Welcoming "My Inconvenient Duke" and celebrating "Lord of Scoundrels"

As has been proclaimed in various areas of my website, the third Difficult Dukes book, My Inconvenient Duke, will be released on 21 January. After all the frustration, and the fighting with characters (those strong and rather secretive personalities!) and delays and delays, Alice & Blackwood’s story will finally reach my readers.

It’s won some thumbs-up early reviews, including a starred advance review in Booklist in December, which included the following:

With the latest dazzling addition to her Difficult Dukes series (A Duke in Shining Armor, Ten Things I Hate About the Duke), readers will again revel in Chase’s buoyant yet deliciously sharp sense of wit and her ability to craft radiantly romantic love stories rendered with the meticulous attention to detail she pays to everything, from nuanced characterization to an expertly evoked historical setting. — John Charles

It’s will also get a party, at the Ashland Public Library, where we’ll celebrate the 30th anniversary of Lord of Scoundrels as well.

This is an actual, in-person event.

1-3PM ET 25 January 2025

Ashland Public Library (Schiesske Large Meeting Room)

66 Front St / Ashland Massachusetts 01721

Ph 508 881 0134 / Email: ashlandprograms@minlib.net

Further details here. Kindly register here.

Aesop’s Fable bookshop is once again providing the books, which you can pre-order here.

Also, we’re celebrating Lord of Scoundrels’ thirtieth anniversary with an eBook deal of $1.99 (through 31 January). If you haven’t yet met Jessica and Dain, this is an opportunity to do it for a couple of bucks. If you know their story already, it might make a suitable gift for somebody.

Meanwhile, if you’d like to hear me hold forth about My Inconvenient Duke as well as Lord of Scoundrels, you can listen to this podcast. Megan Zinn, Host of The Writers' Block on WHMP radio, Northampton, Massachusetts, is a superior interviewer, and the time (about 20 minutes) flew.

With a new book shortly to be released, and an older title being celebrated, you can expect a little flurry of blog posts and, very likely, an actual newsletter in the near future. Just warning you.

Difficult Dukes #2 and Other Things

from Egan, Pierce & Cruikshank, Isaac Robert, The Finish to the Adventures of Tom, Jerry, and Logic

Sometimes the writing gods gaze down benignly upon me and send encouraging rays of sunlight and gentle breezes to waft me on my way from the beginning to The End of the story.

Sometimes I have all I can do to launch my boat. Then, having launched, it promptly sinks. Or I fall overboard.  Repeatedly.

“There is always a point in the writing of a piece when I sit in a room literally papered with false starts and cannot put one word after another and imagine that I have suffered a small stroke, leaving me apparently undamaged but actually aphasic.”—Joan Didion, Slouching Towards Bethlehem

All of this is to say that Ashmont’s story is still in the process of being written and he’s being a ducal pain in the neck about it.

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In other, better news:
A Duke in Shining Armor has continued to receive stellar reviews, most recently in the current (9 April 2018—Naomi Judd on the cover—lots of red) issue of First for Women, currently on the shelves of many, many supermarkets. (Yes!) The review is titled “7 books we’re loving now.” There I am with the likes of Margaret Atwood and Jodi Picault.

The image was sent by my dear friend Claudia on Cape Cod.

And what do you think my amazement (and fear) was when I found out it had been reviewed in the New York Times Book Review? And when I discovered only mild snark in the review?

Another happy moment was seeing the book reviewed by the Historical Novel Society, which covers all historical fiction, not romance exclusively.

From the writer’s traveling cave:

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Between storms

I’ve lived in New England all my life, but must say that the cold, snow, and dark started wearing on me a few years ago, and my husband and I started heading south during late winter. This year, due to an unfortunate series of events, we left later than we liked. But we did narrowly escape the cascade of blizzards.

We are in our last days in South Carolina. We’re on an island, and there’s a lot of marshland. Plus we have a golf course, more or less  in the back yard, which has the usual water features. In this part of the world, though, the water features harbor critters you don’t see on New England golf courses.

As I write this, it’s early evening. Today we’ve had a series of thunderstorms and we’re on the lookout for tornados. My computer is unplugged from the electrical outlet, and we’re listening to thunder, thunderous rain, and intermittent hail.

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An alligator. Not ours. This one's from Florida

During the late morning thunderstorm, we watched an alligator swim toward our side of one of the golf course’s lagoons. It’s still a looong way away from us, but it was pretty thrilling. We have counted three alligators so far, on the golf course, in whose lagoons they lurk when they’re not lying on the bank, sunning themselves. The island is chock full of the kind of swampy territory they enjoy. I know this isn’t a plus for most people, but I have great respect and admiration for alligators and crocodiles, who’ve managed to survive all this time.

I feel lucky to be able to travel and make a writer’s retreat just about anywhere I go. What a job! So, yes, I bang my head against the wall, as indicated above, but you know I’ll keep at Ashmont’s story until it’s done right.

The Reviewers Gave Me A's!

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I'm very happy to report that Dukes Prefer Blondes has received starred advance reviews from Publishers Weekly, Kirkus Reviews, and Booklist, as well as being designated an RT Book Reviews Top Pick for January.

"In addition to the powerful social commentary on women’s role in society and the life of youth in London’s poverty-ridden back alleys and schools, Chase’s tongue-in-cheek tone captures tender and humorous nuances in character descriptions and actions, creating fully realized characters and a rich plot."—Publishers Weekly

"The tinge of mystery that thrusts the storyline forward—along with the sharp repartee, laugh-out-loud humor and steamy sexual tension—make this a stand-out read."—RT Book Reviews

"Chase moves beyond the couture Noirot sisters in her historical Dressmakers series, and the unconventional pairing of an aristocrat and a barrister, plus an exploration of London poverty and the well-intentioned "ragged schools," adds fascinating social and historical texture. Chase retains her well-earned star status."—Kirkus Reviews

Well, let's see what my readers think. Only a bit over a month until the book goes public.