Today I’m happy to interview Beverley Oakley, author of Devil’s Run.
Beverley is giving away a $10 Amazon Gift Certificate to a randomly drawn winner via rafflecopter during the tour. Please use the RaffleCopter below to enter. Remember you may increase your chances of winning by visiting the other tour stops. You may find those locations here.
LM: Welcome to the Reading Room, Beverley!
Thank you for having me!
LM: Where did you get the idea for Devil’s Run?
Devil’s Run is the third in the Scandalous Miss Brightwell series, so the idea was sown in the previous book (Rogue’s Kiss) when Eliza, my heroine – seven years earlier – is run over by the carriage of the heroine, Thea, in that book.
All the stories in the series are stand-alones, however the romances in each book are helped along through the match-making efforts of the two beautiful, penniless sisters of book one (Fanny and Antoinette in Rake’s Honour) who’ve made rags-to-riches marriages.
At first, Fanny and Antoinette don’t like my heroine, Eliza, who has just become betrothed to their awful cousin, George Bramley. They think Eliza is cold and distant but when she rescues their children from drowning, they decide they have to do whatever it takes to stop her marrying awful George. Their ideal candidate is the lovely, noble, honourable, kind and gorgeous Rufus Patmore who has come to the estate where they all live to buy a horse from George. The problem is that Eliza has decided she needs to marry George because she’s learned that her long-lost illegitimate son is a regular playmate of the children in George’s household.
LM: Your series sounds like loads of fun. What aspects of the world of the Regency era appeal to you?
I love the gentility and notions of honour which are the wellsprings of great and inspiring acts of nobility and courage. I also love the clothes which make it much easier for a heroine to run or ride a horse sidesaddle in a desperate bid to escape, or to engage in some hot, sizzling passion since she didn’t have to remove her corset or crinoline.
LM: I love the Regency-era clothing, too, so elegant yet comfortable. What genre(s) do you write in? Why?
I write historicals – mostly Regency but also Georgian and Victorian. The follow-on from Devil’s Run will be early Victorian since it’s the story of the children, Jack and Katherine, who are best friends in Devil’s Run.
LM: Are you a plotter or do you write by the seat of your pants?
I start off writing by the seat of my pants but at the half way point I have to work out where my story is going and start plotting.
LM: What are you working on now?
Book 4 in the Scandalous Miss Brightwell series which is about – as I said – Fanny’s daughter, Katherine, and the foundling child, Jack, who is the illegitimate son of my Devil’s Run heroine, Eliza Montrose.
I’m also half way through a series called Fair Cyprians of London which are novellas about a group of ‘fallen women’ who work in a Victorian high class brothel and who are brought into contact with the men who have caused their fall from grace. Each story has a redemption/happy ever after ending. The first one, Saving Grace, was published by Pan Macmillan Momentum a few years ago and when I got my rights back I decided to turn it into a series.
LM: What would people who read your work be surprised to learn about you?
Perhaps that I was unable to walk until I was seven and had a world-first hip operation for which my surgeon was knighted.
LM: My goodness! Thank heavens for that ground-breaking surgery. So glad it worked.
Thank you so much for having me, Linda!
LM: My pleasure. Here’s another quick look at Beverley’s newest release, Devil’s Run.
Devil’s Run
Scandalous Miss Brightwell series
By Beverley Oakley
Blurb:
A rigged horse race and a marriage offer riding on the outcome. When Miss Eliza Montrose unexpectedly becomes legal owner of the horse tipped to win the East Anglia Cup, her future is finally in her hands – but at what cost?
***
George Bramley, nephew to the Earl of Quamby, will wager anything. Even his future bride.
Miss Eliza Montrose will accept any wager to be reunited with the child she was forced to relinquish after an indiscretion — even if it means marrying a man she does not love.
But with her heart suddenly engaged by handsome, charming Rufus Patmore who has just bought a horse from her betrothed, George Bramley, in whose household her son lives as a pauper child, the outcome of the wager is suddenly fraught with peril.
Buy links: Amazon US | All other retailers
**This is book 3 in the Scandalous Miss Brightwells series, though it can be read as a stand-alone.
~*~*~*~*~*~About the Author:~*~*~*~*~*~
Beverley Oakley was seventeen when she bundled up her first her 500+ page romance and sent it to a publisher. Unfortunately drowning her heroine on the last page was apparently not in line with the expectations of romance readers so Beverley became a journalist.
Twenty-six years later Beverley was delighted to receive her first publishing contract from Robert Hale (UK) for a romance in which she ensured her heroine was saved from drowning in the icy North Sea.
Since 2009 Beverley has written more than thirteen historical romances, mostly set in England during the early nineteenth century. Mystery, intrigue and adventure spill from their pages and if she can pull off a thrilling race to save someone’s honour – or a worthy damsel from the noose – it’s time to celebrate with a good single malt Scotch.
Beverley lives with her husband, two daughters and a Rhodesian Ridgeback puppy the size of a pony opposite a picturesque nineteenth century lunatic asylum. She also writes Africa-set adventure-filled romances starring handsome bush pilot heroes, and historical romances with less steam and more sexual tension, as Beverley Eikli.
You can get in contact with Beverley at:
website | Facebook | Pinterest | Twitter | Goodreads
Don’t forget to enter Beverley’s Rafflecopter for a chance to win a $10 Amazon gift certificate!
