Regency Silk and Scandal
Three friends, two scandalous affairs and one secret code lead to murder, dishonour and revenge. From the wild Cornish coast to the heights of Staffordshire, from the ballrooms of London to the battlefields of Belgium, enter the world of:
Regency Silk and Scandal
The series will appear from June 2010 to Jan 2011 in both the UK and the USA.
We will be making guest appearances on blogs, running competitions, and even taking part in an online read with a fresh new story from all of us! So keep checking this page for more updates!
Latest News:
January 2010:
We have pictures of what our first three covers, for the US releases are going to look like! I have added them, below, alongside the pictures of the authors of each book. They are absolutely gorgeous, and I can hardly wait to see what the art department come up with for the rest of the series!
December 2009
As our editors are busily preparing our manuscripts for publication, they have decided they would like some bonus features in each of our books. And so we have all opened up our research files, to see if we can find some little titbits of information our readers might find interesting. Since I have a high society wedding taking place in St. George's church Hanover Square, I have sent in an article about other weddings that took place there, and who some of the real parishioners were. Others have been writing articles about Waterloo, smugglers, gypsy lore, and some of the gorier facts they have found out about public execution. I can't wait to read them all!
Regency silk and Scandal
Yesterday (November 25th) we posted on the Pink Heart Society blog for Writer's Wednesday about how we chose the heroes for each of our stories for this series.
I have reproduced the article for you, below:
Writer's Wednesday: Creating Continuity with 8 Heroes
Louise Allen gives a sneak peek into how the upcoming Historical continuity Silk & Scandal was created! Start with the Heroes (where else?)
Harlequin Mills & Boon have given six of us – Annie Burrows, Julia Justiss, Margaret McPhee, Christine Merrill, Gayle Wilson and me, Louise Allen, the opportunity to join together to write an eight-part Historical continuity.
It was exciting enough to be part of Regency Silk & Scandal, especially when we were asked to come up with the over-arching concept for the series, plus the individual stories, ourselves – but then it dawned on us: we had eight heroes to discover and we got to write about each other’s heroes as well as our own.
I’m always fascinated by where the inspiration comes from for a hero – sometimes a picture will do it, sometimes an image comes much later. Here are our individual stories of how we found our heroes.
Book 1: The Lord & the Wayward Lady by Louise Allen
I haven’t found a picture of Marcus Carlow, Viscount Stanegate yet, at least, not one who matches the man in my imagination. All I knew at first was that he is dark, he has flint-grey eyes – and he frowns a lot. The man has a strong sense of duty and lot on his mind – a father whose health was wrecked by a shocking murder and spy scandal years before, a rakehell brother, one sister who is headstrong and wild and another who is far too innocent for her own good. And then a mysterious milliner and murderous enemy arrive to make his life even more fraught: Marcus finds himself fighting for his family ad for a woman who fascinates him but who he cannot trust. But when he smiles, and when he kisses – then the responsible gentleman becomes a reckless lover, as Nell Latham and I realised to our delight.
Book 2: Paying the Virgin's Price by Christine Merrill
By the time we meet Nathan Wardale in the second book, he has gone from wealth to poverty and back again. His father's disgrace has stripped him of a title, and after escaping from a press ganged stint in the Navy, he is back in London making his living as a professional gambler. I wanted a hero who had been physically toughened by life, and whose appearance had been changed by hardship to such an extent that close friends and family might not immediately recognize him. Although he is worldweary and has reason to be cynical, he still has the manners of a gentleman. The separation from his mother and sisters has left him more than a little protective of the women he cares for.
I wrote Nathan with tanned skin, green eyes and prematurely grey hair. And then, after I had the image in my head, I discovered how hard it is to find a picture of a youngish, good looking man who isn't trying to hide that grey. But Anderson Cooper of CNN comes close.
Book 3: The Smuggler & the Society Bride by Julia Justiss
Since we’d already established the families for Regency Silk & Scandal, I had a heroine, but no hero. After Lady Honoria Carlow is ruined by some unknown adversary, she wants to get as far from London as possible. She’s also angry at her family for initially believing she was responsible.
How much further away can one get than Land’s End? And if one wants a hero guaranteed to horrify one’s very proper family, how much more dashing and ineligible can he be than a smuggler?
Enter Gabe Hawksworth. Blacksheep younger son of an Anglo-Irish aristocrat, Gabe is returning a favor to the army friend who saved his life by becoming temporary captain of one Dickon Kessel’s smuggling sloops. In Kessel’s small Cornish town, the incognito gentleman encounters runaway English beauty “Marie Foxe.”
Why would such a stunning girl reside with her well-born aunt near Land’s End rather than in London, dazzling suitors? Gabe scents a scandal—and if the lady is of a mind to be seduced, he’s just the man to oblige.
My image of Gabe, though, is a Scot—Gerard Butler, here courtesy of Celebriosity Today. Is there any wonder Honoria/Marie finds this supposed “low-born brigand” so appealing?
Book 4: Claiming the Forbidden Bride by Gayle Wilson
I have always had a strong affinity for the military hero—very natural, I suppose, since I married one. Rhys Morgan, the hero of Claiming the Forbidden Bride, is an ex-soldier, someone who has known the deprivations of war and suffered grievously as a result of his service to King and Country. At the beginning of my story, Rhys is seeking other ways in which to serve when, as a result of his daring rescue of a little girl, he becomes involved with a beautiful Romany healer, the forbidden heroine of the title.
I confess that I was primarily conscious of Rhys’s character as I began to write, particularly his courage, his honor and his sense of duty. How a character acts has always resonated more strongly with me than how he—or she—looks. That was true in this case as well. It was not until the editors requested a visual of my hero and heroine that I went searching for a real person who was a physical representation of Rhys. Sadly, I don’t remember where I found this picture nor do I know who the model is. I wish I did so that I could give credit where credit is certainly due, but I have only this picture to share with you.
Book 5: The Viscount & the Virgin by Annie Burrows
This is the picture that gave me the inspiration for the hero of my contribution to the continuity series.
I seem to remember first seeing it posted on the PHS! Somebody was bemoaning the fact that so few heroes are blond. And a short discussion followed, during which I remarked that I could just see this guy in skin tight breeches, top boots, and a ruffled shirt. One of the comments was, “Oooh, I’d read that book!”
And thus, Viscount Mildenhall was born. Like the Green Arrow (the character this actor is portraying) he has a bit of a dual personality. In public, he dresses like a dandy, with those aforementioned skin tight breeches, flamboyant waistcoats, and an obscene amount of jewellery. Yet he has only just sold out of the army, having endured all the privations common to the nineteenth century soldier, and rising to the rank of Major.
Book 6: Unlacing the Innocent Miss by Margaret McPhee
For my hero Wolf's character I wanted a strong man, an out and out alpha male who had got where he was off his own bat and through guts and determination. From a disadvantaged background, just to strike even Wolf has to do everything twice as well as his rich-boy counterparts. He's been raised with a chip on his shoulder, learned to survive on the mean streets from an early age and yet Wolf has his own moral boundaries. He might not be a gentleman but he is, as my heroine, Rosalind Meadowfield, comes to discover, an intrinsically good man
I envisaged him from the North, a tough, gritty Yorkshire man – sexy and tall and scarred – both physically and emotionally. Not a million miles from Sean Bean's Sharpe. Wolf is no pretty boy. He's handsome in a rugged masculine way. A real hottie that women find irresistible. Even Rosalind who is, quite literally, trying to escape him finds herself falling for him – in a BIG way – as did I. Undoubtedly common, untitled, not even a gentleman...and blond (see Annie's comments above)! And still hot!
Book 7: The Officer & the Proper Lady by Louise Allen
My second hero is Major Hal Carlow, the rakehell brother of Marcus Carlow from book 1. Hal is a hellion: blond, blue-eyed, a devil with the ladies and lucky with any form of gambling. But I could not get a clear mental picture of him until I found one of the officers who fought at Waterloo, as Hal, who is seriously wounded in the battle, does.
In Heaphy’s portrait of Sir John Fox Burgoyne I saw the other side of Hal’s character – the courageous, dedicated and honourable soldier. His heroine, Julia Tresilian, falls in love with the rake but it is the man in the portrait for whom she risks everything – her reputation, her safety and her love.
Book 8: Taken by the Wicked Rake by Christine Merrill
As we were creating the Silk and Scandal universe, we began with a nebulous concept of a someone that would be in each of the stories, not necessarily as a hero, but as a reoccurring character who would act as a catalyst to start out the plots. As I remember it, he started out with adjectives like avuncular, and puckish.
But as the story morphed, and the plot thickened, Gypsies arrived. And the character that eventually became Stephano Beshaley got younger, and angrier, and darker both physically and mentally.
And I became more and more obsessed with him, feeling much more sympathetic towards his past than I should have, considering how terribly he was likely to be treating all the other characters. I desperately wanted him to have his own book, so he could redeem some of his bad behavior and tie up the series with a happy end for everybody.
His Gypsy heritage meant that I had to settle for a tall, dark and handsome hero with a tortured soul that could probably be seen in his big brown eyes. And to undergo the burden of a light shower of pictures of good looking men posted by the other continuistas, who were also using him as a character. Good looking models from perfume ads and Canadian Olympic divers eventually lost out to Aidan Turner from the BBC series Being Human.
We all discovered our heroes differently, but we hope you like the sound – and look - of all of them. You will be able to make up your own mind about them when Regency Silk & Scandal comes out next year. In the UK it will run May to December 2010 (Harlequin Mills & Boon) and in North America (Harlequin) June 2010 – January 2011.
Three friends, two scandalous affairs and one secret code lead to murder, dishonour and revenge. From the wild Cornish coast to the heights of Staffordshire, from the ballrooms of London to the battlefields of Belgium, enter the world of:
Regency Silk and Scandal
I'm thrilled to be participating with five other authors in this Regency continuity series, the first-ever for the North American market. For those who may not know, a continuity is a multi-book project with an over-arching concept that carries through the series, the problems developed in the first few books being gradually resolved by the end. Such multi-book projects are usually devised by an editorial team who write a detailed outline of characters and plots, then assign individual authors to flesh out each story.
But this time, the editorial team at Harlequin Historical challenged the authors to create the overall concept of the stories as well as the individual heroes, heroines, and plots for each of the eight books in the series (subject to their alteration and approval, of course.) We had great fun brainstorming, and swiftly came up with the overarching story, inventing about forty shared characters in the process. Then we set about writing our stories, whilst continually swapping continuity notes, via emails (about 1600 to date) to keep the whole thing intact.
With three authors in the States, and three in the UK, we could not have done this without the benefit of modern technology!
It was a bit tricky, at first, to come up with a name for this series, but none of us wanted to just keep on referring to it as "the historical continuity". Our characters became so real to us all, that referring to them in such an impersonal way just did not seem right. To begin with, Louise Allen suggested "The Scandals of the murdered baron's Mystery Gypsy Lovechild's forbidden Revenge Quest involving several virgins and at least one Earl." Well, at least it encapsulated a vast amount of what some of us were writing about! But gradually, in line with one of the recurring themes, we all started to refer to it as "The Silken Rope Scandals."
Editorial has now come up with the official title series of "Regency Silk and Scandal" and, now that we have all submitted our finished manuscripts, have assigned names to each of the eight books in the series.
First up will be "The Lord and the Wayward Lady" by Louise Allen.
To find out more about Louise, and her books, visit her website at:
Louise has given me a sneak preview of what her opening story will be about:
"Nell Latham is a milliner who is not all she seems. Her life is hard - and then a mysterious stranger with death on his mind throws her into the path of the Carlows, a family with enough dangerous secrets of their own, without the added complication of Nell and Marcus Carlow developing a tempestuous attraction for each other. At gunpoint.
Nell the milliner is obviously ineligible as a bride for Marcus, who is also a viscount. But Nell's true identity is a threat to both her and Marcus's family and is the catalyst for revelations of scandal, murder and treachery that will resonate through all of the books in the series."
The second book in the series will be called "Paying the Virgin's Price" and is written by Christine Merrill
To find out more about Christine, and her books, visit her website at:
Christine tells me: "Ten years ago, during a night of reckless gaming, Nathan Wardale ruined a man and won the right to take the innocence of his daughter, Diana.
It was a debt he never planned to claim. But now, London's luckiest gambler will see that the only thing worth winning is the one thing he can't have: the heart of Diana Price."
Third in the series is "The Smuggler and the Society Bride" by Julia Justiss.
"Lady Honoria Carlow flees London after a scandalous disgrace to take refuge with her aunt in Cornwall and try to figure out who engineered her ruin...and why. Enter handsome Irishman Gabe Hawksworth, known locally as "the Hawk", currently captaining a smuggling vessel for the army friend who saved his life, and suddenly Honoria finds that exile to the rugged Cornish coast seems much more appealing.
Though her aristocratic family would be appalled at her attraction to a low-born free trader, there’s something about the well-spoken Gabe that calls out to the free-spirited Honoria, even as Gabe wonders about the story behind the unexpected appearance of this mysterious beauty. Until an attraction that should never have been becomes a compulsion too strong for either of them to resist…"
To find out more about Julia and her books, visit her website at:
Fourth up is Gayle Wilson, with "Claiming the Forbidden Bride"
Major Rhys Morgan, late of His Majesty's Light Dragoons, hopes, despite his wounds, to continue his service for king and country. The consequences of his heroic rescue of a little girl pitch him instead into the midst of a Romany camp and into the arms of a beautiful and mysterious Gypsy healer.
The last thing Nadya Argentari wants or needs is a romantic involvement with an Englishman. When someone seems to be targeting her and her family, however, Rhys vows to protect the woman he has fallen in love with--a relationship they both know will never be accepted in the either of the very disparate worlds they inhabit.
To find out more about Gayle, and her books, visit her website at:
The fifth book in the series is written by me, Annie Burrows. Since you already know what I look like, thought I'd include a new pic of me, with my very own Mills and Boon hero (courtesy of Manchester Central Library)
I have just submitted my manuscript after a second round of revisions, so can tell you that it features the Honourable Imogen Hebden, (the daughter of Louise's Murdered Baron.) Imogen is not pretty, has no fortune, and goes up to London for her first season with the shadow of scandal hanging over her. Her mother's family try to re-instate her into society, but it is such an uphill struggle she decides she must find work as a governess. The very last thing she wants to do is fall under the spell of a handsome rake, but Viscount Mildenhall is just sooo irresistible!
oh, yes, and it's called "The Viscount and the Virgin"
The sixth book in series is written by Margaret McPhee
Margaret says of her story, "Unlacing the Innocent Miss"
Rosalind Meadowfield is a dowager's companion with a secret to hide. Even when she is accused of theft and fleeing for her life Rosalind dare not reveal the truth of it. With so much at stake how can she find herself falling for the very man sent to apprehend her?
Will Wolversley, or Wolf as he is known, a man with a past, strong, honourable, and embittered, has every reason to dislike his captive. She is the very epitome of all that he has been raised to despise, yet her innocence and courage touch his hardened heart and whisper a dangerous temptation.
Between thief-taker and thief burns a flame of passion that cannot be ignored - not by Rosalind or Wolf...or by the shadowy background figure so determined upon Rosalind's downfall.
There is more information about Margaret, and her books on the Harlequin website:
To finish off the series, Louise Allen and Christine Merrill both contribute a second story each. "The Officer and the proper Lady", by Louise Allen, is set on and around the battlefield of Waterloo. Louise has told me, "Major Hal Carlow is a self-confessed rake and is not fit company for the impoverished and proper Miss Julia Tresilian. But Brussels just before the battle of Waterloo is a social hot-house that throws them together.
Hal is certain that he does not want a wife. Julia knows she must make a sensible match, not ruin herself with a rake. And then the battle changes everything for both of them, and exposes them to the danger and scandal that is haunting the entire Carlow family."
And then, finally, Christine Merrill ties up all the loose ends, in "Taken by the Wicked Rake."
The series will appear from June 2010 to Jan 2011 in the both the UK and the States.
There will be contests, blogs, and much more, so keep checking back for the latest...