Spotlight & Giveaway: Every Duke Has His Day by Suzanne Enoch

Today it is my pleasure to Welcome author Suzanne Enoch to HJ!

Hi Suzanne and welcome to HJ! We’re so excited to chat with you about your new release, Every Duke Has His Day!

 
Hi! Thanks for asking me by. A new book release is literally my favorite time of the year, because I get to chat with readers. I get to hear what you enjoyed about my book, and hear that people are actually reading what I’ve written.
 

Please summarize the book for the readers here:

Michael, the Duke of Woriton, has one focus: science. Elizabeth has one focus: the Season. When they’re thrown together in a tangle of dognapped poodles, overly-persistent suitors, ransom demands, and deadlines, it’s a formula for chaos, comedy, and most of all, romance.
 

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

I made myself giggle a few times, but this exchange is probably my favorite:
“There’s nothing wrong with him, I suppose, but I keep hoping for…a spark. It’s silly and girlish, I know, but I still want to feel my heart beat faster when my beau walks into a room.”
Michael lit the lamp, noting that the pair of windows were both shut. “Sparks are caused by friction,” he noted. “Perhaps you’re seeking someone who ruffles your feathers, so to speak.”
“Cordray and I are too much in harmony, you mean? I would think that a good thing.”
Shrugging, he lifted the lamp and moved it over to the first window. “You’re the one who wants a spark. A spark is the result of an irritation. Not harmony.”

Please share a few Fun facts about this book…

• My working title for Every Duke Has His Day was Bad Dogs and Englishmen.
• I wanted my hero to be a scientist, so I did some research into what, exactly, was going on scientifically during the Regency. It turns out there was quite a lot, and I ended up very loosely basing Michael’s science stuff on Michael Faraday, probably the foremost scientist of that time. I also found a wonderful book, Conversations on Chemistry, published in 1805 by Jane Marcet. It’s still available today.
• I love listening to movie scores, and for this book I made up a playlist of lighthearted tunes. A lot of pieces from the “Bridgerton” series, “Emma”, “Pride and Prejudice”, “Pirates of the Caribbean”, and surprisingly because it’s got an awesome score, “The Jungle Cruise”.

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

I think that neither of them is what the other expects, or is accustomed to. Michael thinks Elizabeth is an empty-headed flirt, but she’s got a very sharp wit. Elizabeth thinks Michael is another of the hundred men who’ve been after her, but he’s the one guy whose conversation she can’t predict.

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

I LOVED writing the scene where anyone in London with possible information about the missing poodles comes to Michael’s home after the reward. It’s just so screwball.

An older, thin man limped in, a bunch of ragged feathers cradled in his arms. “I’ve got ‘im for ye,” he rasped, once he’d given his name as Smith and his place of residence as Cheapside.
“Sir, that is a chicken,” Michael stated.
“It’s a rooster, lad. A doodler, just like ye wanted.”
Elizabeth frowned. “I beg your pardon?”
“You asked for a black doodler. Cock-a-doodle-do. Here he is. Reggie. One hundred quid, and he’s yours.”
The marquis stifled a cough. “Ah. We were actually looking for a poodle. A dog.”
“Bah,” the old man said, and limped back out the door. “That’s rich folk for ye, never sayin’ what they mean.”

Readers should read this book….

If they enjoy comic hijinks with their romances, and dogs, and smart people having witty conversations.

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

My next book, out in about a year, has the working title of The Importance of Being Earnhurst. It’s a very loose riff on Oscar Wilde’s play of similar name, with people pretending to be other people and then getting stuck being those people, and falling for people they think aren’t the people they’re supposed to be falling for.
 

Thanks for blogging at HJ!

Giveaway: One Print giveaway copy of EVERY DUKE HAS HIS DAY , US Winner Only

To enter Giveaway: Please complete the Rafflecopter form and Post a comment to this Q: In my opinion, a big part of the appeal of the Regency romance is the men with titles. Do you want your Regency heroes to be dukes or viscounts, or upper class, or is it the story rather than the larger-than-life grandeur that appeals to you? Both? Neither?

 
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Excerpt from Every Duke Has His Day:

I don’t want to give anything away plot-wise, so this is the opening prologue of The Importance of Being Earnhurst: (cut length as you need to)
“What do you think?” Lady Meg Pinwell glided into the morning room and sank into a deep curtsy. “Is it too much?”
“Two ostrich plumes sticking out of your head? If you have to ask, I think you already know the answer.” Meg’s aunt, Clara Bosley, snorted and returned her attention to the book in her hands.
Pirouetting so she could see her reflection in the front window, Meg curtsied again, paying particular attention to the bend and lift of the long, white feathers. “I think it’s very regal.”
“You look like a ship with luffing sails,” Clara commented, not looking up again. “Bend to the port or starboard too far, and you’ll capsize.”
Meg squinted at her reflection as she adjusted her white elbow-length gloves. “Well, this is disappointing. I want to look like a great lady, not a sinking ship.”
“My dear, you either are a great lady, or you are not. One plume or two won’t make a difference, except to let everyone know you’re trying too hard and secretly don’t think yourself worthy of any plumage.”
Meg gathered the skirt of her white presentation gown and flopped onto the sofa beside her aunt. “You’re supposed to say encouraging things, Auntie. You know Papa and Mama both expect me to marry well. Papa even went to London last week to see if he could find any gossip threads that might lead to an exceptional marriage for me.”
Clara closed her book and set it on the side table. “Your father is an earl, my love, and your mother a countess. If they expect you to improve your station over their own, they’re being silly. It leaves you no options but to marry either a marquis or a duke. Or a prince, I suppose, though all of Prinny’s unmarried brothers are much too old and fat for you.” She reached up, batting a finger at one of the ostrich plumes rising above Meg’s head. “Two ostrich plumes will not guarantee you a duchy, any more than one would condemn you to a sheep farm.”
“But this is for my debut. In front of the Queen. So I have to be confident and demure and proper. With the correct amount of plumage.”
“What you generally are, Meg, my dear, is memorable. And very witty.”
“Yes, but there’s a good memorable and a bad memorable. I don’t want to be the bad kind.”
“You always look the good memorable, you know. Even with no ostrich plumes.”
Meg sighed. “Thank you, but I’d like the plumes to be sufficient, so I don’t have to speak other than perhaps to say, ‘Your Highness’ as I curtsy.”
Shifting a little to face her more squarely, Clara narrowed her eyes a little. “Many people would wish to have a quarter of your humor and wit, Meg. It is not a flaw.”
“According to Mama, it is. ‘Why do you always have to say something silly and bring attention to yourself? Can’t you simply respond like the polite, well-manner young lady you are?’” By now she had that conversation memorized, she’d heard it so often. “I always begin well, but then I make a comment I shouldn’t, and then I’m a vain minx who requires everyone to notice me simply because I said that the brown patch on the flank of Mr. Harker’s new cow looked like a gentleman’s naughty bits. Which it did.”
“So much so that he sold the cow again. Meg, you have a grand sense of humor and a wit, and you use them both freely. If you were a man, you would be applauded for it.”
“But I’m not a man.” Meg smoothed the soft silk of her gown. It was a fine, lovely dress—a bit plain because evidently plainness equated with chastity—very much in the tradition of the attire all young ladies wore for their presentation to the Queen at the outset of each girl’s debut Season in London. “I can’t go about saying whatever comes into my head. And I need plume advice. Everyone else will be wearing their finest. What if they all have two plumes, and I’m the only one with one?”
“Then you’ll be noticed for your modesty. Whereas, if you’re the only one with two plumes in your hair y—”
“Capsizing galleon.” Sighing, Meg nodded. That made the feathers bounce, shifting her hair and the pins that held the things in place to starboard, and with a grin she did it again. “I do see your point. A stiff wind might do me in.”
Clara closed the book on her lap and reached over to pat Meg’s hand. “If you’re worried about being an original, Meg, there is nothing wrong with that. There’s nothing ordinary about me, and I am quite happy.”
Snorting, Meg squeezed her aunt’s fingers. They were closer to sisters, really, when she considered it, and Clara was certainly her dearest friend. “No, there is not an ordinary thing about you. And if it were up to me, I would wear a half-dozen ostrich feathers dyed in all the colors of the rainbow. But outlandish ladies don’t always find good matches, and I do want to make a good match. And make a good impression.”
“You want to be ordinary, then? My goodness.”
“Clara, this is why Mama worries about us spending time together,” Meg whispered, only half jesting. “What I want, I think, is to be very close to completely acceptable, and then just a little bit…more.” She held her thumb and forefinger ever so slightly apart. “It’s only women who don’t care about their marital status who make outlandish gestures, or who speak when they should be silent, or who wear too many or not enough ostrich plumes.”
“I didn’t wear any feathers at my debut; they made me sneeze. And yet I think I’m quite spectacular.”
Clara Bosley was also quite possibly the least marriage-minded female Meg had ever encountered. “You are spectacular, which is aided by the fact that you are smarter than most everyone, and don’t care what anyone else thinks.”
Clara’s cheeks pinked. “Thank you. I accept your compliment.”
“But I’m not you,” Meg pressed. “Mama and Papa have spoiled me horribly, have given me leave to be as silly and outspoken as I wish, to traipse about after you carrying signs advocating for women’s rights, and the only thing they’ve asked in return is that as a grown woman I make them proud. I’m eighteen now. A grown woman.”
“Dear, if someone gives you leave to be outspoken, it’s they who control your character; not you. I much prefer being able to decide who I am, and behave accordingly.”
Meg fought the growing urge to plunk her face into her hands. Clara Bosley, avowed spinster and blue stocking, marcher for women’s suffrage and a female who lived alone but for a maid in her cottage at the edge of Brundon Hall’s property, had the ability to turn every moment into a crusade, and every crusade into a military operation.
No, Clara was not the perfect model for a young lady who tended to say the first thing that came into her head, especially when she got bored or when nerves got the best of her—or when the mood struck her, which it frequently did. “I know you like to think yourself independent, Auntie, dear, and I don’t mean to offend, but you have your home thanks to two men—your father, and my father.”
“Nonsense.” Clara clasped her hands together in her lap. “I have my own income. I have had since I published my first pamphlet. Yes, my father—your grandfather—settled a generous inheritance on me, but he did the same for your mother. I’m here only because your mother asked me to come to Devon. She worried about me being alone in London. As if having a hundred friends and compatriots didn’t signify as much as having one husband.” She made a face. “But, as it turns out, I adore my only niece, and thus I have no qualms about living down the hill from her home.”
“Your niece is a very lucky young lady, then.” Meg grinned. “And you have taught me to appreciate eccentric behavior, and to rage against boorish behavior. Or at least to point it out.”
“I’m only eight years older than you are, Meg. Don’t accuse me of dictating the rules of behavior to you, for heaven’s sake. And some people are both eccentric and boorish.”
Meg laughed at that. “I told Mama you were just like a sister to me, and she rolled her eyes.”
“Of course she did. Because she married a wealthy man with a title, she now thinks a status and money equates with perfection. And you’re her daughter, so of course there are standards which you must uphold. And things you must like, and others which you must dislike. I, on the other hand, like being unmarried. I also like to smoke a pipe, now and then.” She pretended to look over her shoulder. “Let’s not tell her that, though, or she will put her foot down.”
“I can’t help being an earl’s daughter any more than a fisherman’s daughter could be other than what she is. But I’m aware of that, and of how lucky I am, and I think I should behave in a manner that doesn’t shame or embarrass my family.”
Nudging her shoulder, Clara smiled. “I have never felt embarrassed to be in your company. Sometimes you make my cheeks hurt because I’ve been laughing so hard, but then I have a sense of humor, unlike your mother.”
“Yes, but my point is that inciting laughter at odd moments or blurting out that Lady So-and-So’s dress is the color of dog vomit isn’t how a young lady is supposed to attract friends, or a husband.”
“Husband, husband, husband. A highly overrated commodity in my opinion.”

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
 
 

Book Info:

Brain meets Beauty in this sparkling, fresh take on the classic Bringing Up Baby – if Jane Austen had written it! A romantic comedy with a dash of chaos featuring the most ill-behaved poodle in Regency London, by New York Times bestseller Suzanne Enoch.

Michael Bromley, Duke of Woriton, has a passion, but it’s not for chasing ladies or gambling till dawn. No, his is the far more dangerous pursuit of the science of chemistry. He may be a tad eccentric, but he can navigate a society ballroom, and manage a polite conversation—if he must. He’s certainly capable of taking care of his aunt’s perfectly behaved poodle, Lancelot, while she’s on holiday.

Elizabeth “Bitsy” Dockering, third daughter of a viscount, is enjoying her second, spectacular Season in London. She is a Diamond of the Season and is adored by all—and especially by her precious black poodle, Galahad. To everyone else, however, Galahad is a demon dog. So much so that Bitsy’s most insistent beau and particular victim of Galahad’s bad manners, has hired a thief to steal the dog, clearing the way for his suit.

But none of them can plan for a chaotic encounter in the park, resulting in lost notes, a soaking in the Serpentine and an accidental dog swap…and Lancelot being kidnapped instead of Galahad! Determined to locate the dog, Michael isn’t thrilled to be saddled with a flighty female insisting on helping—except that Bitsy has a great deal more sense than he expected. And a sharp tongue to match. Still, what’s a scientist to do but continue to pursue an outcome, however unexpected it may be? But chemistry is all about attraction, and this is one formula with some hilariously romantic results.
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Meet the Author:

A native and current resident of Southern California, Suzanne Enoch loves movies almost as much as she loves books, with a particular soft spot for anything Star Wars. She has written more than 50 books, including Regency romances, historical romances, and contemporary romantic suspense. She shares a home with various humans, tropical fish, a dog (Tiki), a tortoise (Lucky Jo), five lizards, six finches, and a parakeet named Fozzie.
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