Finished The First Draft of The Earl’s Stolen Bride Tonight and Should Finish A Groom’s Promise By Monday

Due out the End of June!

Book 4 in the Marriage by Deceit Series.

I’m happy to say I’m finished with The Earl’s Stolen Bride. I’ll give everyone a heads up. I did end this book with a lead in to the next series.  I don’t make it a habit of doing this, but this particular situation was unique because three heroines in this series (Helena, Melissa, and Chloe) have decided to go into business together to arrange marriages for people who would rather not go through the hassle of going through the formalities of the Season.

I don’t know if leaving this particular book (and the Marriage by Deceit series) makes me a stinker or not, but I couldn’t think of any other way to end it.  Plus, when I look at these Regency series, they all seem to follow a common thread through all of them with the same characters in the same world.  Old characters weave in and out from time to time, some taking more of a prominent role in the next story than another while other characters seem to fade away.  So for me, though The Earl’s Stolen Bride completes this series, it isn’t the end of the Regency world overall.

Anyway, I’ll have this out and ready for my editor by Monday evening.  This puts me right on track to get this out before the end of June.

Should Finish This by Monday!

This will be my 49th romance! The next one will be 50! :)

Looking at my novellas and full-length novels, I will be finishing up my 49th romance with my story in this anthology.  I really want to say I wrote 100 romances, but I’m only almost halfway there.

 I’m just below the 50,000-word threshold.  I know there’s a debate on whether a full-length novel is 40,000 or 50,000 words, but I call a full-length novel 50,000 words.  (Other genres probably consider 50,000 words to be a short story.  I know there are some books that span 150,000 words or more.  How anyone could write a book that long boggles my mind.)

Anyway, I think I came up with a title for my story this time.  The Bride’s Choice.  I liked someone’s suggestion about the choice the heroine has to make because ultimately, she does have to put her foot down and do something or her father wouldn’t relent and the guy she doesn’t want to be with wasn’t much help either (when you read the story, you’ll know what I mean by this last part).  Since someone said Maybell made them think of a cow (which made me laugh because I remember there being a fake cow by that name in my grocery store in the milk section when I was a kid), I felt the safest bet was to go with Bride.

I did, however, get an idea for a future book that will be called The Rejected Suitor, thanks to the comments I got.

I want to thank everyone who gave me ideas because it did help a lot in getting my brain thinking outside the box.