Writing a sequel to a best selling novel, which despite a few reviews held #1 - #10 (up and down that scale) for four months, one always wonders if the sequel will draw the same interest. Who can say what makes one book do better than others, but even best sellers can slip and slide into obscurity for a while and in some cases they make a come-back all on their own without any advertising at all.
And so I took the plunge and gave Marcus Fairweather, the Earl of Sheldon his own book (a novella), and all on account of his being a likeable rogue. Be assured he is no better in this book to begin with, until he encounters Squire Thorne's wife. Marcus being Marcus is not in the least deterred by the fact May is a married woman, not even when she seems oblivious to his charms, or did she feign as much?
Thus the Duke of Malchester, he whom married "The Reluctant Duchess" plays no part in Marcus' story, but then, Marcus is a bit of a dark horse, and when one becomes embroiled in a dubious murder, the least people who know of whom you are bedding in secret can be a saving grace!
There's more to this story than merely lustful intent, romance, and murder, there's also a strange mystery attached that indeed holds the key to murders committed back in 1685 and an act of family treachery.
The Book's Blurb:
A scandalous moment of surrender to Marcus Fairweather, Earl of Sheldon and May Thorne is riddled with guilt: all despite the fact her debauched husband’s passions are sated anywhere but in the marital bed. Worse, when Squire Thorne is brutally murdered, her legacy is determined by a clause in her late husband’s will. Thus wedlock to his lawyer, a man of zealous moral and religious bent is utterly abhorrent to her. Nonetheless, the lawyer is of mind to enact the clause in haste, and his ardent advances are somewhat intense and unsettling. But who shot Squire Thorne poses a mystery – the lawyer, the earl, or a strange intruder who steals nothing? In the aftermath of death a long-held family secret is finally revealed, and when a shadowy figure looms in her moonlit bedchamber, she fears the outcome...
