Today I am sharing my Feature Post and Book Review for ORPHANS OF WAR by Sylvia Broady on this Books ‘n’ All Promotions Blog Tour.
Below you will find a book description, my book review, an about the author section and the author’s social media links. Enjoy!
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Book Description
Kingston Upon Hull, 1941.
German bombs are raining down on the city. Racing to the nearest air-raid shelter, Charlotte hears an almighty explosion. Her mother’s haberdashery shop has taken a direct hit, reducing the shop to a pile of rubble — and killing her mother outright. Suddenly sixteen-year-old Charlotte is all alone in the world.
But then mysterious Aunt Hilda comes forward — an aunt Charlotte never knew she had — and offers her a home in the sleepy Yorkshire village of Mornington where she runs the local pub with her husband George.
Charlotte doesn’t mind helping out in the pub, but she can’t understand why her Aunt Hilda seems to resent her so. Nor why her mother never revealed she had a sister.
Everything changes when a group of French orphans are brought to live in the big house. Charlotte volunteers to help look after them — and finds a new purpose in life.
Then a band of Free French soldiers is billeted in the village, including a handsome young officer with the deepest brown eyes . . . But Emile has a tragedy in his past — and Charlotte must uncover both his and her own family’s secrets if they are to have a chance of happiness.
ORPHANS OF WAR by Sylvia Broady is an emotional YA historical fiction story set in the English countryside during World War II featuring a young protagonist and her tumultuous life during the war years. This is an easily read and engaging standalone book.
Charlotte is a happy sixteen-year-old who assists her mother in her haberdashery shop in the port city of Hull. As the Germans begin bombing England, their city is a prime target with its port and factories. Charlotte’s mother is killed in a raid and their business destroyed. Her father died when she was young, but a mysterious aunt shows up to take her to her home in the country where she works in the pub her aunt and uncle own.
Charlotte finds her uncle and aunt cold and indifferent, but she does not mind the work. When she has been there for a year, county aid workers open a large, abandoned mansion for rescued French orphans. She volunteers and finds she loves working with the children. At the same time a group of Free French soldiers are training on tanks just outside the village and she becomes attracted to a young French officer.
As the war continues, Charlotte finds her purpose in life working with the children and finds young love with Emile before he is sent back to the war. Over the next years of the war, Charlotte will learn many life lessons that will affect her, friends, and family.
I loved reading about Charlotte’s life. This is not a WWII set in the war zone, but a story of a young girl’s life at home in England and how the war affected her life over the five-year period and how much she matured, changed, and found love. All the characters were fully drawn, believable, and memorable. The romance between Charlotte and Emile was realistic. The story deals with family, friendship, hardship and hope during perilous times. Even with the war in the background of the story, it is still full of interesting historical details. I was pulled into Charlotte’s life and story.
I highly recommend this YA historical fiction!
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About the Author
I’m Sylvia. Hull is the city of my birth, but I have lived in the Beverley area for the past 20 years. I have a family in Hull and a family in Australia. Travelling to shores, both near and far, is often on my agenda. What keeps me young at heart? My grandchildren and my zest for life.
Today I am sharing my Feature Post and Book Review for WRONG LINE, RIGHT CONNECTION by Karina Bartow on the author’s personal blog tour.
Below you will find my author interview, a book description, my book review, and the author’s bio and social media links. Enjoy!
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Author Interview
Avonna Kershey:How did you get the idea for your story? And why a novella instead of a full length romance?
Karina Bartow: My mom cleaned for a family friend, Mabel, for thirty years, and she became a grandmother to my sister and me. Because of her clever wit and the deep impact she made on my life, I used to tease her that I’d write a book about her one day. She passed away when I was fifteen, but I kept my promise by putting her as a secondary character in the first book I ever wrote, Forgetting My Way Back to You. My writing coach liked her so much, though, that she worked on me for years to write a stand-alone story about her. Eventually, I conceded and used several true aspects of her life—like her career with the telephone company and her real love letters from her husband—to sculpt Wrong Line, Right Connection.
As for the length of it, I didn’t really have a plan for how long it would be. Like with my other books, I try to base it on the feel of where the plot’s going. I’d rather have a reader wishing for more rather than wishing for it to end!
AK: Was there a reason you chose the 1960’s time period and the Kentucky setting?
KB: Yes, I obviously needed a time period when the switchboard was still in service. In truth, the real Mabel worked as an operator around the 1930’s, but not being a history buff, I wasn’t too comfortable with that era. Plus, her character in Forgetting My Way Back to You was ninety when the story was set in 2013, so I had to be true to that.
Louisville was Mabel’s real-life hometown and something she was very proud of, so it was my only choice.
AK: How would you describe Mabel?
KB: In the book and in real life, she’s incredibly witty and a force of nature. She’s her own person and doesn’t compromise who she is for anyone. I gave the fictional version a bit more hesitancy to trust people because she has endured so much. Still, she loves life.
AK:Why did you give Mabel two previous relationships?
KB: Again, that was a true fact about the real Mabel. She was married twice before she met Roy, with her first husband being good but dying young and the second being…well, like No Good Ned in the book.
AK:How would you describe Roy?
KB: He’s very gentle and charming. In some ways, he’s the opposite of Mabel, having a quiet, laid-back demeanor, but he can still surprise you with his wry humor.
AK:The HEA has a mini cliff-hanger until you turn the page to the epilogue. Why did you choose that way of ending your story?
KB: I’ve done that on a few of my books now but in various ways. I don’t want it to become predictable, but I like having suspense up to the very end. Endings always intimidate me, as you want to please the reader without it being anti-climactic, so I enjoy throwing in a twist.
AK: What is your next project?
KB: While I’ve dipped my toes into love stories a bit, I primarily write mysteries. Earlier this year, my second installment of The Unde(a)feted Detective Series, Brother of Interest, came out, so I’ve been working on the follow-up to that. In the meantime, I’m writing a short story that’s a bridge between the two, which will be featured in a podcast sometime in 2023.
My 2018 novel, Forgetting My Way Back to You, which also features Mabel, will be available for $.99 on Kindle September 5-10.
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Book Description
Could a mortifying day on the job end up netting you true love?
When switchboard operator Mabel Jennings reports to work on a Monday in the summer of 1964, she doesn’t have any interest in finding love again. A visitor from Coatesville, Pennsylvania changes that. On a business trip, Roy Stentz calls her station, and his deep yet kind voice intrigues her. She tries to remain professional, but in her smitten state, she connects him to the wrong line…twice, in fact. Finally, Roy invites her out to dinner, saying he wants to see if she’s a better date than an operator.
The haphazard introduction sets an unexpected romance into motion. Going out every night while he’s in town, their bond deepens as they share the tragedies they’ve endured and observe each other’s beautiful qualities. Mabel’s past travails with love, however, hold her back from committing to anything permanent. Will she overcome her reluctance and open her heart to the love calling out to her? Or will she hang up on her chance for happiness?
WRONG LINE, RIGHT CONNECTION by Karina Bartow is a heartfelt, enjoyable historical romance novella set in 1964 featuring a switchboard operator who has given up on love.
Mabel Jennings is back at the telephone company as a switchboard operator after once again having to earn her own living. She is sharing a house with a close friend and more than happy to be on her own again. She is done with love after losing the first love of her life and then being in an abusive second relationship.
One day on the switchboard, Mabel receives a call for connection from a man with a deep and kind voice. She is so frazzled by her reaction to this man, she accidently transfers him to the wrong line, not once, but twice. Roy Stentz is not put off but intrigued by this operator and asks her out. Roy and Mabel quickly find their relationship is more than either expected, but Mabel’s past relationships may not allow her to believe in love once more.
I really enjoyed this romance. Even though this was a novella, it is packed with interesting characters, plenty of emotion and the HEA in the epilogue. Mabel has lived with several tragedies in her life which made her guarded and yet Roy was able to get her to open up and attempt dating again even as she kept comparing him to the previous two men in her life. The author also did a good job of immersing the reader in the 1960’s time period with the descriptions of the switchboard operators, the types of dates Mabel and Roy went on and the fact that Mabel felt her divorce would stop any man from being interested in her. The secondary characters are all fully drawn and add to the story. The only slight problem I had with this novella was Mabel’s flashbacks to her previous relationships which were necessary to understand her reluctance for another relationship, but they sometimes pulled me out of the flow of the story.
Overall, this is a fast, entertaining romance novella with a memorable heroine.
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Author Bio
Karina Bartow grew up and still lives in Northern Ohio. Though born with Cerebral Palsy, she’s never allowed her disability to define her. Rather, she’s used her experiences to breathe life into characters who have physical limitations, but like her, are determined not to let them stand in the way of the life they want. Her works include Husband in Hiding, Forgetting My Way Back to You, and Brother of Interest. She may only be able to type with one hand, but she writes with her whole heart!
THE NURSE’S SECRET by Amanda Skenandore is a historical fiction novel with romantic elements featuring a young female protagonist set in 1880’s New York City’s Bellevue Hospital. This is a standalone novel with great characters, a bit of sweet romance and a suspense murder mystery plot intertwined throughout.
New York City’s Bellevue Hospital is the first hospital in the U.S. to initiate a nursing school based on the principles of Florence Nightingale. The young ladies must be of high moral character, educated and from upper class homes. There is a strict code of decorum, discipline and work ethic that must be followed to remain in the program. Una Kelly is none of these things. Una is a con artist, pickpocket and thief who is found at the scene of a murder, arrested, and then escapes. She cons her way into the nursing program with the help of a friend to hide from the police.
With the help of her roommate, Una finds she is capable of pulling off this deception and even finds she is good with the patients. A young doctor in training is interested in the unique nurse probationer, but Una is afraid to admit she is not who she seems. But when a woman from her past shows up and threatens Una’s ruse, she is killed in the same method as the man Una is accused of killing.
Una knows someone is killing in Bellevue and it is like the murder she is accused of. She sets a trap, but she may end up the victim of this serial killer.
I loved this book and all the characters. Una is street smart and thick skinned due to her upbringing, but she also knows how to use her natural intelligence to get along in her ruse and she begins to really care about her patients. Una’s gradual change in caring for her roommate, Dru and the step-by-step acceptance of her friendship really emphasized her emotional changes. The sweet romantic elements worked to also show a side of Una where she is slightly vulnerable. I felt all the secondary characters were fully fleshed and believable for the historical period. The descriptions of 1880 New York display the research involved in this story along with all the historical medical treatments and techniques for both doctors and nurses. The suspense plot of this story is paced well throughout and has a believable ending.
I highly recommend this engaging historical fiction!
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About the Author
I’m lucky. I come from a family of diehard scientists—the kind who tell jokes about irrational numbers and use the Vulcan salute instead of waving goodbye. But there was always room in our house for the arts too. My sisters—one a conservation biologist, the other an astrophysicist—paint and play the flute. My father, a physicist, is also a movie buff. My mother, a mathematician, dabbles in everything from theater to stained glass. Me, I’m an infection prevention nurse. But first and foremost I’m a writer. Even when my pen is still, my mind is aflight with stories.
I’m lucky. I come from a family of readers. Books filled our shelves and trips to the library were routine. Even though I struggled with dyslexia and was slow to learn, my parents insisted I not give up. Now, I don’t read fast but I read often and wide—fantasy, scifi, paranormal romance, YA, literary, and of course, historical fiction.
I’m lucky. I married a man of great character and enduring flexibility. When I told him at thirty I wanted to quit my job and try to be a author, he said go for it. When I’d gone five years without selling a book or finding an agent, he said try a little longer.
I’m lucky. I finally found an agent, the wonderful Michael Carr, and sold my book, along with three others yet to be published, to Kensington Publishing.
My husband and I live in Las Vegas, NV with our pet turtle, Lenore.
Maggie Lodge, assistant to the reclusive advice columnist known only as Dear Aunt Cornelia to her readers, hires down-but-not-quite-out private eye Sam Sage to help track down the person who is blackmailing her employer. Maggie and Sam are a mismatched pair. As far as Sam is concerned, Maggie is reckless and in over her head. She is not what he had in mind for a client but he can’t afford to be choosy. Maggie, on the other hand, is convinced that Sam is badly in need of guidance and good advice. She does not hesitate to give him both.
In spite of the verbal fireworks between them, they are fiercely attracted to each other, but each is convinced it would be a mistake to let passion take over. They are, after all, keeping secrets from each other. Sam is haunted by his past, which includes a marriage shattered by betrayal and violence. Maggie is troubled by intense and vivid dreams–dreams that she can sometimes control. There are those who want to run experiments on her and use her for their own purposes, while others think she should be committed to an asylum.
When the pair discovers someone is impersonating Aunt Cornelia at a conference on psychic dreaming and a woman dies at the conference, the door is opened to a dangerous web of blackmail and murder. Secrets from the past are revealed, leaving Maggie and Sam in the path of a ruthless killer who will stop at nothing to exact vengeance.
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Elise’s Thoughts
When She Dreams by Amanda Quick, is a story with lies, murder, blackmail, and drugs. This series takes place during the 1930’s in the small town of Burning Cove, California with some recurring characters.
The opening scene sets the atmosphere for the rest of the plot. Maggie Lodge enters the office of Dr. Oxlade for a session about her lucid dreams. Unbeknownst to her, he gives her a drug called the enhancer. He is hoping to control her dreams, actions, and mind. As Maggie is fighting the effects of the drug, she barely escapes from the office.
Lucid dreams become almost a character in the story. People dreaming are aware that they are dreaming. During the dream someone may gain some amount of control over it to try to become aware of their consciousness.
Maggie must also deal with the fact that someone is blackmailing her employer, Dear Aunt Cornelia, an advice columnist. She hires private eye and former policeman Sam Sage to help find the blackmailer. The investigation leads them to a conference on psychic dreaming where Maggie realizes Dr. Oxlade is also attending. It seems some women who were lucid dreamers are being killed. As tensions rise and the murders increase, Maggie and Sam realize they are in the path of a ruthless killer who will stop at nothing to exact vengeance. They enlist the help of the series recurring characters Raina Kirk, a private detective and investigator, plus Luther Pell, to find information that will help to connect all the murdered women.
The relationship between Maggie and Sam is a delight. Their snarky, intimate, verbal fireworks conversations are enjoyable. But they also realize there is a passionate chemistry between them. What they must overcome are the secrets kept from each other. Both are haunted by their pasts.
Once again readers will not be disappointed with this 1930s mystery. This intriguing and suspenseful story is full of twists. A bonus is how Quick intertwined the information about lucid dreaming into the story.
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Author Interview
Elise Cooper: Idea for the story?
Amanda Quick: The story idea comes from the fact that I am personally intrigued with dreaming. One of the most interesting types is lucid dreaming where someone knows they are dreaming. The goal is to control the dream and solve problems that someone could not solve while awake. For example, rewrite nightmares or sad dreams to find peace. This was a hot topic in the thirties. Now on online there are many people looking it up. It is like waking up before falling off a cliff or in my case learning to fly.
EC: There are all types of dreams in the book, what are the differences?
AQ: Lucid dreaming is real. Astral projection is junk science, pure fantasy. It is when someone thinks they can travel in their dreams as their soul moves to another location. Latent psychic senses have someone believing they have a psychic vibe yet are not aware of it. This is also a scam.
EC: How would you describe Maggie?
AQ: Maggie is a lucid dreamer who can control her dreams, which allows her to see things in a different light. She is adventurous, outgoing, and a modern woman. She is very smart, independent, bold, a little reckless, unpredictable, and confident. Maggie wants to do the right thing and wants to find answers.
EC: Why does she have an aversion to marriage?
AQ: She had a very close call when her fiancé wanted to marry her for her money and then he was going to send her off to an asylum. In those days it was not hard to get a woman committed against her will. This is why she is wary of marriage.
EC: Sam Sage versus Sam Spade?
AQ: I did not even try to hide it and had fun playing off the character. I was going for the iconic 1930s hardboiled private eye. My character Sam Sage is much nicer and a lot more honorable. Sam Spade is from The Maltese Falcon, an American icon. I put this quote in the book, Sam Spade is “arrogant, egotistical, narcissistic ass, with the moral code of an alley cat…he isn’t interested in justice…and a lousy detective.” His goal is to prove he is the smartest guy in the room. I wanted my character to be in the same occupation but with better personality traits.
EC: How would you describe Sam Sage?
AQ: He is really interested in justice and doing the right thing. Sam is the classic good guy, very protective. Some people see him as world weary and wise cracking.
EC: What about the relationship between Maggie and Sam?
AQ: They play off each other’s strengths and weaknesses. She is reckless and he is a ‘by the books guy’. They are very passionate about each other. Each sees the underlying strength of the other and trusts each other.
EC: Next books?
AQ: It will be another Jayne Castle Dust Bunny book, a futuristic romantic suspense novel, titled, Sweet Water and the Witch, coming out September 30th. The next Amanda Quick book is out a year from now, titled The Bride Wore White. A woman wakes up in the honeymoon suite with a dead body next to her. Raina Kirk and Luther Pell have become the anchor characters for the series and will be in every book as cameo players.
Thank you!!
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BIO: Elise Cooper has written book reviews and interviewed best-selling authors since 2009. Her reviews have covered several different genres, including thrillers, mysteries, women’s fiction, romance and cozy mysteries. An avid reader, she engages authors to discuss their works, and to focus on the descriptions of their characters and the plot. While not writing reviews, Elise loves to watch baseball and visit the ocean in Southern California, with her dog and husband.
Today I am sharing my Feature Post and Book Review for this first book in a new series – SPEAKEASY: A Time Travel Novel by Elyse Douglas on this Virtual Author Book Tour.
Below you will find a book description, my book review, an excerpt from the book, an about the author section, the author’s social media links and a Rafflecopter giveaway. Enjoy!
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Book Description
In 2019, A West Village Nightclub Singer, Roxie Raines, stumbles through a basement doorway into the past and finds herself in Roaring Twenties New York, with all its dangers, secrets, excitement, and romance.
Roxie Raines lurches through a secret basement doorway in 2019, and time-slips back to New York’s raucous Roaring Twenties. While she dazzles the speakeasy crowds with her “modern sound,” she gets trapped in the dangerous web of Frankie Shay, an evil club owner. She struggles to escape his control and return to the basement doorway that sent her to 1925.
When she meets the handsome detective, Jake Kane, it’s love at first sight, but Jake has a secret past, and her own time travel secret makes him suspicious.
Roaring Twenties New York comes alive with flappers, gangsters, romance and speakeasies and Roxie’s stunning rise to stardom could come with the price of losing both the man she loves and her own life.
Publisher: Broadback (April 5, 2022) Category: Time Travel, Historical Fiction Romance Tour Dates May 3-June 30 ISBN: 979-8423229016 Available in Print and ebook, 375 pages
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My Book Review
RATING: 5 out of 5 Stars
SPEAKEASY: A Time Travel Novel (Book #1) by Elyse Douglas is an entertaining and smart time travel romance set in New York City in 1925. I have read other time travel romances by this author and always enjoy them. While this is the first book in a new series, it does have a complete plot without a cliffhanger.
In August of 2019, Roxie Raines is a struggling singer/pianist who loves performing the old classics. After her performance in Speakeasy, a New York club in Greenwich Village, she follows a local street person who has broken in to the basement and watches him vanish through a blue lit whole in the wall. When she is startled by the bar cat, Roxie falls through, too.
Roxie wakes in the alley behind The Black Cat in New York City in 1925. Roxie finds herself held by a mob boss who discovers her talent. Roxie loves the praise she gets for her performances, but she wants her freedom. She has no connection to the outside world excerpt for the postcards she drops from her hotel room window asking for rescue. She is discovered and rescued by a handsome personal detective and his assistant, but Roxie still does not who to trust with her past. It is 1925 and mob bosses, bootleggers, bribed politicians, and dirty cops are all fighting for their piece of the action.
Can Roxie find her way back to 2019 and does she even want to?
This is a fun romp through New York City in 1925. Roxie is a talented heroine who is capable in the present world, but much more suited to the 1920’s. Jakes’s story just keeps becoming more complicated as more of his personal life secrets are revealed and his dilemma between what he considers the honorable solution versus what he personally wants. The romance progresses at a believable pace and is appropriate to the time-period. The description of clothes, locations, laws, and personal rights was well researched and interesting. The only thing that slightly bothered me was the main antagonist, Frankie Shay, at times seems more of a caricature than a fully fleshed character, but he still fit with the overall suspense plot.
I really enjoy Ms. Douglas’ time travel romances and I am looking forward to seeing where the next novel in this series takes me.
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Excerpt
SPEAKEASY
Elyse Douglas
Twenty-six-year-old Roxie Raines took the subway down to Sheridan Square in Greenwich Village and hurried off in a warm, August rain. It was nearly dark, and the shimmer of streetlights on the wet streets made it seem later than it was. She glanced up to see a tall construction crane, quiet now but surely swinging about during work hours. Another high rise? Did New York City really need another luxury high rise? There was an “old” part of Roxie, a part that longed for the old New York she’d seen online and in old black-and-white movies, before the glass towers, the needle-pointed, multimillion-dollar condos, and the encroaching chain stores took over.
Cars splashed water, taxis honked, and a thin, dripping pan handler shook his chipped cup for loose change, little mumbles moving his lips.
Roxie glanced at him and thought it odd that he wore retro clothes, scuffed wing-tipped shoes, slacks with no crease, a matching suit coat, and an open collar white shirt. His old-fashioned, gray fedora was tilted right, low over his brow, and a large mole on the left side of his nose helped give him a menacing look. Still, she felt compassion for him. He seemed strangely out of place under the yellow smudge of light from an overhead streetlamp, and he seemed utterly lost in the lonely, silver rain.
Fumbling with her umbrella, Roxie stopped, dug into the pocket of her yellow rain jacket, found three quarters, and dropped them into the panhandler’s cup. He nodded, his vacant eyes staring ahead.
“Isn’t there a shelter nearby you can go to?” Roxie asked.
He didn’t look at her, and his response was incomprehensible.
“Can I help you go somewhere and get out of this rain?” Roxie asked, seeing he was soaked, water dripping from the brim of his tattered hat.
He slowly turned to her, his eyes glassy and wide. “Do you know where you come from, girlie?” he asked, in a low, gravelly voice that sounded like a threat. “Do you know how you got here, doll? Are you stranded, too?”
Roxie felt a shiver ripple up her spine and she didn’t answer.
He flashed her a crooked gash of a grin. “No… I see it in you. You don’t know where you are or how you got here. You’re lost. Just like me, doll, you’re lost.”
And then he laughed, a sinister laugh.
Spooked, Roxie whirled around, thrust her umbrella toward the rain and charging wind, and headed off toward Charles Street, her sneakers soaked, her capri jeans damp, and her chin-length, blonde hair gone wild and frizzy.
“What the hell was that all about?” she mumbled to herself, quickening her steps, and not looking back at the man. And then she thought, How do people get so lost and so crazy?
Roxie had a gig that weekend in a Greenwich Village bar called Speakeasy.
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About the Author
Elyse Douglas is the pen name for the married writing team Elyse Parmentier and Douglas Pennington.
She and her husband, Douglas Pennington, have completed many novels, including The Other Side of Summer, The Summer Letters, The Christmas Eve Series, Time Visitor, Time Change, The Summer Diary, and The Christmas Diary Series.
I am excited to be sharing my Feature Post and Book Review on this HQN Books blog tour for the first book in a new historical romance series – LAST DUKE STANDING (A Royal Match Book #1) by Julia London.
Below you will find an author Q&A, a book summary, my book review, an excerpt from the book and the author bio and social media links. Enjoy!
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Author Q&A
1. Tell us about your latest book. Who are the main character(s) and what can readers expect when they pick up Last Duke Standing?
Princess Justine Ivanosen is going to be queen of Wesloria sooner than she hoped—her father, the king, is dying from tuberculosis. Because he is declining, a marriage becomes very important. The Prime Minister is dead set against having a young woman ascend the throne without a man to guide her, and her mother is still smarting over Justine’s disastrous affair with a charlatan, the reveal of which has left her without great prospects at home. The Prime Minister convinces the queen that they ought to employ a matchmaker to make quick work of it. They can ship her off to England to apprentice with Queen Victoria, bring some suitors around to court her there instead of here, where all of Wesloria will be watching, and give strict instructions that she is to return with a fiance. The prime minister won’t leave the selection of the lucky fellow to chance, and persuades one of his old cronies to send his handsome son to London to keep an eye on the selection process.
William Douglas, the future Duke of Hamilton, has been flitting around Europe for ages. He’s met the princess before, but she was hardly more than a snippy girl who didn’t like losing parlor games. The last thing he wants to do is babysit that child. But he discovers the girl in his memory is now a very attractive grown woman. She’s still a challenge, however—she likes to be called Your Royal Highness a lot more than he likes saying it, and expressly forbids him from offering his advice. He’s one of those people—if someone says don’t do it, he’s going to do it. And he has some advice about every man that comes to meet her.
Lady Aleksander, the matchmaker, sees that these two might be perfect for each other. The only way to find out is to bring some gentlemen around that she knows will unite Justine and William. But they are too busy pretending they aren’t falling in love to even notice.
2. Who was your favorite character to write in THE LAST DUKE STANDING and why?
I like all the main characters. Justine and William were so meant for each other. Little sister Amelia has some growing up to do. Beckett Hawke and Donovan are back from A Royal Wedding series. But I really enjoyed creating Lady Aleksander, the matchmaker. She is the third point of view in this book, and her observations of what is happening is like the Greek chorus—she can see clearly what the leads can’t see. It liked that she’s in her forties, very much in love with her husband, and she just wants everyone to have what she has. She makes no apologies for who she is or what she does and she has the patience of Job. She also likes to eat. We have that in common.
3. What do you like about writing in the historical subgenre? What are the challenges?
I fell in love with historical fiction when I was a girl. Castles and princesses were a long way from a ranch in West Texas, but I loved the stories of balls and gowns and the idea of a rich gentleman. I was surrounded by farmers and ranch hands, so the idea of a pretty dress and fancy dinner had a fairy-tale appeal. I loved history in school, and I minored in British history. The fairy-tale appeal still persists—through the last election and the pandemic, it was a great relief for me to slip off to another world where people were genteel and the biggest problem they had was the strict rules of etiquette putting a damper on their moves. The challenge of writing historical romance today is to make it interesting for the new generation of readers. There is a lot more competing for their attention than there was for mine at a similar age. But a good love story is a good story, no matter the era.
4. Who are some authors you look to for inspiration?
One of the best romances I ever read was Here Be Dragons by Sharon Kay Penman. It is a history of Wales, and of King Llewellyn and his very young wife Joanna. The history is dark and bloody, but they truly loved each other.
I have also found a renewed admiration for Julia Quinn. I can look back at her Bridgerton series now and see how clever she was at giving us a large family with a lot of issues to enjoy for years. She must have taken excellent notes from her own books to keep up with all the twists and turns in that family.
5. What is your writing routine like? Do you have a specific place you write? Time of day?
My routine is to do it every day. I usually do some physical exercise in the morning, but once I’ve done that, and picked up the house, and done my Wordle, I get to work. I write every day. I have an office, but the pandemic has made me sick of it. So I move around the house now. I am done with the day’s work by the time school is out—I used to be able to keep my head in two places (the book and family) but I can’t do that anymore. I don’t know what happened to my ability to multi-task, but it has been obliterated. So I work as much as I can during school hours and then hit the wine fridge like any red-blooded working mom.
6. What’s next for the Royal Match series?
I am just finishing The Duke Not Taken. It’s about Princess Amelia, who is also sent to England under Lady Aleksander’s care to find a husband. Amelia really wants a husband and a family. Her problem, however, is she’s too much of a straightshooter for most people. And she’s not willing to settle. Enter the Duke of Marley, who has to be the only man in one hundred square miles who is not the least interested in a beautiful, rich, young princess. He has his reasons…
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Book Summary
When Crown Princess Justine of Wesloria is sent to England to learn the ropes of royalty, she falls under the tutelage of none other than Queen Victoria herself. She’s also in the market for a proper husband—one fit to marry the future Queen of Wesloria.
Because he knows simply everyone, William, Lord Douglas (the notoriously rakish heir to the Duke of Hamilton seat in Scotland, and decidedly not husband material), is on hand as an escort of sorts. William has been recruited to keep an eye on the royal matchmaker for the Weslorian Prime Minister, tasked to ensure the princess is matched with a man of quality…and one who will be sympathetic to the prime minister’s views. As William and Justine are forced to scrutinize an endless parade of England’s best bachelors, they become friends. But when the crowd of potential grooms is steadily culled, what if William is the last bachelor standing?
LAST DUKE STANDING (A Royal Match Book #1) by Julia London is a charming enemies-to-lovers historical romance story start to a new series. I look forward to historical romances by Julia London for the witty dialogue and endearing characters and this one did not disappoint.
Crown Princess Justine of Wesloria is sent to England with her younger sister to find a suitable husband before her sick father, the king, dies. Justine not only has to put up with a matchmaker, she believes is incompetent, and servants always reporting back to her mother the Queen, but a gentleman from her past she is not happy to see again shows up to be an escort of sorts.
William, Lord Douglas has been recruited to spy on the Crown Princess and her prospects by the Prime Minister of Wesloria to make sure her new Prince Consort will be sympathetic to his views. William met Justine eight years previously, but the Justine he is sent to escort is a woman now and the more he discovers about her, the more intrigued he becomes. As their friendship grows, so do the faults of Justine’s suitors.
When it appears William may be the perfect match and the last bachelor standing, a scandal from his past may ruin any chance for a Happily Ever After match.
This is a fun and entertaining read with delightful banter between William and Justine and an entertaining plot that has a great twist at the end. William is an endearing hero throughout. Justine was a little more difficult to warm up to until you realize how her whole life has been manipulated and one small mistake in judgement as a young girl has led to constant supervision. All the secondary characters were fully fleshed, and I will be looking forward to meeting some in future books in the series.
I enjoyed this historical romance and I will be looking forward to reading more in this new series.
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Excerpt
PROLOGUE
1844
When Justine was fourteen, her father took her to the mountainous north country of Wesloria. He said he was to meet with coal barons because they were restless and in need of appeasing. Why? Justine had wondered.
“Because coal barons are always restless and in need of appeasing, darling,” he’d said, as if everyone knew that.
She’d imagined large, heavily cloaked men, faces covered in soot, pacing their hearths and muttering their grievances. But the coal barons were, in fact, like all well-dressed Weslorian gentlemen with clean faces.
They peered at her with expressions that ranged from disgust to indifference to curiosity.
“Don’t mind them,” her father had said. “They are not modern men.”
Justine and her father were housed at Astasia Castle. It was a fortress that jutted out forebodingly from a rocky outcropping so high on the mountain that the horses labored to pull the royal coach up the steep drive. It was purported to be the best of all the accommodations in the area, afforded to Justine and her father by virtue of the fact Justine’s father was the king of Wesloria, and she was the crown princess, the invested heir to the throne.
Justine said the castle looked scary. Her father explained that castles were built in this manner so that armies and marauders could be seen advancing from miles away, and runaway brides could be seen fleeing for miles.
“Runaway brides?” Justine had been enthralled by the idea of something so romantic gone so horribly awry.
“Petr the Mad watched his bride run away with his best knight, and then watched his men chase them for miles before they got away. He was so angry he burned down half the village.” Her father did not elaborate further, as the gates had opened, and the castellan had come rushing forward, eager to show the king and his heir the old royal castle he proudly kept.
Sir Corin wore a dusty blue waistcoat that hung to his thighs, the last four buttons undone to allow for his paunch. His hair, scraggly and gray, had been pulled into an old-fashioned queue at his nape. He kept a ring of keys attached to his waist that clanked with each step he took.
He was a student of history, he’d said, and could answer any question they might have about Astasia Castle, and proceeded to exhibit his detailed knowledge of the dank, drafty place with narrow halls and low ceilings. A young Russian prince had died in this room. An ancient queen had lost her life giving birth to her tenth child in that room.
Sir Corin showed them to the throne room. “More than one monarch’s held court here.”
Justine was accustomed to the opulence of the palace in Wesloria’s capital of St. Edys. This looked more like a common room of a public house—it was small and dark, the king and queen’s thrones wooden, and the tapestries faded by time and smoke.
Another room, Sir Corin pointed out, was where King Maksim had accepted the surrender of the feudal King Igor, thereby uniting all Weslorians under one rule after generations of strife.
“My namesake,” her father said proudly, forgetting, perhaps, that King Maksim had slaughtered King Igor’s forces to unite them all.
They came upon a small inner courtyard. Stone walls rose up on three sides of it, but the outer wall was a battlement. Sir Corin pointed to a door at one end of the battlement that led into a keep with narrow windows. “We use it for storage now, but they kept the prisoners there in the old days. Worse than any dungeon your young eyes have ever seen, Your Royal Highness.”
Justine had never seen a dungeon.
“Is this not where Lord Rabat was beheaded?” her father asked casually. To Justine, he said, “That would have been your great-great-uncle Rabat.”
“Je, Your Majesty, the block is still here.” Sir Corin pointed to a large wooden block that stood alone, about two feet high and two feet wide. It looked to have been weathered by years of sitting in hard sun and wretched winters.
“Oh, how terrible,” Justine said, crinkling her nose.
“Quite,” her father agreed, and explained, with far too much enthusiasm, how a person was made to kneel before the block and lay their neck upon it. “A good executioner could make clean work of it with a single stroke. Whap, and the head would tumble into a basket.”
“If I may, Your Majesty, a good executioner was hard to come by. More miners in these parts than men good with broadswords. Fact is, it took three strikes of the sword to sever Rabat’s head completely.” Sir Corin felt it necessary to demonstrate the three strikes with his arm.
“Ah…” Justine swallowed down a swell of nausea.
“Three whacks?” her father repeated, rapt. “Couldn’t get it done in one?”
Sir Corin shook his head. “Just goes to prove how important it is to keep the broadsword sharp.”
“And to keep someone close who knows how to wield it,” her father added. The two men laughed roundly.
Justine looked around for someplace to sit so that she could put her head between her legs and gulp some air. Alas, the only place to sit was the block.
“Steady there, my girl. I’ve not told you who ordered the beheading,” her father said.
Sir Corin clasped his hands together in anticipation, clearly trying to contain his glee.
“Your great-great-aunt Queen Elena!”
Queen Elena had beheaded Lord Rabat? “Her husband?”
“Worse. Her brother.”
Justine gasped. “But why?”
“Because Rabat meant to behead her first. Whoever survived the battle here would be crowned the sovereign.”
“Ooh, a bloody battle it was, too,” Sir Corin said eagerly. “Four thousand souls lost, many of them falling right off the battlement.”
Justine backed up a step. A quake was beginning somewhere deep inside her, making her a little short of breath. Her knees felt as if they might buckle, and her skin crawled with anxiety, imagining the loss of so many. “Could she not have banished him?”
“And have him slither back like a snake?” Her father draped his arm around her shoulders before she could back up all the way to St. Edys. “She did the right thing. Why, minutes before, she was on the block herself.”
“Dear God,” Justine whispered.
“But at the last minute the people here saved her,” her father said. “She sentenced her brother to die immediately for his insurrection and stood right where we are now to watch his traitorous head roll.”
“Well,” Sir Corin said. “I wouldn’t say it rolled, precisely.”
The two men laughed again.
“Don’t close your eyes, darling,” her father said, squeezing her into his side. “Look at that block. Elena was only seventeen years old, but she was very clever. She knew what she had to do to hold power and rule the kingdom. And she ruled a very long time.”
“Forty-three years, all told,” Sir Corin said proudly.
“Queen Elena learned what every sovereign must—be decisive and act quickly. Do you understand?”
“I don’t…think so?” Justine was starting to feel a bit like she was spinning.
“You will.” Her father dropped his arm. He wandered over to the block to inspect it. “We almost named you Elena after her. But they called her Elena the Bi—Witch,” he said. “And your mother feared they might call you the same.”
“You said she was a good queen.”
“She was an excellent queen. But sometimes it is difficult to do the things that must be done and keep the admiration of your people at the same time.”
The spinning was getting worse. She gripped her father’s arm. “Why?”
“Because people expect a woman to behave like a woman. But a good queen must sometimes behave more like a king for the good of the kingdom. People don’t care for it.” He shrugged. “No king or queen can make all their subjects happy all the time.” He suddenly smiled. “You look a bit like Queen Elena.”
“The very image,” Sir Corin piped up.
Later that day Justine saw a portrait of Queen Elena. She wasn’t smiling, but she didn’t appear completely unpleasant. She simply looked…determined. And her dress was elegantly pretty, with lots of pearls sewn into it.
Later still, when her father and his men had retired to smoke cigars and talk about coal or some such, Justine returned to the courtyard alone. No one was there, no sentry looking out for marauders or runaway brides. She looked up at the tops of pines bending in a relentless wind, appearing to scrape a dull gray sky. She walked up the steps to the battlement and gazed out over the mountain valley below the castle. She spread her arms wide, closed her eyes and turned her face to the heavens.
That was the first time she truly felt it—the pull from somewhere deep, the energy of all the kings and queens who had come before her, rising up to the crown of her head, anchoring her to this earth. She felt the centuries of warfare and struggle, of the people her family had ruled. She felt the enormous responsibilities they’d all carried, the work they’d done to carve a road to the future.
Her father had often said that he could feel the weight of his crown on his shoulders. But Justine felt something entirely different. She didn’t feel as if it was weighing her down, but more like it was lifting her off her feet and holding her here. She didn’t believe this was a conceit on her part, but a tether to her past. She would be a queen. She knew that she would, and standing there, she felt like she should be. She felt born to it.
A gust of wind very nearly sent her flying, so she came down from the battlement. She paused just before the block and tried to imagine herself on her knees, knowing her death was imminent. She imagined how she would look.
She hoped she would appear strong and noble with no hint of her fear of the pain or the unknown.
Being queen was her destiny. She knew it would come.
Julia London is a New York Times and USA Today bestselling author of over fifty novels of historical and contemporary romance. She is the author of the popular Highland Grooms series as well as A Royal Wedding, her most recent series. Julia is the recipient of the RT Bookclub Award for Best Historical Romance and a six-time finalist for the prestigious RITA award for excellence in romantic fiction. She lives in Austin, Texas. Visit her at www.julialondon.com.
