Spotlight & Giveaway: A Duke at the Door by Susanna Allen

Today it is my pleasure to Welcome author Susanna Allen to HJ!

Hi Susanna and welcome to HJ! We’re so excited to chat with you about your new release, A Duke at the Door!

 
Hello! I am so happy to be here.
 

Please summarize the book for the readers here:

Alwyn, Duke of Llewellyn is a lion Shapeshifter who has been trapped in a travelling menagerie, in his lion skin, due to magic that only affects versipelles (Latin for ‘two skins’) like him. After unexpectedly being released from the curse, he refuses to shift out of his manskin, and it is feared if he will die.

George, Prince of Wales, sends Alwyn to Lowell Hall to be healed by lady apothecary Tabitha Barrington. Tabitha is a no nonense, believes-the-evidence- of her experiences type of woman, and once brought into the secret of the Shapeshifters of the Beau Monde, has no idea how to help the duke.

Little do either of them know that their healing lies in their hearts…
 

Please share your favorite line(s) or quote from this book:

This made me laugh every time, from writing it through the copyediting process, to final PDFS:

Alwyn was careful of his hands, of where he moved them, unlike more than one potential lover who, once she was in their grasp, turned into octopuses. Tabitha smiled against his mouth. He urged her back and nipped her chin. “Funny?”
“You are not an octopus.” She laughed at his confusion and shook her head. “I wonder if I have ever, in the past, kissed one of those.”
He blinked, perplexed. “They tend to live close to the ocean, as one would assume.”
Did she want to laugh or kiss? Kiss now, laugh later…

Please share a few Fun facts about this book…

• I was plotting away, setting up the growing attraction between Tabitha and Alwyn, and one of my biggest challenges was working out how she was going to move from health advocate to love interest. Tabitha seemed almost too capable, too good a detached healer… and then the thing happened that writers often talk about: their characters did something they didn’t see coming.
• During a very formal dinner in Lowell Hall, the country seat of wolf Alpha Alfred, Duke of Lowell, Tabitha did exactly that: something I did not see coming, an action that made me adore her in an instant.
• Tabitha showed me that her heart informed everything she did, and that she would do whatever was necessary, no matter how it made her appear to others, with no thought to her own ego. I feel in total love with her in an instant, and Alwyn was helpless to follow.
• Speaking of dinners: I found a Regency era mac & cheese recipe that I intend to whip and post on on socials, so follow me on Insta and TikTok, @SusannaAWriter

What first attracts your Hero to the Heroine and vice versa?

Alwyn finds Tabitha very vexing at the start: she’s forever wandering where she shouldn’t go and harvesting dangerous herbs like foxglove without any thought to her own safety. It reawakens the Alpha in him, the essence of him that will protect another no matter what, and this plays as big a part in his recovery as it does in his growing love for her.

Tabitha thinks her courtship days are well behind her, so when she realizes Alwyn is making an effort to woo her (it takes her while) she is disbelieving at first and then reluctantly charmed. His willingness to trust her methods is very, very attractive to her!

Did any scene have you blushing, crying or laughing while writing it? And Why?

I love this question! When I wrote the scene I talked about above, answering the fun facts question, I let out a SHOUT of joy —like, hollered at my computer.

I adored writing the scenes with Tabitha and her brother Timothy, who has been appointed as the tutor at Lowell Hall. They are close, and naturally get on each others nerves as equally as they have each other’s backs.

Toward the end of the novel, there is a scene where they make up after a terrible argument, which made me laugh as well as sigh with relief (as if I wasn’t in control of their behaviour, lol); and their last scene together in the book made me sob like a little child as I wrote it.

Here’s a little bit from the argument apology scene:
Timothy rubbed his hands roughly over his face. “This is the first quarrel we’ve had since the doll and the penknife.”
“I shall never forgive you for that. The wanton destruction of Lady Bastable-Clark’s hair at your hands will live in infamy.” Tabitha reached out and tugged on the hem of his coat. “But as for last night…I hope you can find it in your heart to forgive me.”
“Tab.” Timothy knocked his shoulder against hers. “I cannot believe the words I spoke. I, who know so well the great damage they can do. I am appalled, and I am heartily sorry.”
“As am I.” She took his hand. “But there is truth in it.”
“We have been each other’s only bulwark against the vagaries of the world since we left England.” Timothy squeezed her fingers. “I am amazed we didn’t fight before last night.”
“It would not have felt safe, I suppose. As we were each other’s only bulwark, et cetera.” Tabitha forced herself to continue, “And there were many times I was sure I was surplus to your requirements. You were a shining star in any social firmament we found ourselves in, and I held you back, I know I did. What I didn’t know was that you were so homesick. It never would have occurred; you were so bright and free.”
“I only wanted you to be out amongst people who wanted more than your healthful advice. I wanted you to star in your own social sphere.” He linked their fingers together. “I thought being home again might make it easier for you to branch out. No language barrier and all that.”
She must tell him the truth, the truth of her feelings. “I am afraid you wish to be rid of me.”
“In a manner of speaking.” He yanked on her hand until she met his gaze. “I wish you the life you threw away without even trying for it, the life apart from your baby brother whom you do not trust out on his own.”
“It’s the world I don’t trust.”
“That’s beyond your power. Well, mostly. You can be quite doctrinaire when the mood takes you.”

Readers should read this book….

Well, I really enjoyed writing an older FMC who thinks her time for committed relationshipping is over and done, only to discover that age has nothing to do with love. I think readers will enjoy seeing a romance develop from that perspective.

I also think that Alwyn is yet another in my line of true Alphas, who demonstrates his strength and power through his willingness to protect others, no matter the cost to him. I hope readers will enjoy that!

What are you currently working on? What other releases do you have in the works?

I am working on the next three installments in this series: readers can expect to see familiar faces! I’ve also got another Shapeshifter series on the boil (just blurbs, not yet plotted).

Anyone interested in paranormal romance in a contemporary context should check out That Magic Mischief, in which a heartbroken amateur witch casts a spell that actually works for once, and summons a magical Celtic being into her life—and magic mischief ensues!
 

Thanks for blogging at HJ!

Giveaway: (1) A Print copy of A Duke at the Door by Susanna Allen

To enter Giveaway: Please complete the Rafflecopter form and Post a comment to this Q: This is my favorite, I ask it all the time:
What animal would you be, if you were a Shapeshifter?
(Me, I’m a big cat. I like a nice snooze on a metaphorical tree branch, but when I have a goal in my sights, nothing gets in my way.)

 
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Excerpt from A Duke at the Door:

Tabitha is called into the presence of George, Prince of Wales and a stunning secret is revealed…

The prince drew himself up, seemed to grow in height and breadth, and he…drew all the air in the room around him? “I suggest you trust the will and opinion of your sovereign.” Tabitha’s ears popped, the pressure like the change on the funicular in the Alps. Whatever it was weighted down her head and shoulders in an oppressive fashion.
Luckily, she had never been adversely affected by changes in altitude. “I trust you have the duke’s best interests at heart, but I am not comfortable speaking about him behind his back or as though he were a child.”
The air relaxed—what degree of fanciful was this?—and His Highness considered her. “He has not been free for many years. He has not had the company of those like him for all that time. His physicality is not what it once was. His demeanor is melancholy.”
“I see. Melancholy very often prevents one from keeping one’s form in fettle, which then exacerbates the dampened spirits. Is His Grace the active sort?”
“Oh, yes.” The prince barked a laugh. “Active. Yes.”
What was amusing about that, she had no clue. “I have a series of cures that have proven effective in the past, but ills of the mood are complex. Several of my tonics aid in a variety of ways, for example, a lack of sleep is deleterious to general health—”
Tabitha was cut off once again. “As to that.” The waistcoat button received renewed attention. “He is unlike your usual run of patient.”
“Client,” she dared to correct him. “I am not a doctor.”
“You will not have met his kind before.”
“A duke? Or a Welshman? I can assure you that I have spent the past ten years traveling far and wide and as such have a breadth of experience your common or garden apothecary cannot claim.” Was she now arguing for this assignment?
The pressure hovered around the prince. “I would ask you to take me at my word.”
“Your Highness.” Oh, diplomacy, not her strong suit. “It is not your word I challenge but my ability to be of any use to this man unless I am appraised of the exact circumstances.”
The prince stood, still as a statue and yet another wave of that strange tension rolled off him. It had all the characteristics of waiting for lightning after the crash of thunder, a suspension that promised a shock, even as one expected it. She withstood it and he muttered something about human females—human females? That could not be correct.
He languidly extended an arm. “Regard, miss.”
Tabitha regarded. And what she saw was unlike anything she had seen before.
One moment, she was observing the hand of the prince, as pale and pampered as one would expect from a person who had never done a day’s labor, and the next—the next, she was looking at a paw. A massive paw, covered in brown fur, claws like knives fully extended.
His Highness flexed those claws as she continued to stare in silence. A comment was wanted, then? “Ah,” she said.
“Ah?” He presented his palm, where she saw the pads common to…to animals, and in another instant, quicker than a blink, the paw changed back into his hand. “I will have you know, Miss Barrington, that only the most powerful of my kind can Shift a discrete body part.” He huffed, part annoyance, part amusement. “I expect a sanguine demeanor is essential to one in your line of work but is that all you have to say?”
Speechlessness would be an acceptable reaction to what she had just seen. “I am, of course, amazed.” It made her wonder about several acquaintances she made in her travels, the sense that there was something more to them than met the eye, the fact none of them encountered her and commenced cataloging their ailments. They had a glint in the eye, a robustness she could not categorize. And now this: a man turned, partially, into a beast. “You will know that confidentiality is key to any practice of healing,” she said. “I would assure you that no one will learn of what I saw here. In this room and, and in this place, land, er. I doubt many of my, my kind, uh, human females, I see why you said that now, human females, eh, are aware of this, uh—” Perhaps she was a little shocked after all.
“You are now part of a small band of homo plenem who are aware of the existence of versipelles. To wit: a human who knows of the existence of Shapeshifters.” She was grateful for the translation from what she guessed was Latin. “We are of every species you can call to mind and occupy every stratum of society. We are princes and dukes, housekeepers and butlers, solicitors and famous lady authors of Gothic novels. We contain two selves and are ever in communication with both sides.” He hesitated. Imagine, a nervous prince who hesitated! “We have a law, and I find I must break it. Who but I may do so, without rebuke? We are never to speak of our dual nature, nor inquire as to the species of another versipelles… nor disclose our knowledge of another’s identity once entrusted with it. But it must be done for you to do your work.”
He looked at her expectantly. So it was up to her, to help him break his own law. “The duke is a versipellis.”
“He is a lion,” the prince said, and an angry flush of color touched the apples of his cheeks. “He was held in a menagerie, in his Changed shape.”
Had he kept the knowledge of his human self while in captivity? “That is horrific.”
The pressure the prince exerted crested and retreated. “We have an abhorrence for any animal held under such conditions and as such do not patronize that class of entertainment.” He spat the last word as though it were a curse. “His identity was robbed, and I require you to aid him in retrieving it.”
“I have questions, as you may imagine—”
“Her Grace of Lowell will see to the details.”
Details the like of: What did he eat? Did he make a habit of chasing down prey for his supper? Would he condescend to be treated not only by a woman but also a mere human? “I would not know where to begin.”
“Ply him with your tonics. Et cetera.” The princely dismissiveness returned in full flow. “For he is, at least, half a man.”
Would any of her cures work on the likes of his kind? She wouldn’t know until she tried, but she doubted it. And yet she could not resist. “Speaking of tonics. Your complexion seems to be taxed with high color, Your Highness.” She eyed his flushed face and rummaged in her reticule. “I have just the thing.”
“Do you indeed?” The pressure was a building hurricane, and she flinched. He was truly cross.
“I have a soothing lotion ideal for those who suffer from a nature burdened with an excess of choler. I have seen it do a world of good—”
“All in my world is good, miss,” His Highness all but growled at her, “and I shall leave it, and you, at that.”
How utterly typical to insist someone else profit from her cures but refuse them himself.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
 
 

Book Info:

Who’s afraid of the wild duke?

Alwyn Ap Lewin, Duke of Llewellyn, swears he’ll never shift into his lion Shape for as long as he lives. He spent decades as a captive in a traveling menagerie, and he won’t risk being caged again. But the longer he denies his other half, the more his health declines, and the farther he hides himself away. The denizens of Lowell Close live in fear and suspicion of the mysterious duke—except for lady apothecary Tabitha Barrington.

After traveling the Continent for years, Tabitha is struggling to settle in Lowell Close and the prince regent’s insistence she care for the sullen duke only adds to the tension. By treating him as she would anyone else—and not as though he needs special attention—Tabitha begins to gain the duke’s very reluctant interest. And the more Alwyn sees both Tabitha’s gifts for helping everyone in the village as well as her kind and courageous heart, the more he realizes that he has something to live for after all.
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Meet the Author:

Susanna was born in New Jersey, and she moved to Ireland for twelve months—in 1998. She is living her life by the three Rs—reading, writing, and horseback riding—and can generally be found on her sofa with her e-reader, gazing out a window and thinking about made-up people, or cantering around in circles. She loves every minute of it!
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