Guest Blog Today. The next in the Blog Hop!

Today, Sandra Masters is blogging about her Regency novel. 

Sandra Masters

Hello Writers:  I do not have a functioning blog but am working on it. My story ONCE UPON A DUKE, has been ruminating since 2007. It was formerly My Divinely Decadent Duke.

I am in love with the Regency period. To me it was a Classic Romantic Elegant era. Dashing Alpha heroes and strong, fiery, smart women and clothing to die for.

This book has been polished and is ready to go for re submissions to three publishing houses who expressed an interest.  At the Yosemite Romance Writers October meeting, I won the raffle that our presenting author, Sarah Richman, offered. It was her agreement to be my Beta Reader. I got the results back and her encouragement and suggestions were worth their weight in gold.  Thank you, Sarah.

Setting:  Regency England 1817, Lord Geoffrey Austen, Duke of Sutton—a handsome gifted rake with raven black hair and piercing grotto blue eyes is a fictional character, Alpha male, age thirty-four,  He's tall, scarred face and a tortured soul.

He meets the widow Lady Serena, an artist, who holds a dark secret, believes she is unlovable and that she was responsible for her parent’s death in a carriage accident.

Note from Author, Sandra Masters:  Your Grace, I have created you out of the figment of my imagination. Did I do you justice?

Lord Geoffrey, after being betrayed by an unfaithful fiancé, resolves never to marry for any reason and is suspect of all women. His arctic mother made it clear she married his father for security reasons only and never wanted any children.  When I met Serena, sparks blazed and our  two worlds collided.

   ******

I thought to have Lord Geoffrey answer the questions from his viewpoint.

Interviewer: What is your main fear, Lord Geoffrey?

Answer: Getting leg shackled by a woman. I fear commitment and what love can do to a man. My interaction with Lady Serena, started out as just another notch on my bedpost, but somehow it grew into something profound when I saw the scars inflicted on Serena’s back by her sadistic husband. My heart melted at the sight and I found a need to show her tenderness.. I demonstrated to her the gentleness of a man and woman who share a real relationship. In a caring gesture, I gifted her with a puppy, who she named Adonis, after me and the mythical God of Love.

Interviewer: What is the main conflict?

Answer: She wants a commitment of marriage. I have offered the position of mistress. She refuses. I left without saying Goodbye. It was not a manly thing to do.

 Interviewer: What has messed up your life?

Answer: When I arrived in sooty air defiled London, I found everything a bore. My thoughts were consumed with Serena whom I left behind. I did return and visited her surreptitiously one night at the lakeside manor and it was comfortable.  Her maid prepared a warm meal for me. Adonis, the pup I gave her, wagged his tail merrily and tried to bite my shoe as usual.  Serena said, “WE missed you.”  I wondered how along the way I had acquired a family: woman, a maid and a puppy.  Our lovemaking was unbelievable and this time I woke her up before I left.

I returned to London and all I could do with think of her. The concept of a future relationship started to intrigue me. I returned to visit her the next week, but she was gone. I met with her brother and he told me she was engaged to another man and that she only toyed with me to make him jealous enough to propose marriage. He did. She accepted. Her brother approved. They are to be married in three weeks. Her brother informed me she ordered the puppy drowned and my portrait burned because it only reminded her of how foolish she had been.

You can imagine how outraged I was. I did not care about the portrait she burned, but to order Adonis killed—how could I have misjudged her? I drank myself into a stupor with a good friend and while I tried to find any woman who might ease the pain of her loss, they all were found lacking.  And just when, I thought there was no other choice than to forget her, all she said, all she did and all she represented to me, visitors came to my London townhouse. It was Serena’s maid and the groomsmen who had returned the puppy to me, unharmed, the week before. Her maid handed me a personal letter written hastily by her mistress. Serena advised she was being held prisoner in an armed fortress and that the marriage was forced upon her, without her knowledge or consent. She reaffirmed her love for me and indicated she would throw herself from a parapet into the ocean rather than marry the monster of a man that her betrothed was.

It was then I realized, when I was shown a picture she had drawn of the three of us, as a family, Serena, myself and the pup, that her brother lied to me—about everything. To add to this, the maid brought the portrait she had painted of me, the one that was purportedly burned, and I knew that her brother was guilty of lies for his own selfish purposes.

Serena’s letter ended with the words that she would love me forever, in this world or the next. What else could a rake do but reply that the maid, should return to her mistress and tell her that she would either attend our wedding—or my funeral.

I leave to come to your own conclusion on how the ending of the novel came about.

Interviewer: Is there a working title to this novel?

Answer: Yes, it is the ONCE UPON A DUKE, (That’s me.) by Sandra Masters. She's the author. You can visit the author’s website where there is an excerpt at sandramastersauthor.com and you are invited to leave a comment on the Guest Page.

Interviewer: When do you think the book will be published, Ms. Masters?

Answer: It has been re-submitted to a publisher who has assigned a review editor to read the manuscript and either recommend or reject the novel. It is hard for me to wait to have readers connect with me.

I've been on this pages for a long time. I hope you like our fairy tale romance.  I nominate Bonnie Phelps who blogged about her novel at this link:

http://bonniephelpsauthor.blogspot.com/2014/11/can-i-really-love-you.html

 

 

 

Drawn into the Web of my characters' stories . . .

My friend Cora Ramos nominated me for a Blog Tour to talk about my book, a paranormal romantic suspense, which is waiting to be published.  

This novel is part of a trilogy set in the general area of where I grew up in Arizona. The paranormal aspect is inspired by an Indian legend that intrigues me. Native American Indian myths are fascinating and come from some point of reality. The story of Morning Star and Feather Woman, a high plains Indian myth is integral to the magic of the haunted canyon in my story.

"Morning Star placed the yellow feather in her hair and, giving her the juniper branch, directed her to shut her eyes; she held the upper strand of the spider's web in her hand and placed her foot on the lower, and in a moment she was transported to the sky."

What is the name of your character? Is he/she fictional or historical? The fictional heroine and hero of the first book in my trilogy, The Haunting of Sunset Canyon, are Darcy Peel and Alan Brandt. Tying these two together is the mystery of the canyon and the mysterious Emmaline Marton who inhabits it.

When and where is the story set? The story is set in Arizona where I’ve constructed a fictional environment that borrows physical aspects of both Sedona and Prescott—high desert and red rock terrain in which a little town called Dry Creek exists. Darcy grew up here. Due west of Dry Creek is a rugged mountain range that I named Prospector’s Mountain. Slicing deep across the northern section of the mountain is the fictional Sunset Canyon, a beautiful, carved sandstone gorge created by eons of erosion from Little Springs River, also a figment of my imagination. Breathtaking in its towering walls and the way light plays on every twist and turn, the canyon delivers more than scenic glory (as evidenced by events in the story that reinforce the myth of “the curse”.) It brings death to anyone searching for the Lost Blood Stones Mine.

There are several time frames in this story. 1911, 1984 and the present.

What should we know about your characters?  Though Darcy Peel spent her youth in Dry Creek, she had been away for a very long time.  The reason she left Arizona to teach and do research at a prestigious university in California after receiving her doctorate, had everything to do with the mystery of Sunset Canyon.  Darcy purposely put distance between herself and the constant reminder of something she saw in the canyon when she was twelve years old, just before an unexplained flash flood almost killed her and her siblings and took the lives of two people.  Her sister, Deanna Peel, however, stayed to take care of their mother, keep the family roadside café and gas station going, and ultimately to raise their brother’s son after the brother, Derek Peel was killed.  Derek was only twenty-six years old when the canyon took him.

Now, her sister Deanna has disappeared while looking for ancient ruins she theorized proved that Indians inhabited Sunset Canyon and were the real-life people that inspired the stories of ghost warriors and Fleshtakers who are part of the “curse” of the canyon.  Darcy is compelled to come home, heavy-hearted with regret for not being there for her sister, to find out what happened to her and ultimately to face the horrors of that long-ago tragic day in the canyon.

Alan Brandt has also returned to the Dry Creek area, though he doesn’t think of his signing on with the Maricopa County Sheriff’s Department as a Deputy as actually returning home. He was very small when his mother took him to live in Sedona. He grew up there away from his mother’s family, unaffected by his illegitimacy as he would have been if he and his mother stayed. The McCann family owned one of the biggest cattle ranches in Arizona at the time, and Mary McCann, a beautiful, elegant and artistic young woman had embarrassed and outraged her own father when she refused to divulge Alan’s paternity.

What is the main conflict? What messes up their lives? Both Darcy and Alan are dealing with multiple issues and conflicts in their lives. The uncertain fate of her sister has thrown Darcy’s life into turmoil.  She knows that her sister would never get lost in Sunset Canyon. But a box of research and diaries sent by Deanna one week before she went missing compels Darcy to leave her settled, productive academic life and come back to Dry Creek. The more Darcy finds, the more she is convinced foul play was involved. But with the growing intensity of haunting dreams of the canyon that are awakening her memory of the strange occurrences on the day of the flood when she was a girl, Darcy wonders if the foul deed was by human hand—or something much more frightening.  

Complicating her life even more is her incredible attraction to Alan. He says he can help her investigate but conflict begins when she discovers he is associated with Craig McCann who hates the Peel family. Darcy finds that he had been at heated odds with Darcy’s sister about development plans near the canyon. Some even say McCann and Alan are in business together. Is Alan just playing her to find out what Deanna was going to report to the Bureau of Indian Affairs with the intent of halting the development plans that would include stepping up gold prospecting in the area as well?

For Alan the level of attraction between him and Darcy heightens his desire to start his life over and do it right this time. He feels it should be simple—their first meeting proved they had chemistry—an overwhelming attraction he has never felt before. But he soon finds out that Darcy has come back with a purpose that puts him in the middle of the long-standing feud between the McCanns and the Peels. Trust is an issue. She has to be convinced that he is not in the enemy’s camp.  

What are the personal goals of the characters? Darcy – to solve her sister’s disappearance, honor her work to halt any plans that would bring people into the canyon.  Darcy wants to come to terms with her childhood fears.  Alan – to begin his life anew after that rough and violent episode earlier in his life. He needs for this new life to include Darcy.

Is there a working title for this novel, and can we read more about it? The first book in the series is Blood Stones. Starting with this blog hop, I am planning on sharing more teasing details about the haunting of Sunset Canyon and the mysterious Emmaline Marton – the character I haven’t written about today. She is pivotal, but I don’t want to divulge too many of her secrets. I will say that she has the capacity to love someone for a very long time.:-)

 

When can we expect the book to be published? Oh, I do hope by summer, 2015. This has been a labor of love, but I’m so ready to deliver this bouncing baby novel before I am too tired to raise fingers to keyboard and -- Push!

 I nominate Sandra Masters to talk about her book next Tuesday. She will be using this blog to share about her story but you can also visit her at her website.