So, anybody who was worried about having her/his inbox flooded with Loretta Chase blog posts realizes she/he can cross that anxiety off the list.
It’s been over a month since the last one, but you may see a cluster in the next few days, as my website is updated to reflect latest developments.
Meanwhile, a quickie bit of news: I just received word that the Dukes Prefer Blondes eBook has been released in Germany.
You can get the details here at the CORA shop
or here at HarperCollins Germany.
At long last, the manuscript for A Duke in Shining Armor is in the hands of the copy editor. It will wend its way back to me before too long, for a double check of technical matters, like inconsistencies; punctuation disputes; correct naming of people, places, and things; and goofy spellings.
I kind of like that phase of production because it allows me to let loose the insane grammarian in me. I kind of hate that phase of production because I change my mind about usages and nerdy points of grammar and such—though I will never give up my Oxford comma, which I grew up calling a serial comma, as in serial killer. Made it easy to remember.
The book is scheduled for release on 29 November. Descriptions are up at the various booksellers, e.g.—HarperCollins
Amazon,
—and will appear here on the website after I get home from my travels and wade through the chaos.
A Duke in Shining Armor is the first of a three-book series dealing with a trio of disreputable dukes. You’ll meet the other two dukes in this book, and get a clue about their stories (and some others in the story arc) as well.
In other news:
While visiting the Atlanta Botanical Gardens (that's where the flowers came from) a short time ago, I received word that my 2016 historical romance, Dukes Prefer Blondes, is a Romance Writers of America® RITA® Finalist in the Long Historical category. The Rita is the RWA version of an Oscar, and being a finalist is like being an Oscar nominee. In other words, it’s a very big deal, and I feel deeply honored. You can find the other finalists here.
Winners will be announced at the Annual Conference in July.
Willem, The Important Response
Happy New Year!
That’s a bit late, and so, by way of explanation, let me begin with P.G. Wodehouse’s Cocktail Time.
Told he must write another book, to build on the phenomenal success of his first, Sir Raymond (aka “Beefy”) Bastable responds,
“But I can’t, I tell you! It nearly killed me, writing Cocktail Time. You haven’t any conception what it means to sweat your way through one of these damned books. I daresay it’s all right for fellows who are used to it, but for somebody like myself…I’d much rather be torn to pieces with red-hot pincers.”
I’m here to tell you that even some of us who are used to it fully understand Beefy’s sentiments, although we may not be quite ready to be torn to pieces with red-hot pincers.
In short, as Wodehouse points out earlier in the book, “there is a lot more to this writing business than the casual observer would suppose.” I was comforted to learn that even he, who not only wrote hundreds of books but also screenplays, songs, magazine articles, short stories, and so on, at the rate of what seems to be 200 a day, did not write as effortlessly as his works would make it appear.
All of this is an overlong prelude to the question: When is the next book coming out?
Not being nearly as prolific as he was despite the difficulties he speaks of so poignantly, I am in the last stages of the Work-In-(snail-like) Progress. If I finish it within the next few weeks, it will be out in November of this year. I seem to have a prayer of accomplishing this. Please send as much positive thinking my way as you can. I am not ashamed to ask.
Images, from top: The Important Response, Florent Joseph Marie Willems, courtesy the Walters Art Museum; cover of Cocktail Time (scanned from my copy); telegram from Dorothy Parker to her editor, courtesy Letters of Note (with thanks to Susan Holloway Scott/Isabella Bradford, who first forwarded the telegram image to me).
Clicking on the image will enlarge it. Clicking on the caption will take you to the source, where you can learn more and enlarge images as needed.
