Forbidden Music and Love in Regency England I’m pleased to share that Prelude for a Lord , the first book in my Gentlemen Quartet series, is now available on Amazon and in Kindle Unlimited. This novel holds a special place in my heart. It’s a Regency romance shaped by music, the shackles of society, and longing—set not in the whirl of London society, but in the quieter, more emotionally charged spaces of the English countryside, where reputations fray and hidden talents come to light. A Regency Romance Rooted in Music Prelude for a Lord is set in Bath, England, in December 1811, and centers on two characters bound together by music and separated by society, circumstance, and past wounds. At twenty-eight, Alethea Sutherton is considered past her prime for courtship, but conventional expectations have never suited her. She is, first and foremost, a musician. In Regency England, however, the violin is deemed an improper instrument for a lady. Shunned for her passion, Alethea pract...

Prelude for a Lord (the extended version) releases on Amazon on December 2! You can buy it early at a discount from my website . The current cover is actually the second version of the cover for this book. Here’s what the original cover from my publisher, Zondervan, looked like. The original stock photo was of a blonde woman, and when I pointed out the error, the graphic designer at Zondervan did a nice job coloring her hair brown. For the new cover, I kept the orange and blue colors but chose a model in profile rather than with her entire face hidden. This new re-release is an extended version of the original book. Zondervan had a strict word count of 100,000 words, but my original manuscript was 120,000 words, so I had to cut 20,000 words. But when I got my rights back and started planning to re-release it, I realized I could release the original manuscript before it was cut. So the version coming out is the uncut, extended version. Here’s the back cover description:...

This is continuing my series explaining how I came up with the weird (and not so weird) names of my characters in Prelude for a Lord . Bayard’s stepfather, Sir Hermes Morrish Sir Hermes was one of the easiest characters to name. He’s a bit foolish, and very easy going. The Greek god Hermes is sometimes portrayed as the Fool, with abstract knowledge and child-like innocence. When I looked up the meaning of the word, “moron,” it mentioned the Latin word morus which means “foolish.” I tweaked “morus” into Morrish for Sir Hermes’ surname. Sir Hermes is very carefree, with a boundless enthusiasm for life that makes Bayard’s mother feel young and carefree herself. Sir Hermes is a considerable contrast to the personality of her late husband, Bayard’s father, which might be why she remarried to a man like Sir Hermes Morrish. Sir Hermes is rather self-absorbed. He charmed Bayard’s widowed mother despite the fact he is slightly lower in social status and has less money than Bayard’...

This is continuing my series explaining how I came up with the weird (and not so weird) names of my characters in Prelude for a Lord . Alethea’s half-sister, Lucy Purcell Actually … there’s no special meaning for Lucy’s surname. It sounded like a last name for a country woman seduced by Alethea’s father, and it wasn’t the name of any real-life peers. Alethea’s father, the 7th Earl of Trittonstone, had an affair with a local woman, Hannah Purcell, a seamstress, just before he married Alethea’s mother. Hannah had Alethea’s half-sister, Lucy, only a few months before Alethea was born. Most of the village tried to shun Hannah, but she was the finest seamstress in the county, and the less affluent women grudgingly went to her. When Lucy’s mother eventually married a sailor, John Dawson (who died in the war), her reputation and her daughter’s was restored somewhat. Lucy is close to Alethea, mostly because as a child, Alethea pursued the relationship once she realized who Lucy was. ...

This is continuing my series explaining how I came up with the weird (and not so weird) names of my characters in Prelude for a Lord . Lady Arkright Lady Arkright was a childless Italian widow of a local gentleman with a farm neighboring Alethea’s father’s lands. She befriended Alethea and taught her to play the violin, which is a socially unacceptable instrument for women in England at the time. Lady Arkright learned to play the instrument, among many others, in her childhood in Italy. She loved Alethea like her own child and bequeathed her violin to her, unaware of its amazing history. Lady Arkright has died by the time Prelude for a Lord opens. For a woman who didn’t have any page time in this book, I spent a lot of time building her backstory and trying to come up with her name. She was actually one of the most fun characters to write because she is the character who could have been. The composer Vivaldi had been employed from 1703 to 1715 and from 1723 to 1740 at the O...

This is continuing my series explaining how I came up with the weird (and not so weird) names of my characters in Prelude for a Lord . Alethea’s aunt, Mrs. Ebena Garen Ebena was originally going to be the nastiest miser I could come up with, but somehow when I started plotting the book, she just became different. So her first name doesn’t quite match how I had originally envisioned her—a miser like Ebenezer Scrooge. Get it? Ebenezer … Ebena … Um, yeah. I mentioned I was really bad at coming up with names, right? And I did check in British censor records and there were a few women named Ebena in my time period. So it wasn’t completely out of left field. Aunt Ebena’s father had essentially sold her in marriage to Mr. Garen, a man twenty years her senior. He was a contemporary of Lord Ravenhurst’s father—Mr. Garen and the previous Lord Ravenhurst were only about five years apart in age. When coming up with Ebena’s husband’s name, I did a Google search for “character” “sold...

This is continuing my series explaining how I came up with the weird (and not so weird) names of my characters in Prelude for a Lord . My heroine, Lady Alethea Sutherton The name “Alethea” means truth , which I deliberately did in contrast to Bayard’s “blindness” (see my previous post to understand what was up with that). But ironically, Alethea herself is blinded to the fact that she is not alone, that God is with her. As with Bayard, I again looked up the name Alethea in British census records to make sure there were women named Alethea during my book’s time period in the early 1800s. I admit, I stole Alethea’s surname, Sutherton, from Mansfield Park by Jane Austen (I had to have something of Jane’s in there somewhere). Since I didn’t want to be rude and name Alethea after a real-life peer (especially since her father and brother were such nasty fellows) I checked with the Surname index of the Peerage of Britain and tweaked Jane’s “Sotherton” (who might have been a knight...

Recently a reader commented on my hero’s name, Bayard Dommick, and it occurred to me that people might be interested in how I picked the names of my characters in Prelude for a Lord , especially since many of you know how absolutely abominable I am at choosing character names. I am proud to say that while it was difficult to come up with character names in this book, each name has a sort of meaning behind them, a “story behind the name.” Real-life nobility One thing I absolutely did not want to do was name any characters after real-life nobility, especially if the peer was still alive. I think it would be a little rude to do that since these families are very proud of their family names and titles. So I had to check all my surnames and titles against a Surname index of the Peerage of Britain . I managed to miff the spelling of some names so they wouldn’t match real-life people. My hero, Bayard Terralton, Lord Dommick: I had already settled on the name of Bayard’s title, Lord...

When I wrote Prelude for a Lord , I admit I put Lord Dommick’s home in there deliberately. I had visited Newstead Abbey in Nottingham, England, and fell in LOVE, and I knew I wanted to have that house and grounds in my book somehow. So when coming up with Dommick’s character and family, I modeled his family seat, Terralton Abbey, after Newstead Abbey, which was the home of the poet Lord Byron. This is the front of the house, including the circular driveway that Dommick drives up to. I placed the front door a little differently but essentially Terralton Abbey looks the same. Here is what the front of the house looked like in 1880: This is the back of the house with one of its lovely gardens: Here is the square pool and woody lawn area where Alethea plays with Margaret: And here is the lovely river bank and grotto where Alethea and Dommick kiss: Sigh! I wish I could go back there again! Stay tuned for a big PRELUDE FOR A LORD giveaway sometime in mid to late Septe...