You’re in the mood to read a Regency Romance Novel?

Lucky in Love - A FREE online regency romance story

The twenty-six year old Edmund, Earl of Warenne accepts a challenge to win an impossible wager. At the risk of losing his favourite snuff box and being saddled with an ugly wife, Edmund agrees to court a desperate old maid sight unseen and have his honourable marriage proposal rejected in front of witnesses. He knows he’ll win; he’s lucky as well as thorough. Not really wanting to be saddled with an unpleasant life companion he decides to take extreme measures to ensure that the old maid finds his offer unpalatable. Fate flips its coin. Edmund’s natural optimism is put to the test as the coin is caught with tragedy facing upward. Will he be able to see the lucky side of life when he realises that sometimes to win is to lose?

A Companion for Life

Miss Lily Leigh’s life is like a badly written fairytale. The fat younger sister is pretty, but her parents only have enough love and money for the beautiful older sister. When her parents die she’s denied an inheritance and enslaved to Rosamund, her heartless older sister, without a hope of being rescued. After more than a decade of pain and humiliation, the only thing that keeps her from throwing herself into the Thames is the possibility that one day she’ll catch another glimpse of Mr Penryth Bowen, the man her sister jilted eighteen years ago.

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The Invisible Husband

Miss Eve Venables knows nothing about the man who’s persuaded her parents to deliver her to a country church in the middle of the night, not even his name. Her parents have wisely withheld his identity knowing their daughter would hunt him down and then give the man cause to change his mind. Four men in black hooded cloaks escort Eve up the aisle where she’s married by proxy to a man named Adam Harold Damian Latham, sixth Earl of Latham. The name Latham is familiar, but she can’t remember why. A feeling of being watched sends a chill up her spine and over her scalp. For six months invisible eyes have been following her everywhere...

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The Hired Wife

Marshall Godfrey the 8th Viscount Raynham is in need of a wife, but his strenuous efforts to acquire one through normal channels have failed. He’s out of patience and out of time. His twin sisters are being launched into society, but he can only hear within a very short distance. His plan is to hire a woman to hover at his shoulder and repeat into his ear what people are saying, but he can’t take a secretary into polite society.

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Taming The Shrew

The wealthy Miss Juliana Browne has a number of problems; she’s twenty-five, her hair is red, she’s on the shelf, life is hateful and her only known admirer is Hervey De Vere, a freckled orange haired fortune hunter who looks eighteen. After three years of continuous snubs, he’s still chasing her with endless offers of gallantry and proposals of marriage. When Juliana’s mother suggests she solve her problems by marrying the said Hervey, Juliana is revolted until her mother reveals that Hervey has a reputation as a charming, attentive and discreet lover. Assured that her married friends will turn green with envy Juliana impulsively weds the man. She quickly discovers her boyish looking husband is more than man enough to tame her contrary heart.

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Redeeming A Rake

Geoffrey Lyndsey Grayson, the thirteen Duke of Lyndhurst, is trapped in an emotional winter. His childhood dream of finding love is frozen under thick sheets of ice along with his heart. He feels nothing but discomfort as he passively waits for death to end the nothingness. Receiving a summons to his mother's latest ball, he decides he might as well attend as sit there and die. Stepping into the ballroom his eyes are drawn to a woman wearing a pale blue silk dress and rubies in her white blonde hair; she's wearing his colours. Meeting her gaze he feels a strange sharp pain through his forehead. He has to meet her to see if she can make him feel anything else. He tries to aproach her, but the horrified crowd unconsiously swirls around her keeping the young woman out of reach. Shunned in his own ballroom he stands alone watching her dance. He knows it's too late for love...

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The Curse of Love

Timothy Cranston’s heart is bone dry; reason enough to hate the world. Since his father’s death he’s been tormented by the secret shame of needing to be touched with kindness. He can’t remember the last time his mother put an arm around his shoulders, ruffled his hair or even pinched his cheek. Her words of love are meaningless; if she loved him she’d touch him. She obviously hates him and he returns the sentiment. He hates everyone, especially his two Elizabethan ancestors who’ve been cursed to ensure ten generations of their progeny marry for love. The absence of privacy has soured Timothy’s tender introverted heart. He’s resolved to die a bachelor; any other ending is unthinkable. What is love? It’s a myth made up by old ladies to inflict feelings of failure on the young!

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Introducing Smirke - FREE

This free short story is an introduction to John Smirke, who is the main character in my full-length novel, An Unlikely Hero.

It’s the beginning of August, 1815. The dishonourable John Sebastian Smirke, a heartless pretty narcissist, has had another genuine offer of marriage rejected by a sneering Papa. Offended and infuriated, he executes the perfect revenge; blackmailing the virgin concerned into his bed. His web is skillfully woven; success is assured until he's caught in his own web. Fate throws him a safety rope, but it looks too much like a noose. Fate shrugs its shoulders as Smirke insists on running the gauntlet.

This story is recommended reading prior to reading An Unlikely Hero.

An Unlikely Hero

John Smirke’s black marble heart has an insatiable need to be loved and admired, but his only developed talent is causing creative misery. Outside his immediate family he’s universally hated. The word love has no emotional definition in his brain while the word romance can only be conceived as a state of heightened sexual pleasure. As he meets death at the end of a rapier in a senseless duel of honour he belatedly longs to find a woman who can love him, whatever that means.

It is recommended that you read Introducing Smirke before commencing this book.

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Coming Soon - Dancing the Maypole

Isabel De Bourbon’s heart has been secretly stored in a dusty box marked ‘property of Peter Smirke’ for seventeen years. Falling in love with a married man has condemned her to years of dreaming that one day he’d be free; one day the love she’d seen in his eyes would return and she’d become Lady Adderbury. After nine years his wife dies leaving him free, but the fear of rejection leaves her too paralyzed to act. It’s safer to keep dreaming of the day he’ll kiss her than actually face the man. She’s nearly given up hope until one morning at breakfast her father reveals that a lunatic named Lord Adderbury is advertising in the paper for a wife. The consequence of defending her hero is to be sent off the next morning to apply in person for the position.

“But Papa, what if he doesn’t want me? His first wife was a short blonde. What if he’s a tall man who only likes short women? What if he hates brunettes?”

“Bof! Il tu veux!” The Frenchman had spoken; the crazy Lord Adderbury would take one look at the five foot eleven inches of Isabel de Bourbon and fall in love without a whimper.

“I’m going to kill him!” The roar made the company squirm in fear as Peter’s lips became two white lines of compressed fury.

His hostess sensing a prime opportunity to acquire a choice piece of gossip leaned forward, “Kill who my Lord?”

“My helpful eldest son.”

“Oh…surely you aren’t going to deprive the ton of good breeding material? That would be such a waste; I understand he’s quite handsome…” With the broadsheet scrunched in one hand Peter swivelled on a heel and shouted for his carriage. His son’s latest attempts to help him find a wife had condemned him to a life of celibacy. What decent, sane woman will want him after reading that feckless advertisement?