Spotlight & Giveaway: An Unladylike Secret by Amita Murray

Today it is my pleasure to Welcome author Amita Murray to HJ!

Hi Amita and welcome to HJ! We’re so excited to chat with you about your new release, An Unladylike Secret!

Hi Regency Lovers!
 

Please summarize the book for the readers here:

Mira Marleigh is a thing that must not exist – a female writer of society gossip who writes under a man’s pen-name. Daughter of an English earl and his Indian mistress, Mira teeters on the edges of scandal.

Finn Underwood is accused of murdering his brother and is on the run. Finn knows what it’s like to be invisible and hyper-visible all at the same time. What he doesn’t know is that it is Mira’s circular that made him a fugitive.

Set in the luscious Jurassic Coast with its cast of dangerous liquor smugglers, hilarious characters, and steamy beaches, this novel asks us about the pain of not belonging and the lengths to which we’re prepared to go to belong.

Cosmopolitan calls the series ‘scintillating and scandalous.’ The Boston Globe calls it ‘a deeply romantic and politically astute exploration of love, class and race.’ Julia Quinn, author of Bridgerton, calls it ‘a sizzling romance with a splash of intrigue.’
 

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

He was probably only a handful of years older than
her. She was twenty-five. So, twenty-eight, twenty-nine,
no more. ‘Do you want a different life?’ she asked.
‘I’m just in an ungrateful mood tonight. Do you?’
‘Do I what?’
‘Want a different life.’
‘I . . .’ She didn’t know what to say. ‘Sometimes.’
‘Run away with me, then.’
She stared at him, nonplussed.

Please share a few Fun facts about this book…

• It’s set in the beautiful Jurassic Coast in Devon. We get away from the London tea rooms and musical evenings. Instead we get dangerous smugglers and secret coves. We get one very hot guy who’s on the run for murder. And we get a writer from London whose writing got him into that mess in the first place. What could go wrong?
• There’s a very funny best friend called Ursula who wouldn’t mind seeing a shirtless smuggler or two.
• There’s a grumpy cat called Sunny.
• Kenneth from the first book comes back and has a duel – just, uh, mind his coat, will you, it’s pure velvet?
• There’s Lucretia who only wants a husband so that afterwards she can have a string of lovers at her beck and call…

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

Mira is a writer. But she writes under a male pen-name. This was pretty common back in the 1800s. Even Jane Austen wrote under a pen-name at first. Mira is tired of London society, she’s tired of hiding behind a man’s name, she’s itching to get away. Here comes Finn. A smuggler, a man on the run for murder, and someone who seems to have no intention of playing by the rules.
Finn loves that Mira is intelligent and direct, she doesn’t hesitate to order him about and she tells him off when he’s being annoying. Of course, what he doesn’t know is it was her circular that made him a fugitive.

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

I find Ursula hilarious. She always has a witty, half-sarcastic thing to say about everything including shirtless smugglers, annoying people, Mira’s secrets, a very funny duel that she watches, and lots more. She makes me laugh.
The ending made me cry, I confess! Mira’s vulnerability, that she tries so hard to hide, makes me choke-y too. Oh, and the sisters, the sisters come back…
As for blushing, you’ll have to read the scene on the beach…it’s pretty damn hot, if I do say so myself.

Readers should read this book….

If they like hilarious characters and dialogue.
Steamy, passionate romance.
Characters who have to work out old secrets and baggage before they can imagine being together.
A big side-order of mystery and intrigue.
History in all its messy glory.
Beaches, smugglers, red cliffs, secret coves – of course.

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

If you want to read about swoony crushes, cool charity shop finds, creativity, disordered eating and all the things we do to hide our sensitivity, join me here: https://creativehunger.substack.com/p/creative-hunger-what-the-heck-is It’s free to subscribe!

Here’s a sneak peek:
‘The problem is when you’re a sensitive child and you’re good at hiding it, there’s a gap. A gap between what you feel inside (scared all the time, but also, a deep, deep longing to belong) – and how you act in the outside world (fun, animated, chatty, confident, arsy.) And that gap has to go somewhere. It has to attach itself to something. Mine attached itself to chocolate digestives.’

I’m also working on more non-fiction, and of course the next Regency. It is the start of a brand new trilogy. It features Kora who is dead set on carving a life for herself. She’s a matchmaker by the day and she disguises herself as a man to go out in society at night. Until Max falls into her drawing room one night and instantly creates chaos.
 
 

Thanks for blogging at HJ!

Giveaway: Two finished copies of AN UNLADYLIKE SECRET, A Marleigh Sisters Story by Amita Murray!

To enter Giveaway: Please complete the Rafflecopter form and Post a comment to this Q: What is your top favourite thing about Regency novels?

 
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Excerpt from An Unladylike Secret:

Her eyes snapped open.
How long had she been lying there, eyes closed?
Twenty, thirty minutes?
It was that man again. Bare chest, just as beautiful as
his back, wet face and hair, wet torso, wet trousers, star-
ing at her.
She sprang off the rock.
His eyes widened and he clutched his chest. ‘Good
God, woman, are you trying to give me a heart attack?’
‘Do you always spring on people in the dark like that?’
she snapped.
‘In my defence, I wasn’t expecting to see someone lying
like the dead on that rock – and I thought you were dead.’
The way he spoke wasn’t that different from people in
London drawing rooms, but there was a soft Devonshire
lilt to it. His eyes were a velvet brown. He stooped to pick
up a shirt that she hadn’t noticed was lying there. He put
it on and within seconds that was wet too.
‘Maybe you shouldn’t be so easily shocked then,’ shesaid, trying not to stare at his chest, wondering if it would
be warm to touch. She could see his nipples . . . The
thought made her hot from head to toe.
His eyes were laughing like he could read her thoughts.
‘I didn’t think I was easily shocked. Not until I saw you.
You’re quite surprising.’
No one ever thought of her as surprising. And his grin –
his grin was more breathtaking than the – the nipples.
Her neck was flushing hot. ‘I shouldn’t have been lying
there in the dark. Who knows what kinds of dangerous
madmen are lurking about?’
‘Like me, you mean?’
‘Are you a madman?’
He grinned. ‘Come closer and see.’
The thought of going closer to that chest was doing
funny things to her own chest. She cleared her throat. ‘I
should go.’
‘Don’t you get tired of doing what you should?’ He
was buttoning up his shirt, then rolling up his sleeves,
revealing his strong arms again.
‘Of course I don’t always do what I should!’
Why did she have to sound so defensive? She crossed
her arms protectively. Then realizing that now she looked
defensive too, she uncrossed them, but now they were
just dangling there. What did she normally do with her
arms?
He quirked his mouth in a quick smile that was
strangely sensitive. ‘It’s hard to let other people see you.’
She was surprised at the words. They were light, yet
there was something behind them. ‘I doubt you have that
problem.’
A smile played behind his eyes. The harsh, sudden cry
of a seagull punctured the air and made her shiver.
‘It’s only a gull,’ he said. ‘Or maybe the soul of a dead
sailor. If you believe in sailors’ tales.’
She looked back towards the inn in the distance. ‘I
should go.’
‘Have I scared you?’
She tossed her head. ‘I’m not afraid of you.’
He looked at her, as though trying to see if she was
telling the truth. ‘Then stay.’
‘Why?’
‘Because you want company.’
‘I do not.’
He stuffed his hands in his pockets, even though they
were dripping wet. ‘Hard to admit you want company?’
‘It is not.’
‘So you are admitting you want company?’
‘Just because I might want company doesn’t mean I
want yours.’
‘Also doesn’t mean you don’t.’
She made an impatient sound. ‘This is absurd.’
He gestured at the rock behind him. ‘Why don’t I sit
here? And you could sit over there.’ He lifted his chin
towards the rock she had been lying on. ‘And we could
just talk.’
She laughed, despite herself. The whole thing was so
silly.
She sat down on her rock, far away from his. He leaned
back and crossed his ankles. His hands were in his pock-
ets again.
She couldn’t help wondering if he wanted company.
She dropped her eyes and traced a pattern in the sand
with the tip of her half-boot. ‘This is strange. Sitting here
primly, waiting to be served tea.’
‘You look anything but prim.’
Her dress was clinging wetly and her hair – it was
better not to think about the state of her hair. ‘Prosaic,’
she said.
‘Not prosaic.’
She couldn’t help asking. ‘What then?’
‘A mermaid. A silver wolf in the night.’
‘A wolf?’ she said scathingly.
His eyes were laughing at her. ‘Didn’t mind the mer-
maid part then?’
‘All men think they want mermaids.’
‘Did I say I want you?’
She flushed hot and lifted her chin. ‘You didn’t say you
didn’t.’‘You’re right. I didn’t.’
He was laughing at her. Yet the words whipped through
her like lightning.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
 
 

Book Info:

From the author of Unladylike Rules of Attraction comes the swoon-worthy, suspenseful final installment of the Marleigh Sisters series.

Mira Marleigh, as far as the public is concerned, is an unassuming companion. She quietly drifts through London society accompanying her dear friend and confidant, Ursula. Mira flies under the radar, which is exactly how she likes it, because unbeknownst to everyone besides her sisters and Ursula, she is the anonymous author of one of the most popular society circulars under the pseudonym Aurelius. As a purveyor of society gossip, keeping a low profile allows her to see and hear nearly everything. But is this prosaic, passionless persona that she has carefully constructed really who Mira wants to be?

When one of her circulars detailing a heated argument between the blue-blooded brothers Stephen and Finnegan Underwood ends up as the basis for the case against Finnegan when Stephen turns up dead not two days later, Stephen’s widow, Lucretia, is desperate for Aurelius’s help in proving Finnegan innocent. So, acting as Aurelius’s “assistant,” Mira travels to the coastal town of Devonshire where she agrees to help the young widow.

But a chance seaside encounter with a smoldering mystery man might change everything… will he be the key to unlocking the truth, and perhaps Mira’s heart, or could he be her downfall?
Book Links: Book Links: Amazon | B&N | iTunes | kobo | Google |
 
 

Meet the Author:

Amita Murray lives in London and can be found writing and tweeting about life and chocolate. Her novels take you on a romp through the edgier streets of Regency England. Her Arya Winters mysteries are under a TV option. Her mystery novel Thirteenth Night won the Exeter Novel Prize and her short story “A Heist in Three Acts” appeared in Ellery Queen Mystery Magazine. She’s been writer-in-residence with the British Council, Spread the Word, Leverhulme, and Literature Works, and she is committed to finding that magic button that creates more diversity in publishing.
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