Spotlight & Giveaway: My Lord, My Rogue by Anna St. Claire

Today it is my pleasure to Welcome author Anna St. Claire to HJ!

Hi Anna St. Claire and welcome to HJ! We’re so excited to chat with you about your new release, My Lord, My Rogue!

 
Hello, everyone. Thank you for having me, today.
 

Please summarize the book for the readers here:

My newest release, My Lord, My Rogue, is currently on preorder with a release date of March 15. This story follows The Duke’s Golden Rings (Noble Hearts Series, book 3). The heroine in My Lord, My Rogue was the premise for The Duke’s Golden Rings. These two books are the most closely tied stories in the series, although each book in the series can be read as a stand-alone. Several tropes are in view here, including second-chance romance and character redemption.
In My Lord, My Rogue (Noble Hearts Series, book 4), the heroine’s character gets a chance at redemption. Lady Honora Radcliff makes a bad decision and finds herself married to an abusive man whose only care about her is the money he thought he would gain by compromising her. However, her father refuses to release the money to him. When she finds herself pregnant, he scorns the child and claims it isn’t his. Desperate, she focuses on her unborn child and the life he/she would have and fakes her death.

Three years later, Benjamin Crewe, the Marquess of Willington, comes face to face with the woman he had always wished he had married–Lady Honora Radcliff–but she has been dead for three years! Needing answers and unwilling to make the same mistake twice, Lord Willington decides to woo Lady Honora. At almost the same time, Willington receives an assignment from the Crown which forces him to pursue a treacherous enemy of England.

The two of them are drawn into a dangerous web of danger, espionage and deception which could take away their chance for love and happiness.
 

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

“I have often imagined what I would say to you, and the pain seemed too great to bridge. Part of me still wants to hate you for what you did. However, time is a great healer, and I hope we can both close this chapter of hurt.”

Honora had known that she did not love him when he had asked her to marry him…yet she had accepted. She could not punish herself more than she already had done these last three years. If I ever have another chance, I will choose love.

Please share a few Fun facts about this book…

My Lord, My Rogue: I found inspiration for this book and the one before it in the series on a saying my husband is fond of quoting. It goes: You can never know what is going on in someone else’s life unless you are standing in their shoes. Books three, and now, four of the series provides two different perspectives and how a single act affected so many lives.

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

They were both attracted to one another for years, yet neither let the other know. She thought flirting with another would make him jealous. It backfired and she became engaged to a man she didn’t love. He was jealous, but refused to act on it, because now his best friend loved the woman he loved, but he had never admitted to loving her—not even to himself, until it was too late

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

In this scene, Lord Willington realizes he a second chance with the woman he loved could be possible—but more, he realizes why she made such a drastic decision. It had my heart clenching the entire time I wrote it, and as I read it again, I find myself in much the same way.

A stiff wind blew, forcing him to pull together the collar of his greatcoat as he passed the spot where he and Lancaster had caught sight of Lady Aster on horseback. A mixture of feelings washed over him. The sight of her had shocked him to his core. To the world, this woman had died. Yet, she and her aunt had pulled off a ruse that had convinced everyone, including Aster’s family, that she had perished in the angry waves of the Channel? Yet, his heart thrummed that she lived.
She had grievously forsaken her betrothal to Lancaster and married Aster. Everyone had believed her dead. No one had questioned it or even searched for her body. The two or three clothing items had sufficed. Based on Aster’s unsavory reputation among women, they easily assumed Aster had had something to do with her death—an outcome that might surely have occurred had they remained married. Yet she was alive . . . and here in Bath . . . with him.
The brutality she had recounted having suffered at the hand of Aster, both emotionally and physically, had shaken him as much as thinking she was a ghost. He realized faking her death had been her only recourse.
He gave thought to that. Laws in England protected men, not women and children. Male children were the only ones given deference, and Aster would probably never have released her had he known the child was a boy.

Readers should read this book….

if you love stories that alternatively, tugs at your heart and make you cry, and in other places, warms your heart and makes you smile or laugh out loud! The heroine faced a no-win situation for herself, and her choice was made for her child. Her life became one of isolation and reliance on a small core of people. As a population just having dealt with isolation created by a pandemic, it becomes easy to imagine her plight and the feelings she might have had.

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

My current WIP is The Heart of A Lyon, my second contribution to Dragonblade’s Lyon’s Den series. The Heart of A Lyon debuts later this year. Soon, I will begin work on my contribution to The Wedding Wager, which releases in the fall. The Duke of Disorder (Book 3 in The Rakes of Mayhem Series) releases March 18. And Scandal Beneath the Stars (Book 1 in a new series, Lord of My Dreams) releases June 29. It goes on preorder very soon.
 

Thanks for blogging at HJ!

Giveaway: eBook of My Lord, My Rogue to one winner.

To enter Giveaway: Please complete the Rafflecopter form and Post a comment to this Q: As young women enter the world of romance in their teens, what happened to Lady Honora Radcliff could easily have happened to many of us as we entered the world of dating and romance. Lady Honora found herself bored and alone without her fiancé, and harmlessly flirted with the wrong person. Have you ever made a similarly bad decision that cost you dearly? Can you share?

• In the case of Lord Willington, he was interested in Lady Honora, but stayed in the background too long, instead of making his feelings known when it could have counted. He is given a second chance at having the love of his life and takes it. Have you ever had a second chance romance?

 
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Excerpt from My Lord, My Rogue:

He wanted a kiss. “Would you mind if I kiss you, Honora?”
A smile turned up the corners of her mouth. “I would like that very much, Benjamin.”
He liked hearing his name from her lips. Despite the awkwardness of the table, he leaned in and pulled her closer to him. Leaning in, he feathered her lips with small kisses before gently kissing her. His tongue touched her lips, cajoling her to allow more. She opened her mouth, and he quickly pressed his advantage tasting the sweetness of her mouth and swirling his tongue with hers in a dance of pleasure. Reminding himself they were not alone and not wishing to give her anything to regret, he pulled away slowly, lingering a moment to kiss the tip of her nose.
“How was that Lady Aster?” he asked, covering her hand with his.
“That was nice.” Her teeth bit down on her lip. “I confess I would enjoy another kiss, but only if I can get you to call me Honora.” A smile flickered across her lips. “You have not called me Honora since I was twelve.”
A smile creased his face. “It would be my pleasure, if you call me Benjamin,” he replied, feeling a fissure of pleasure shoot through his body.
“I hate to end this, truly. However, I should probably return home soon. I have not seen Oliver today, and it will worry him.”
“First, we need to take care of this.” He slid his chair closer and gently lifted her chin, touching her lips with his softly before taking them in a passionate kiss.
She threaded her fingers through the blond curls at the top of the collar, fingering them gently as she pulled him closer, still.
Her breathing increased with his. Benjamin needed to break the kiss, even as his body heated with need to have her. Feeling himself losing control, he pushed back, quashing the rising passion in between heaving breaths.
“Shall we?” He stood and helped her up from the table. The two of them moved the leftovers to the basket and placed it on the table.
As they stepped away from the table, she stopped and took another look at the room. “This has been the most wonderful picnic. Thank you so much for making it so magical.”
“It was my pleasure.” He lifted her chin and leaned in for a quick kiss. “I heard Bridget cleaning her table. ’Tis time to get you back.”
Benjamin slowed the pace on the way back, chatting about anything and everything, and savoring the early afternoon. Seeing her safely to her door, he turned and headed back home. His mother would be there soon, and he needed to pull his head out of the clouds before she arrived.

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.

Book Info:

Entangled in a web of danger, espionage, and deception, can he find love with the woman he thought long dead? Or will the danger deprive them of a chance for love and happiness?

Lady Honora Radcliff was betrothed to the most sought-after man of the Season— just not the man she loved. Too much champagne and too many dances with a handsome stranger leaves her life in tatters and she finds herself married to an abusive man whose only interest is the dowry her father refuses to release. Desperate to save her life and that of her unborn child, she fakes her death and disappears.

Lord Benjamin Crewe, the Marquess of Willington, planned to enjoy the Christmastide season relaxing. Instead, he accepts a dangerous assignment from the Crown and while working it, comes face to face with the woman he always wished he had married. Only she has been thought dead for three years.

Needing answers, he pursues her at the same time a treacherous enemy of England surfaces, and the two of them become tangled in a web of danger, espionage, and deception.

Can Honora and Benjamin survive the danger in which they find themselves and gain a chance for love and happiness?
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Meet the Author:

Anna St. Claire is a big believer that nothing is impossible if you believe in yourself. She sprinkles her stories with laughter, romance, mystery and lots of possibilities, adhering to the belief that goodness and love will win the day.
Anna is both an avid reader author of American and British historical romance. She and her husband live in Charlotte, North Carolina with their two dogs and often, their two beautiful granddaughters, who live nearby. Daughter, sister, wife, mother, and Mimi—all life roles that Anna St. Claire relishes and feels blessed to still enjoy. And she loves her pets – dogs and cats alike, and often inserts them into her books as secondary characters.
Anna relocated from New York to the Carolinas as a child. Her mother, a retired English and History teacher, always encouraged Anna’s interest in writing, after discovering short stories she would write in her spare time.
As a child, she loved mysteries and checked out every Encyclopedia Brown story that came into the school library. Before too long, her fascination with history and reading led her to her first historical romance—Margaret Mitchell’s Gone With The Wind, now a treasured, but weathered book from being read multiple times. The day she discovered Kathleen Woodiwiss,’ books, Shanna and Ashes In The Wind, Anna became hooked. She read every historical romance that came her way and dreams of writing her own historical romances took seed.
Today, her focus is primarily the Regency and Civil War eras, although Anna enjoys almost any period in American and British history.
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