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Monday, January 27, 2014

RELEASE DAY EVENT: ROMANCING THE DUKE by TESSA DARE ~ EXCERPT AND GIVEAWAY

Tessa Dare's "Romancing the Duke" releases today, and I am happy to share an excerpt and giveaway.
 
 
Romancing the Duke (Castles Ever After, #1)Series: Castles Ever After #1
Genre: Historical Romance
Publisher: Avon
Publication Date: 1/28/14
 
 
 
In the first in Tessa Dare's captivating Castles Ever After series, a mysterious fortress is the setting for an unlikely love . . .

As the daughter of a famed author, Isolde Ophelia Goodnight grew up on tales of brave knights and fair maidens. She never doubted romance would be in her future, too. The storybooks offered endless possibilities.

And as she grew older, Izzy crossed them off. One by one by one.

Ugly duckling turned swan?

Abducted by handsome highwayman?
Rescued from drudgery by charming prince?


No, no, and… Heh.

Now Izzy’s given up yearning for romance. She’ll settle for a roof over her head. What fairy tales are left over for an impoverished twenty-six year-old woman who’s never even been kissed?

This one.
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/18052985-romancing-the-duke?from_search=true
 
 

“A sweet, fun nod to literary fandom, and two main characters who are perfect for each other yet never would have met if they weren’t each at a nadir in life’s journey.”
—Kirkus Reviews (starred review)


“Dare’s first Castles Ever After historical provides a unique twist to a fairy tale, complete with an ancient castle, a damsel in distress, and a wounded hero […].”

—Publishers Weekly (starred review)


“[A] wickedly funny and soul-satisfyingly romantic novel, the perfect launch to Dare’s new Castles Ever After series.”

–Booklist (starred review)

 


A sneak peek of ROMANCING THE DUKE:

The driver pocketed her offering and touched his cap. “What was yer name again, miss?”

“Goodnight. Miss Izzy Goodnight.”

She waited to see if he would recognize it. Most of the literate people in England would, and a great many of their domestic servants, besides.

The driver only grunted. “Jes’ wanted to know it, in case someone comes around asking. If you’re never heard from again.”

Izzy laughed. She waited for him to laugh, too.

He didn’t.

Soon driver, team, and carriage were nothing more than the fading crunch of wheels on the road.

Izzy picked up her valise and walked through the barbican. A stone bridge carried her over what once had been a moat but now was only a slimy green trickle.

She’d done a bit of research in advance of her journey. There wasn’t much to read. Only that Gostley Castle had once been the seat of the Rothbury dukedom, in Norman times.

It didn’t look inhabited now. There was no glass in many of the windows. No lights in them, either. There should have been a portcullis that dropped to bar the entrance—but there was nothing there. No door, no gate.

She walked through the archway and into the central, open courtyard.

“Lord Archer?” Her voice died in the air. She tried again. “Lord Archer, are you here?” This time, her call got a respectable echo off the flagstones. But no answer.

She was alone.

Dizzied from her strange surroundings and weak with hunger, Izzy closed her eyes. She coerced air into her lungs.

You cannot faint. Only ninnies and consumptive ladies swoon, and you are neither.

It started to rain. Fat, heavy drops of summer rain—the kind that always struck her as vaguely lewd and debauched. Little potbellied drunkards, those summer raindrops, chortling on their way to earth and crashing open with glee.

She was getting wet, but the alternative—seeking shelter inside one of the darkened arches—was less appealing by far.

A rustling sound made her jump and wheel. Just a raven taking wing. She watched it fly over the castle wall and away.

She laughed a little. Really. It was too much. A vast, uninhabited castle, rain, and now ravens, too? Someone was playing her a cruel trick.

Then she glimpsed a man across the courtyard, standing in a darkened archway.

And if he was a trick, he wasn’t a cruel one.

There were things in nature that took their beauty from delicate structure and intricate symmetry. Flowers. Seashells. Butterfly wings. And then there were things that were beautiful for their wild power and their refusal to be tamed. Snowcapped mountains. Churning thunderclouds. Shaggy, sharp-toothed lions.

This man silhouetted before her? He belonged, quite solidly, in the latter category.

So did the wolf sitting at his heel.

It couldn’t be a wolf, she told herself. It had to be some sort of dog. Wolves had long been hunted to extinction. The last one in England died ages ago.

But then . . . she would have thought they’d stopped making men like this, too.

He shifted his weight, and a slant of weak light revealed the bottom half of his face. She glimpsed a wide, sensual slash of a mouth. A squared jaw, dark with whiskers. Overlong hair brushed his collar. Or it would have, if he had a collar. He wore only an open-necked linen shirt beneath his coat. Buckskin breeches hugged him from slim hips to muscled thighs . . . and from there, his legs disappeared into a pair of weathered, dusty Hessians.

Oh, dear. She did have such a weakness for a pair of well-traveled boots. They made her desperate to know everywhere they’d been.

Her heart beat faster. This didn’t help with her lightheadedness problem.

“Are you Lord Archer?” she asked.

“No.” The word was low, unforgiving.

The beast at his heel growled.

“Oh. I-is Lord Archer here?”

“No.”

“Are you the caretaker?” she asked. “Are you expecting him soon?”

“No. And no.”

Was that amusement in his voice?

She swallowed hard. “I received a letter. From Lord Archer. He asked me to meet him here on this date regarding some business with the late Earl of Lynforth’s estate. Apparently he left me some sort of bequest.” She extended the letter with a shaking hand. “Here. Would you care to read it for yourself?”

That wide mouth quirked at one corner. “No.”

Izzy retracted the letter as calmly as she could manage and replaced it in her pocket.

He leaned one shoulder against the archway. “Aren’t we going to continue?”

“Continue what?”

“This game.” His voice was so low it seemed to crawl to her over the flagstones, then shiver up through the soles of her feet. “Am I a Russian prince? No. Is my favorite color yellow? No. Would I object if you were to come inside and remove every stitch of your damp clothing?” His voice did the impossible. It sank lower. “No.”

He was just making sport of her now.

Izzy clutched her valise to her chest. She didn’t want Snowdrop getting wet. “Do you treat all your visitors this way?”

Idiot. She cursed herself and braced for another low, mocking “no.”

He said, “Only the pretty ones.”

Oh, Lord. She ought to have guessed it earlier. The fatigue and hunger had done something to her brain. She could almost believe the castle, the ravens, the sudden appearance of a tall, dark, handsome man. But now he was flirting with her?

She had to be hallucinating.

The rain beat down, impatient to get from the clouds to the earth. Izzy watched drops pinging off the flagstones. Each one seemed to chisel a bit more strength from her knees.

The castle walls began to spin. Her vision went dark at the edges.

 “I . . . Forgive me, I . . .”

Her valise dropped to the ground.

The beast snarled at it.

The man moved out from the shadows.

And Izzy fainted dead away.



 


Could your “castle” use a pick-me-up? Enter to win a $50.00 BED BATH & BEYOND gift card below for a home improvement happy-ever-after of your own!
(US entries only please)
 
 
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26 comments:

  1. I've read a few historicals that I've enjoyed: Never Seduce a Scot by Maya Banks. Loved and another by Lisa Kleypas that was really fun. I'll have to keep this one in mind when I'm in the mood for another. Thanks for sharing, Andrea! :)

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  2. I don't read much historical romances, but I have been meaning to start mixing things up, I'll have to keep this one in mind, it sounds cute. Thanks for sharing.

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  3. I'd love to build a conservatory on the back of our house, but we don't own the place, so we can't. It's a shame. The best improvement we've done previously, was in our old house on the Army Garrison where we lived at the time. My husband had the garden fully landscaped and done up, it was beautiful when it was finished. He did it for me because I didn't get outdoors at all due to agoraphobia, so he thought if he built me a nice garden I could get my wheelchair out into, I might slowly start spending more time outdoors. Which I did do. So it was definitely a worthwhile project and worth the cost.

    Thanks for introducing me to Tessa Dare!

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  4. The most I have done is paint walls, retiled my bathroom, and re finish furniture.... No Big project for me honestly. We bought our home new. Thanks for the fabulous giveaway!!! Love your blog!!!

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  5. We added a bedroom to our house once and did it all ourselves. Turned out alright too! Thanks for the giveaway!

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  6. I would really like to replace the carpet in the living room. I've always liked wooden floors ~

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  7. The cover of this is really pretty. I enjoyed the excerpt. Thanks for sharing!

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  8. Ooo, such an intriguing excerpt! I only read my first few Tessa Dare books recently and really enjoyed them, so I'm looking forward to zooming through the rest. This new series sounds very promising, thanks for the heads-up. :)

    Wendy @ The Midnight Garden

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  9. I've never read Tessa Dare before. Castles, oh man, I would love to live in one! We've had our house 4 1/2 years and we're still doing home improvement projects on it. We painted the entire thing and put in new flooring, but we still need to paint some doors, the outside of the house and the yard always needs more work. I'm sure it'll go on forever!

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  10. we installed pv on the roof, replaced all the floors, put in silestone counters and repainted, wish I had cracked open my purse a little more and replaced the kitchen cabinets as well - hindsight is 20-20

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  11. I'd love a castle to have a crisis with! I am trying to talk my husband to jackhammer a 5 foot by 12 foot by 2 1/2 foot piece of concrete out of my laundry room so we can add a bathroom downstairs.

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  12. I finished my basement and in the process of putting in a sprinkler system. Will have to finish that in the spring. Oh by the way, I LOVED a Week to be Wicked..AWESOME story!

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  13. I would like totally remake my bathroom!

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  14. I haven't had any castle crisis. I would love to put in a sun room.

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  15. Great excerpt. Thanks or the giveaway. My husband does construction, so he built our house and we did all the work. The only downfall is sometimes things never get finished.

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  16. Hmmmm....it's been a while since I read a Historical Romance. A GARAGE - I'd so add one as a "castle" improvement.

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  17. Our castle is forever needing some kind of fixer upper :)
    I enjoyed the excerpt so thanks for sharing.

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  18. Historical romance isn't something I usually get off on but this one actually intrigues me! Thanks for sharing

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  19. We rehabbed a home to sell and it was such a blast. I cannot wait to read this!!

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  20. The one that was supposed to be easy that turned out anything but was removing the wallpaper in my daughter's room to paint the room. Turns out, the drywall hadn't even been plastered, much less prepared for wall paper. After many tedious hours scraping off the wall paper (and the wall) we ended up having to plaster and texture the wall before painting. I was never so happy that only one wall had paper on it!

    Loved the excerpt!

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  21. My house is always needing some type of repair, it seems. Well, it's not IN the house but I have a round above ground pool and when I was in high school we had a storm where a tree fell right on top of it. Not fun. As for the actual house, a home improvement project I'd like to tackle is adding a new bathroom downstairs!

    -Lauren

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  22. This seems like it'd be a lot of fun, Andrea! :)

    As for home improvement projects...our first house hadn't been updated since the 60's. Still had blue shag carpet! ;) We ripped out all the carpets, took down all the wallpaper, painted, polished the wood floor buried under said carpet...turned it into something we were really proud of. :)

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  23. No crisis here...the most we have ever done is extend our patio but my husband is very handy and did a very nice job!

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  24. Sadly we don't own a house yet to update but I'd LOVE for our rental to get new carpet. Ours is old & nasty.

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  25. oh gosh I need my home to go through a lot of home improvements hah maybe soon. But I love historical romance, thank you for sharing!

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  26. Our home DESPERATELY needs a new front porch. It sways with every step. We will be surprised if it survives the winter so it's the first thing on our to-do list for Spring.

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