Spotlight & Giveaway: Book of Love by Erin Satie

Today it is my pleasure to Welcome author Erin Satie to HJ!

Hi Erin and welcome to HJ! We’re so excited to chat with you about your new release, Book of Love!

 
Hi! Thanks for having me.
 

Please summarize the book for the readers here:

It’s an opposites attract historical romance. Set during the 1850s with a heroine, Cordelia, who’s strict, principled, working to support herself and passionate about the rights of women. The hero, Alistair, is a golden retriever type, a bit of a himbo, a duke who’s internalized the idea that he’s not very smart. The truth is more complicated. He’s a lot of fun, creative and energetic and sweet, and he spends most of his time planning elaborate pranks.

Alistair falls hard for Cordelia. He likes her from the start and he chases her. Her first impression is that he’s foolish and annoying, exactly as reputation would have it. But the more she sees of him, the more she likes him. They get along. They banter. They bring out the best in one another.

This is all woven together with a subplot about a petition to increase the legal rights of married women and Cordelia’s attempts to persuade a good friend that she’s fallen for the wrong man. These fill out the broader theme of women’s rights and progress the series arc.
 

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

Here are two–the first Cordelia’s POV, the second Alistair’s, both of them reflecting on their first kiss. It gives a sense of how different their voices are.

Cordelia: “Yes, she had liked it. So much affection distilled into a touch, washing over her. She hadn’t understood that if words could expand a thought until it made clear sense, then touch could do the opposite, condense it all down into a moment of fugitive, bafflingly powerful sensation”

Alistair: “His lips touched her lips, and all of a sudden his brain caught fire and all his feelings melted right into his mouth.”

Please share a few Fun facts about this book…

• When I was researching this book–mostly before covid hit, so in some ways this anecdote feels like it was from another time–but I’d go around asking almost everyone I met, “What’s the best prank someone you know has ever played?” Alistair plays a LOT of pranks and I needed a lot of ideas. I wanted to know what pranks people remembered, especially which ones they remembered fondly, things that could be quick and domestic to go along with the bigger, more elaborate pranks that he pulls.
• Only a couple of these pranks actually made it into the book in their original form but I have to say, it was a really fun conversation to have with people, a great icebreaker. I think I’ll keep asking, even without research as an excuse, just because it prompted really fun strolls down memory lane for so many people.
• Another fact about the book–I’m not sure if it’s a fun fact–but the petition the Cordelia gets involved with is real, word for word, and I’ve included a couple of real historical figures in the book, too. Barbara Smith Bodichon and Caroline Norton were two mid-19th century feminists with very different ideas about how to do the work of improving women’s rights.
• I know a lot of readers look at the profusion of historicals about ‘modern’ women with ‘modern’ ideas and think we authors are just projecting onto the past, but the past is full of variety. Just like the present! If I told you that today you could walk down a single city street and meet one person who thinks that sex is something you save for marriage and another who believes that it’s fine to have sex with anyone you like, freely and without shame, you’d say, “Yeah, I know. Duh.” But the past is like that, too.
• Anyway, Caroline Norton would not have called herself a feminist but she sure acted like one. She earned her own income, had affairs, got involved in politics. Barbara Smith Bodichon seems so strict, founding schools and passing around petitions, but she had wild escapades in Italy, lived in Algeria, corresponded with George Eliot.

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

Alistair is attracted to Cordelia because she’s not afraid of him. She’s quick and bold and direct. When he ropes her into one of his schemes, she surprises him. He loves that.

Cordelia is attracted to Alistair because he’s a hunk. But also because he always wants her to succeed. If she has a goal, he’ll help her achieve it. He doesn’t need to understand it or share it; he just wants to lift her up.

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

A lot of laughing with Book of Love. Alistair makes everything fun. Here’s a little snippet of conversation from after Cordelia pulls a prank on Alistair–the first time she pranks him of her own volition, just for the fun of it. The prank involves an egg.

Stroud pointed at the eggy napkin. “You’ve opened the door, Coco. It’s my favorite door.”
“It’s your least favorite door,” Cordelia countered.
“No, it’s my favorite.”
“If you leave it open all the time and never want it shut, it’s your least favorite door.”
Stroud stared at her for a minute. “It’s my favorite door,” he insisted, and then beat a quick retreat before she could disagree again.

Readers should read this book….

If they like opposite attract stories. If they like big goofy guys falling for serious, driven women. If they’re interested in mid-19th century feminism and complicated female friendships. If they want a romance that’s on the sweet side, but won’t give them a toothache.

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

I’ve got two projects going but no idea when either will come out. One is a contemporary that I’ve tackled as a palate cleanser and I’m crossing my fingers that I can write it fairly quickly. The other is the third book in my Sweetness and Light series, which will be about Tess.

Tess appears in both of the Sweetness and Light books. She’s loosely based on a real person–Sara Forbes Bonetta–an African princess who, under fairly tragic and galling circumstances, became Queen Victoria’s goddaughter. Some of the events in Book of Love are setting up a situation where she’ll have to marry sooner than she’d hoped, and in haste.
 

Thanks for blogging at HJ!

Giveaway: An ebook, print, or audio code copy of Book of Love, depending on the winner’s preference.

To enter Giveaway: Please complete the Rafflecopter form and Post a comment to this Q: What’s the best prank that someone you know has ever played?

 
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Excerpt from Book of Love:

From an early encounter between Cordelia and Alistair. She’s arranged for them to meet, even though she’d previously seemed pretty eager to end their acquaintance. It’s in Cordelia’s POV, so he’s Stroud here–for his title, Duke of Stroud:

He planted himself beside her. It was a good-size bench, but, as always, he took up quite a bit of space. Miss Kelly’s eyes dropped to trace the length of their thighs, which pressed together from hip to knee. When she didn’t object, he continued. “What brought this on? Do you need something?”
Considering her previous hostility, he feared this sudden desire to ingratiate herself owed more to some instability in her life than an honest desire to deepen their acquaintance. She shared an upper-story flat with a friend, and both worked to make ends meet. It had to be a precarious existence.
“Because it’s all right if you do,” he added. “I could help.”
Instead of jumping at his offer, she jumped right off the bench. “I beg your pardon?”
“No—no—I didn’t mean it like that!” Though he should have realized the implications. A man offering a woman a gift usually expected something in exchange. A kiss, a fondle… more.
“I wasn’t thinking,” he hurried to explain. “I only meant—you must understand it’s the only truly good thing about my position. If a friend comes to me for help, I can give it. But they’re usually men… or asking through my sister…” He spread his hands. “I forgot how the circumstances would affect the offer.”
“The only good thing?” she repeated skeptically.
With anyone else, he’d have responded with a joke. With Miss Kelly, he resisted the urge. Best be honest with his future wife, right?
“I’m not a very good duke.” He tried not to mind when she snickered. “You must think I haven’t noticed—you and everyone else—because people are always trying to tell me, as though I had no idea. Well, I know. I’m not a good duke. But when a friend needs something and I can provide it, for a little while I feel like I’m exactly where I ought to be.”
She stared at him in narrow-eyed silence. It stretched and stretched, well past the point where he felt a desperate need to fill it with babble. He had a ridiculous urge to explain his family to her, how they’d broken like a bone and set in the wrong shape. But he didn’t even talk with his sister about that, and she’d lived through it.
“I believe you,” Miss Kelly said finally.
“You do?” He sounded surprised even to his own ears.
“I do.” She returned to her seat. He flexed the muscles in his thigh and watched her eyes dart down to where she’d felt the slight movement before sliding suspiciously in his direction. “I haven’t summoned you to ask for a favor—I would never…” She paused. “I shouldn’t say never. I can imagine it. As a last resort, perhaps. A very last, after I’d lost all hope and shame.”
He waggled his eyebrows. “Ooh, tell me more.”
She tried to whack him with her stare again—which didn’t bother him the way she wanted it to, but he couldn’t blame her for trying. She had an impressive stare. Like a battering ram, if battering rams could look inside a person very judgmentally and then target the soft spots.
That stare probably turned most men to jelly. But he wasn’t most men. He was a lot bigger, for one. He could take it.
“You’re asking me to describe a future where I am destitute, friendless, and so desperate that I seek out a man I hardly know in order to exchange sexual favors for temporary relief?”
“Oh. Hmm.” He scratched his chin. “Sorry.”
“I suppose it would all be great fun for you,” she added. “Which brings me, in a roundabout way, to my invitation. I had hoped you might answer a few questions.”
“That’s… ominous. What sort of questions?”
“I read an item in the papers about a statue that had been turned one hundred eighty degrees overnight. I wondered if it was your work.”
Alistair tried to look innocent. “Oh, who’s to say?”
“You,” she answered. “That’s why I asked.”
“I thought you weren’t interested in frivolous things and wasting your time and…” Me, he didn’t add, even though he’d been the one doing all the things she couldn’t be bothered with and probably belonged on the list.
“I went to see it myself.” Miss Kelly’s expression went a bit vague as her attention turned inward. “The statue had attracted a tremendous crowd, everyone gossiping and speculating. The prank had been accomplished so neatly that no one saw the culprits at work. Not the nightwatchman, not the lamplighter, not a single passerby.”
“Is that a… compliment?” Alistair wondered.
Miss Kelly nodded.
Alistair beamed. “Almost everyone employed at Stroud House helped. We blocked all the roads and—”
“So it was your work!”
“Oh.” Stroud scratched at his chin. That hadn’t been very clever of him. “Hard to deny it now, I suppose.”

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
 
 

Book Info:

She’s trying to make ends meet. He’s out for a bit of fun.

Cordelia Kelly is busy, focused, worried about the future of her fledgling bookbinding business. When a handsome man stops her on the street to pester her with questions, she gives him the consideration he deserves: none.

That handsome man happens to be the Duke of Stroud, and he finds Cordelia’s hostility hilarious. He gives chase, if only for the pleasure of provoking her again.

He thinks life is a game. She doesn’t play around.

Within days of meeting Cordelia, Stroud sets a marching band on a matchmaking mama, defaces a local monument, and ropes Cordelia into a round of his favorite game.

In that same time, Cordelia stitches together the complete works of Mary Wollstonecraft, enthusiastically devotes herself to a petition demanding expanded legal rights for married women, and beats Stroud at his own game.

She defies all expectations. So does he.

Most people dismiss Stroud as a fool—himself included. When Cordelia sees past his lighthearted facade, he’s terrified and also… in love?

Stroud barges into Cordelia’s life, offering her all the material and sensual temptations she’s learned to do without. She usually has willpower to spare, but turning him down takes all of it, and then some. He’s oddly irresistible.

Or maybe they’re just perfect for one another.
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Meet the Author:

Erin Satie writes dark and elegant historical romances, with a focus on good research and better writing, where love is a bright light in an otherwise dark world.

She’s a California native who’s lived all over the place, on the coasts and in the heartland, in tiny city apartments and on a working farm. She’s trying out life as a digital nomad, writing her novels as she travels the world.

She studied art history in college and graduate school–research is her favorite part of starting a new book. The happily ever after is her favorite part of finishing one, whether she’s reading or writing.
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