Dangerous by Minerva Spencer blog tour
DANGEROUS by Minerva Spencer
Historical Romance
June 26, 2018Kensington Zebra
BLURBWhat sort of lady doesn’t make her debut until the age of thirty-two? A timeless beauty with a mysterious past—and a future she intends to take into her own hands . . .
Lady Euphemia Marlington
hasn’t been free in seventeen years—since she was captured by Corsairs and sold
into a harem. Now the sultan is dead and Mia is back in London facing
relentless newspapermen, an insatiably curious public, and her first Season.
Worst of all is her ashamed father’s ultimatum: marry a man of his choosing or
live out her life in seclusion. No doubt her potential groom is a demented
octogenarian. Fortunately, Mia is no longer a girl, but a clever woman with a
secret—and a plan of her own . . .
Adam de Courtney’s first
two wives died under mysterious circumstances. Now there isn’t a peer in
England willing to let his daughter marry the dangerously handsome man the ton calls The Murderous Marquess. Nobody
except Mia’s father, the desperate Duke of Carlisle. Clearly Mia must resemble
an aging matron, or worse. However, in need of an heir, Adam will use the
arrangement to his advantage . . .
But when the two outcasts
finally meet, assumptions will be replaced by surprises, deceit by desire—and a
meeting of minds between two schemers may lead to a meeting of hearts—if the
secrets of their pasts don’t tear them apart . . .
“Minerva Spencer's writing is sophisticated and wickedly witty. Dangerous is a delight from start to
finish with swashbuckling action, scorching love scenes, and a coolly arrogant
hero to die for. Spencer is my new auto-buy!”
—New York Times bestselling author Elizabeth Hoyt
“Readers will love this lusty and unusual marriage of convenience
story.”
—New York Times bestselling author Madeline Hunter
“Smart, witty, graceful, sensual, elegant and gritty all at once. It has
all of the meticulous attention to detail I love in Georgette Heyer, BUT WITH
SEX!”
—RITA-award winning author Jeffe Kennedy
Here is a little teaser from DANGEROUS:
“IN
SHORT, SIR, I WOULD LIKE A MARRIAGE WITHOUT EMOTIONAL ENTANGLEMENT.”
The marquess’s eyebrows, his only
expressive feature, crept up his forehead, as if he had a difficult time
imagining something as foreign as an emotion—not to mention becom- ing
entangled by one.
They took each other’s measure
before she broke the silence. “What of you, my lord? Why do you wish to marry?
It does not sound as if your two experiences with marriage were felicitous.”
Mia did not mean to be cruel, but she needed to know what he wanted and why he
was here tonight—a place he clearly wished not to be.
“I need an heir.” His pupils flared
until his eyes were almost black, as if he were imagining the process of
getting an heir. With her.
INTERVIEW
La Crimson Femme: Where did you get the idea?
Minerva Spencer: My heroine, Mia, was a minor
character in another book and pretty much demanded her own book. I really liked
her playful, clever, and driven personality and knew she would need a strong
hero; somebody who was able to deal with her scandalous past. Adam had been
hanging out in the back of my mind for awhile and I decided he was the perfect
hero for Mia: a man with a dangerous
reputation and even more scandalous history!La Crimson Femme: Where did you get the idea?
La Crimson Femme: What’s the story behind the title?
Minerva Spencer: I’m terrible at two things when it
comes to my books: character names and book titles. I usually just want to get
on with the business of writing the book and ignore anything else. I named the
books in this series, DANGEROUS, BARBAROUS, and SCANDALOUS. I felt sure they
would get changed to something more descriptive, but my editor liked them!
La Crimson Femme: No spoiler, but tell us something we won’t find out just by reading the book
jacket.
Minerva Spencer: Well, the cover just shows you a hot
guy and pretty woman. But the book is about second chances. My protagonists are
older than the typical romance couple: she is 32 and he is 37. They both have
adult children and they’ve both had prior marriages that have not been easy.
La Crimson Femme: Tell us about your favourite character.
Minerva Spencer: I LOVE Mia and Adam, but I’d have to
say my favorite character is Martin Bouchard. He is an escaped slave from New
Orleans who has done well from privateering and has an out-of-control
personality. He has his own book in the series and gets roles in all the other
books.
La Crimson Femme: If you could spend a day with one of your characters, who would it be and
what would you do?
Minerva Spencer: I’d love to go shopping with Mia.
She has a zest for life and fun that even seventeen years in a harem could not
suppress.
La Crimson Femme: Are your characters based on real people, or do they come from your
imagination?
Minerva Spencer: None of them are real people
although there are characteristics that have come from people I know. For
example, Martin--who I mention above--is definitely a lot like my father, who
was a gruff, iconoclastic French-Canadian and had the type of personality that
attracted people in droves.
La Crimson Femme: How long did you take to write this book?
Minerva Spencer: This one came pretty easy--maybe a
couple of months. But then I decided to re-write the entire last quarter of the
book. The second ending came out almost perfect on first draft--almost like it
wanted to be on the page.
La Crimson Femme: What kind of research did you do
for this book?
Minerva Spencer: I always do tons of research and
then use very little of it. This book takes place in England, at sea, and in
the port city of Oran, in modern Algeria. I probably spent the most time
researching sailing vessels and times and then just ended up reaching out to
author Bernard Cornwell to settle my questions. He told me some good “rules of
thumb” for calculating sailing times. Thanks Mr. Cornwell!!
La Crimson Femme: What did you remove from this book during the editing process?
Minerva Spencer: TONS. I type fast--over 100 wpm.
With the exception of one book, I usually end up with about 20,000 works to
cut. I cut out extra characters and many scenes that were good, but just
unnecessary.
La Crimson Femme: Are you a plotter or a pantser?
Minerva Spencer: Pantser all the way. Sometimes I
might just have a character, sometimes an event, I never know. And then I sit
down and see who shows up on the page. Some characters tell their story and
keep their distance, some seem to want to hang around.
La Crimson Femme: What is your favorite part of your writing process, and why?
Minerva Spencer: That first rush of writing, when I
can’t type fast enough to get the story on the page.
La Crimson Femme: What is the most challenging part of your writing process, and why?
Minerva Spencer: When I try and make characters do
something they don’t want to do. I know it sounds weird, but sometimes I just
can’t force them to behave. Usually I let them take me on a journey and then
see if that works. Most of the time it does, thankfully.
La Crimson Femme: Can you share your writing routine?
Minerva Spencer: I write 7 days a week from
7:30-2:30.
La Crimson Femme: Have you ever gotten writer’s block? If yes, how do you overcome it?
Minerva Spencer: Not so much a block, but an
inability to tell the real story. So then I end up writing 20 pages and then
cutting 20 pages.
La Crimson Femme: If you could tell your younger writing self anything, what would it be?
Minerva Spencer: I only started writing 5 years ago,
so it’s not like I’m a really seasoned writer when it comes to managing the ups
and downs. I guess the thing I would have liked to know off the bat was how to
trust my judgement. But I think that is something you can’t know until you’ve
screwed up a few times.
La Crimson Femme: How many unpublished and half-finished books do you have?
Minerva Spencer: Hmmm. Well, I guess I’ve completed
about 11 books and have another 10 or so that are somewhere around the 50%-75%
mark.
La Crimson Femme: Do you have any writing quirks?
Minerva Spencer: I don’t like to listen to writing
gurus/self-help speakers--people who try and tell you how to write. Writing is
very personal and I feel like somebody else trying to impose their method on me
just screws with my mojo. I REALLY enjoy hearing about other writers’
processes, however.
La Crimson Femme: What did you do before you began writing fiction?
Minerva Spencer: I was a college history teacher,
criminal prosecutor, and B&B operator before I began writing.
La Crimson Femme: How did you get into writing?
Minerva Spencer: I had just closed my B&B after 8
years and was really depressed. I hated operating a B&B and felt drained
after we closed it. My husband told me to take a break and think about what I
wanted to do. I got an idea for my first book and then sat down and wrote it in
about a month and a half. And I was hooked.
La Crimson Femme: What do you like to do when you’re not writing?
Minerva Spencer: We still live in our B&B, so I
have a huge 9 bedroom/10 bathroom/11 fireplace house that needs constant
maintenance. Over the years I became an expert on boilers, adobe, and dozens of
other repairs. I spend a lot of time fixing things…
La Crimson Femme: Apart from novel writing, do you do any other kind(s) of writing?
Minerva Spencer: Not anymore. I used to write legal
documents when I was a lawyer, but I no longer practice law.
La Crimson Femme: Share something about you most people probably don’t know.
Minerva Spencer: I am an excellent roller skater and
was asked years ago to join a roller derby club. I declined--those women are
mean!
La Crimson Femme: Which book influenced you the most?
Minerva Spencer: This is a HARD question! I’ll just
say the book that immediately came to mind, Kurt Vonnegut’s BREAKFAST OF
CHAMPIONS. I know it is not his best, but it was the first of his I read. I was
just blown away--and still am--by his writing and his mental process.
WHAT’S NEXT
La Crimson Femme: What are you working on right now?
Minerva Spencer: I’m working on book 4 in The
Outcasts Series. The title is NOTORIOUS and it features a character you will
meet in DANGEROUS-- Mia’s son, Jibril.
La Crimson Femme: What’s your favourite writing advice?
Minerva Spencer: Just write. You can edit later.
La Crimson Femme: Do you write in any other genres?
Minerva Spencer: Yes, I’ve written a detective novel,
a contemporary fantasy, and a science fiction duology. I’ve also written a
children’s book which is being published by crowdfunding.
La Crimson Femme: The book you’re currently reading
Minerva Spencer: THE PINK CARNATION by Lauren Willig.
______________________________________________
BIO
Minerva Spencer is a Canadian
transplant who now lives in the mountains of New Mexico.
She began writing in
2013 after closing her 8-room bed and breakfast (a subject she will never write about. . . ) Minerva has
been a criminal prosecutor, college history professor, and bartender, among
many other things.
She currently writes full-time and
operates a small poultry rescue on her four-acre hobby farm, where she lives
with her wonderful, tolerant husband and many animals.
When Minerva isn’t writing or
editing she’s playing with birds and dogs or doing a little DIY.
DANGEROUS Minerva’s first book in her Regency Era trilogy, The Outcasts, will be published by
Kensington Press June 26, 2018, and BARBAROUS, October 30, 2018.
Minerva is represented by Pamela
Hopkins of Hopkins Literary Associates.
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EXCERPT
Chapter 1
London, 1811
Euphemia
Marlington considered poisoning the Duke of Carlisle. After all, in the harem
poison was a perfectly reasonable solution to one’s problems.
Unfortunately,
poison was not the answer to this particular problem.
First,
she had no poison, or any idea how one acquired such a thing in this cold,
confusing country.
Second,
and far more important, poisoning one’s father was considered bad ton.
The
Duke of Carlisle could have no idea what was going through his daughter’s mind
as he paced a circuit around his massive mahogany desk, his voice droning on in
a now familiar lecture. Mia ensured her father’s ignorance by keeping her
expression meek and mild, a skill she had perfected during the seventeen years
she’d spent in Baba Hassan’s palace. Appearing serene while entertaining
murderous thoughts made up a large part of days spent among sixty or so women,
at least fifty of whom would have liked to see her dead.
Mia
realized the duke’s cavernous study had gone silent. She looked up to find a
pair of green eyes blazing down at her.
“Are
you listening to me, Euphemia?” His bristly
auburn eyebrows arched like angry red caterpillars.
Mia
cursed her wandering attention. “I am sorry, Your Grace, but I did not fully
comprehend.” It was a small lie, and one that had worked well several times in
the past six weeks. While it was true she still thought in Arabic, Mia
understood English perfectly well.
Unless her attention had wandered.
The
duke’s suspicious glare told her claiming a language-related misunderstanding
was no longer as compelling as it had been weeks before.
“I said, you must take care what you
disclose to people. I have gone to great lengths to conceal the more lurid
details of your past. Talk of beheadings, poisonings, and, er . . . eunuchs
makes my task far more difficult.” Her father’s pale skin darkened at being
forced to articulate the word eunuch.
Mia
ducked her head to hide a smile.
The
duke—apparently interpreting her bowed head as a sign of contrition—resumed
pacing, the thick brown and gold Aubusson carpet muffling the sounds of his
booted feet. He cleared his throat several times, as if to scour his mouth of
the distasteful syllables he’d just been forced to utter, and continued.
“My
efforts on your behalf have been promising, but that will change if you insist
on disclosing every last sordid detail of your past.”
Not
every detail, Mia thought as she eyed
her father from beneath lowered lashes. How would the duke react if she told
him about the existence of her seventeen-year-old son, Jibril? Or if she
described—in sordid detail—some of
Sultan Babba Hassan’s more exotic perversions? Was it better to appall him with
the truth or to allow him to continue treating her as if she were a girl of
fifteen, rather than a woman of almost three and thirty?
The
answer to that question was obvious: the truth would serve nobody’s interest,
least of all Mia’s.
“I
am sorry, Your Grace,” she murmured.
The
duke grunted and resumed his journey around the room. “Your cousin assures me
you’ve worked hard to conduct yourself in a respectable manner. However, after
this latest fiasco—” He shook his head,
lines creasing his otherwise smooth brow.
Her
father was referring to a dinner party at which she’d stated that beheading
criminals was more humane than hanging them. How could Mia have known that such
a simple statement would cause such consternation?
The
duke stopped in front of her again. “I am concerned your cousin Rebecca is not
firm enough with you. Perhaps you would benefit from a stricter hand—your aunt
Philippa’s, for instance?”
Mia
winced. A single week under her aunt Philippa’s gimlet eye had been more
terrifying than seventeen years in a harem full of scheming women.
The
duke nodded, an unpleasant expression taking possession of his handsome
features. “Yes, I can see that in spite of the language barrier you understand how your life would change were I
to send you to live at Burnewood Park with my sister.”
The
horrid suggestion made Mia’s body twitch to prostrate itself—an action she’d
employed with Babba Hassan whenever she’d faced his displeasure; displeasure
that caused more than one woman to lose her head. Luckily, Mia restrained the
impulse before she could act on it. The last time she’d employed the gesture of
humble respect—the day she’d arrived in England—the duke had been mortified
into speechlessness to find his daughter groveling at his well-shod feet.
She
bowed her head, instead. “I should not care to live with Aunt Philippa, Your
Grace.”
The
duke’s sigh floated above her head like the distant rumble of thunder. “Look at
me, Euphemia.” Mia looked up. Her father’s stern features were tinged with
resignation. “I would have thought you would wish to forget your wretched past and begin a new life. You are no
longer young, of course, but you are still attractive and within childbearing years.
Your history is something of an . . . obstacle.” He stopped, as if nonplussed
by the inadequacy of the word. “But there are several respectable men who are
quite willing to marry you. You must cultivate acceptance and learn to accept
minor, er, shortcomings in your suitors.”
Shortcomings. The word caused an almost
hysterical bubble of mirth to rise in her throat. What the duke really meant
was the only men willing to take an older woman with a dubious past were
senile, hideous, brainless, diseased, or some combination thereof.
She
said, “Yes, Your Grace.”
“I
know these are not the handsome princes of girlish fantasies, but you are no
longer a girl, Euphemia.” His tone was matter-of-fact, as if he were speaking
about the state of Carlisle House’s drains, rather than his only daughter’s
happiness. “If you do not mend your ways soon, even these few choices will
disappear and the only course open to you will be a quiet life at Burnewood Park,
and we both know you don’t wish for that.” He let those words sit for a moment
before continuing. “The Season is almost over and it is time you made a
decision about your future. Do you understand me?”
“Yes,
Your Grace, I understand.” All too well.
Her father wished to have Mia off his hands before she did something so
scandalous she would be unmarriageable.
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