Fortunate Wager shortlisted for Love Story of the Year

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I am delighted to announce that my Newmarket Regency Fortunate Wager has been shortlisted for the Love Story of the Year 2011 administered by the Romantic Novelists' Association!!

This is my second consecutive shortlisting, so it is especially pleasing. The winner will be announced at the RNA Pure Passion Awards champagne reception on March 7th.

I'm just wondering whether it's possible to drink champagne whilst keeping my fingers crossed.

Fortunate Wager Is Out Today

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I am delighted to announce that my second Newmarket Regency - Fortunate Wager - is out today.

As I say on my website:

Anyone who has read my first Newmarket Regency, Fair Deception, cannot have failed to spot that Caroline Fortune was only being held to secondary-character status by a supreme act of will on the author's part.

In Fortunate Wager (set a year later in 1817), she breaks gloriously free and sets about making the book her own from the very first page. Caroline is under no illusion about her attractions: plain, unbecomingly dressed and with little money, she is resisting all attempts at marrying her off as a housekeeper-substitute - because what she really wants to do is settle down on her own and train horses.

Lord Alexander Rothwell, on the other hand, cannot wait to shake the dust of Newmarket off his Hessians and get back to London. Unfortunately he is stuck here for the moment because he has promised Lady Jersey that he will try to get to the bottom of the double-dealing she claims to be taking place on the racecourse.

He manufactures what he considers to be an excellent excuse to hang around the training grounds, by making a preposterous wager with cub-trainer Harry Fortune (Caroline's brother). This seriously inconveniences Caroline who needs seclusion to help train Harry's string.

But the wager is not nearly as inconvenient as when Alexander is struck down and left for dead at Harry's stable. Now that really does make life trying.

Fortunate Wager is available to order at a reduced rate from the Hale website, but non-UK readers can use the Book Depository for post-free delivery anywhere in the world.