an ancient castle �� renovated to state-of-the-art elegance and comfort circa 1811, but still, it’s a castle. �հ�è�� romantique! I spent quite a few happy hours on the web studying Scottish castles and estates.

LB: Authors often have all kinds of influences and allusions in their stories. What about in The Laird Takes a Bride?

��Lisa:��Yes, they’re definitely in there! Here are a few examples.

My heroine Fiona’s first (and lost) love was based on the charming, fascinatingly slippery Morris Townsend in Washington Square.
A strong-willed secondary character, one of the “contestants�� for Alasdair’s favor, was modeled after Veruca Salt in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, a movie I saw ages ago and which �� obviously �� made a deep impression on me!
The work of Stephen King inspired a scene in which Fiona is frightened by memories of being told bloodcurdling tales about a ghastly creature called the Sack Man.
In Chapter 12 you’ll find a tiny tip of the hat to Rhett Butler in Gone with the Wind, and in Chapter 16, a bit informed by Little Women �� specifically, the scene in which Amy and Laurie confess their love, a passage I found thrilling as a kid. (And still do.) Look for Fiona saying, “It fits,�� and Alasdair’s reply.

LB: What’s the funniest/strangest thing a reader or a relative has said to you about your books or your writing career?

Lisa: Romance writers everywhere know the look �� a little sheepish, a little roguish �� and the question that inevitably follows: “So, uh, did you do your own research for the, uh, racy parts?�� I love the response Beverly Jenkins shared during a speech she gave at last year’s Romance Writers of America conference. When people ask this question, she told us, she’ll reply, with exquisite and tantalizing brevity: “Yes.�� And we all cracked up laughing.

LB: What’s up next for you? What are you working on right now?��

Lisa: I’m finishing the third book in the Penhallow Dynasty series, The Bride Takes a Groom, which releases next spring. It features Captain Hugo Penhallow, who appears toward the end of my first book, You May Kiss the Bride. He marries a childhood friend, Katherine Brooke, a brilliant and complicated heiress �� and their marriage is quite complicated also!

LB: Thanks so much for stopping by. I can’t wait to see the cover for The Bride Takes a Groom!

Wave hello to Lisa in the comments here or on for a chance to win a signed copy of The Laird Takes a Bride! (U.S. shipping only).

xo

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I’m featured on today with a post about why I read romance and a little bit about my personal journey to becoming an author. I love this month-long event put together by freelance writer and romance advocate��Bobbi Dumas. Three new authors are featured every day and each post includes some fabulous giveaways. I’m giving away a signed set of my first historical romance series plus chocolates. Check out the and come join us in celebrating the power of romance!

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I’m delighted to host��historical romance author on the blog today! I met her in person a few years ago at a writer’s convention and immediately knew we had to be friends–I mean just look at that smile. I’m also a big fan of her clever and utterly swoon-worthy novels. The latest in her Romance of the Turf series, Scandalous Ever After��released this week. Welcome, Theresa!

Theresa: Thank you for hosting me, you wonderful lady! It’s been such a treat to get to know you online and read your books, then meet you in person at a conference last summer.

LB:��I loved the first book in the Romance of the Turf trilogy, A Gentleman’s Game. How did you first come up with the idea of setting a series in the world of horse breeding and horse racing?

Theresa:��I’m so glad you liked A Gentleman’s Game—thank you! To answer your question, I didn’t come up with it at all. If I’m remembering right, it was a suggestion from my agent. We were tossing around ideas about a possible new trilogy, and she remembered that I’d recently mentioned my research into horses—which in one form or another, dated back to when I was about five years old. (Yes. I was a Horse Girl.) She suggested a horse-racing series, which was something I didn’t remember seeing before and seemed like a lot of fun to research.

And it really has been. The Romance of the Turf trilogy is as much oriented to a family as it is to horse-racing. The Chandler family, troubled, talented, and varying degrees of horse-mad, is due for HEAs and the resolution to a lot of old family mysteries and secrets.

LB:��What interesting historical tidbits did you uncover while doing the research for this series? Anything you weren’t able to include but wished you could have?

Theresa:��I cram as many of the interesting tidbits as I can into the stories, because I hope they’ll be interesting for readers too. For the series’s prequel novella, The Sport of Baronets, you’ll get a look inside the room where the jockeys weigh in and out before and after races. The hero and heroine make, um, unconventional use of the person-sized scale.

For Scandalous Ever After, which takes place partly in Ireland, I researched steeplechase, which is different from English flat racing. You’ll also meet a few abandoned castles and get a sense of what travel was like in the 1810s. Sooooo much travel, by horseback and foot and carriage and sea, because I seem to have written a road romance along with a friends-to-lovers story.

I couldn’t fit this into a historical romance, but I’ve really enjoyed it as a resource anyway: the “�� series on YouTube. It’s so charming and funny, made with a lot of love for horses and their quirks. Check it out!

LB:��I’m in awe of the fact that you are writing two series simultaneously, the Royal Rewards and the Romance of the Turf. How on earth do you keep all of the characters straight in your head? And what’s your secret to being so prolific (and can you please gift me with some of that pixie dust)?

Theresa:��Ha, you give me too much credit! I work on one project at a time, which helps me keep the characters straight in my head. And really, I don’t have any secret tricks. I struggle with chronic fatigue and can’t always keep the writing schedule I want to. I’m very grateful for a supportive husband, a kick-butt agent, and a fabulous editor. They all help me do my best work.

LB: Booklist gave you a glowing starred review for Scandalous Ever After, highlighting the “elegant prose, inventive plotting, and brilliantly nuanced characters.�� ��Do you have any special methods or writing rituals that help you go deeper with character development or plotting?

Theresa:��I love digging into character, but plot is more of a struggle for me. To make sure I include the necessary arcs and tie up all the loose ends, I refer to the beat sheet developed by screenwriter Blake Snyder. It’s not specific to romance, but it’s a great guide anyway for story structure. For character, I keep a bunch of messy notes in word files, screen shots, and on paper that may or may not eventually get put into the final manuscript. So, um, that’s not very helpful.

LB: I know you’ve said you’re a fan of Julia Quinn, Courtney Milan, and Kristan Higgins (three of my favorite authors). Would you ever consider crossing over to contemporary romance like Courtney did? What keeps you writing historicals?

Theresa:��I love the work of those authors and also admire them very much as people. There are a lot of fabulous people writing romance these days! Switching to contemporaries is not in my plans right now, but I’ll never say never. For now, I’m happy in the Regency and might even look at other historical time periods in the future. I’m fascinated by the past, and how some things are the same over time (like human motivations) and others shift so much (like social mores about women’s behavior). That interplay between the familiar and the strange is one of the things I enjoy most about historical romance.

LB:��When I was in France recently I saw one of your books in French at a Carrefour grocery store! I was so proud to know one of the authors in the romance aisle. What do you think of the French covers?

Theresa: That’s so cool that you spotted one of my books in the wild! Merci! So far, the only foreign editions of my books that have been released are the French ones, which all have beautiful covers. They don’t necessarily look like Regency covers, but they’re elegant and give a great sense of character. Indonesian and Russian translations of some of my books are forthcoming, so it’ll be interesting to see what the cover art for those looks like too. Every publisher seems to have a distinct artistic style.

LB: What’s up next for you?

I’m finishing up a book that will spin of the Royal Rewards series. Lady Rogue will be out next spring! Before then, in September, Grace Burrowes and I are releasing a Regency novella duo called The Duke’s Bridle Path. Readers can check my website, http;//theresaromain.com, for excerpts, links, and all the latest news about my books.

LB: Ooh I love Grace Burrowes! I’m reading The Trouble With Dukes right now and it’s fabulous. I’m super excited for your novella with her. Thanks so much for visiting the blog today!

Theresa:��It was my pleasure!

You can read Chapter One of Scandalous Ever After . Theresa is offering an awesome prize that will bring one lucky reader up-to-date on the Romance of the Turf series. Simply��comment for a chance to��win a Kindle or Nook copy of The Sport of Baronets and a Kindle, Nook, or print copy of A Gentleman’s Game. Open internationally!

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xo

In a magical historical hotel setting, this weekend retreat is a book lover’s dream come true. ��Join me and some of the world’s most celebrated authors of historical romance for an intimate gathering that gives every guest a chance to mingle and play. Dress in your favorite era, enjoy historical foods, games and music while surrounded by the glamour of a hotel that was once only enjoyed by the elite. This is going to be so much fun! For more information visit:

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