Spotlight & Giveaway: Seduced by a Scot by Julia London

Today it is my pleasure to Welcome author Julia London to HJ!

Hi Julia and welcome to HJ! We’re so excited to chat with you about your new release, Seduced by a Scot!

Please summarize the book for the readers here:

This book is about Miss Maura Darby, a woman who has no standing in the 18th century, no agency, nothing to fall back on but her body and her looks. She has done everything ever asked of her but is treated with increasing disdain, accused of things she has not done. She is not having it. When push comes to shove, she shoves back, consequences be damned. But she has to get past handsome Nichol Bain, who specializes in “fixing” rich men’s problems. She is the problem. She’s going to let him think he is fixing it, but she is quietly plotting her own fix.
 

Please share the opening lines of this book:

Calum Garbett was not allowed to know happiness. No matter how close he came to it, his wife and daughter would swoop in at the last moment to destroy any chance of it.
The scene playing out in the drawing room was the crowning blow.

Please share a few Fun facts about this book…

• I created a “fixer,”a man who is adept at crisis management, three hundred years before it was cool.
• My publisher and I decided on a look for these covers, which are shirtless Highlanders. But since the book is coming out in November, and takes place in the late fall, we decided to add a hint of snow. That’s why Mr. Bain is standing shirtless in the snow.
• This is the only book of the Highland Groom series that does not feature a member of the Mackenzie family. However, the family figures prominently.

Please tell us a little about the characters in your book. As you wrote your protagonist was there anything about them that surprised you?

I was writing this about the time the #metoo movement started. I had already written the beginning of the book where Maura tries to report something, but is blamed for it. She could have been the poster child for #metoo, but it was even worse for her because she was a product of the 18th century, and no one believed her or cared about her. Her fury at her helplessness felt very real to me, and so was her determination not to be defined by it.

If your book was optioned for a movie, what scene would you use for the audition of the main characters and why?

I would use the scene where Maura is unjustly accused and sort of sentenced. She is being sent away.

“I’ll send her to my cousin for the time being, aye?” Mr. Garbett said, his gaze on Maura. “In Aberuthen. A tidy manor house near a loch. Do you no’ like the sound of it, then, Maura?”
She did not flinch. She did not say a word. But the injustice radiated off her, heating them all.
“Send her away with all the privileges we have extended to her these many years, then?” his wife said angrily. “She has destroyed my daughter’s happiness, and for that, she should be made to repay the kindness we’ve shown her.”
“Indeed,” Mrs. Cadell sniffed. “She should be made to pay the consequence of using her wiles on an innocent young man.”
Innocent, his arse.

What do you want people to take away from reading this book?

This is the last book of the Highland Groom series, so I hope the reader walks away with satisfaction with the series as a whole. But more than anything, I want the reader to be able to escape from the news of the day and ride along with Maura and Bain. That’s it—just escape for a time.

What are you currently working on? What other releases do you have planned?

I’m very excited about a new series inspired by the love story between Prince Harry and Meghan Markle. It’s set in Victorian England, but features the fictional kingdom of Alucia and the handsome prince brothers who come from there. These Alucian princes will travel to London and meet women of upper middle class stock in England and love will ensue. It’s exciting to have the freedom to create my own kingdom, with all the attendant castles and pageantry and servants, and pair the people from that kingdom with women in England who, in the middle of the 19th century, are taking great strides on their own, but who would not mind one bit being swept off their feet by a handsome prince. It’s Cinderella meets The Crown, with lots of love and intrigue and, of course, to-die-for gowns and crowns.

In addition, the first book in my brand new, four-part contemporary romance series, The Princes of Texas, will be released early next year. Rich cowboys, poor cowboys, and the women who love them. Look for A Charmer in Chaps in May.
 

Thanks for blogging at HJ!

Giveaway: Print copy of SEDUCED BY A SCOT (The Highland Grooms #6)by Julia London. (limited to North American mailing addresses)

To enter Giveaway: Please complete the Rafflecopter form and Post a comment to this Q: My editor and I talked a lot about how angry Maura is in the beginning of the book, after she realizes how badly she’s been treated. Do you think she was too angry? Not angry enough? Would you have had the nerve to do what she did?

 
a Rafflecopter giveaway

 
 

Excerpt from Seduced by a Scot:

She pondered her savior. Or was he her captor? A wee bit of both, she supposed. Either way, he was quite handsome. His hair was the color of autumn leaves, a mix of brown, dark red and gold. His eyes were pale green and when he looked at her, there was a certain sparkle in them.
Aye, he was a handsome man.
Yet she had the sense that there was something curiously distant about this handsome man. Perhaps it was because he knew everything about her, and she knew nothing but his name and that he liked to read books about philosophy, apparently. “Who are you?” she asked curiously.
He arched a brow. “I’ve told you.”
“Aye, you’ve said your name, but who are you really, Mr. Bain?”
He gave her a slight, enigmatic smile. “Does it matter?”
Ooh, a secret then. Maura twisted about so that she was facing him. “Aye, it matters who, exactly, is spiriting me away to marry a man I’ve never laid eyes on. You could be a thief or a marauder for all I know.”
“A marauder?”
“A highwayman?”
“That is no’ an improvement.”
“Well? What is your secret?”
“I’ve no secret.”
“But you are a friend of Mr. Calum Garbett, and yet, I’ve never heard your name.”
“Because I’ve only recently made Mr. Garbett’s acquaintance.”
“Really?” she asked skeptically.
He leaned forward, looked her directly in the eye and said, “Really.”
“Then how…?”
“I’m what one might call an agent, aye? Let’s agree that gentlemen often find themselves in uncomfortable situations, and I put them to rights.”
Maura had never heard of such a thing. What gentlemen? What uncomfortable situations? Were there so many of them that a man might make it his occupation? “I beg your pardon?”
Mr. Bain leaned back against the tree and stretched his legs before him, crossing them at the ankle. “It’s no’ as strange as it sounds.”
“Aye, it is,” she insisted.
He smiled, lazily, indulgently, and it made her feel…warm.
“You are a young woman, Miss Darby. You would have no call to know that there are times in a man’s life that he might need help disposing of a complication. I happen to be adept at that.”
He spoke with such confidence! She was rather envious of that sort of confidence, really, particularly as she never felt entirely confident of anything. Well, except that she was not marrying a stranger in Lumparty, Lunmarty, wherever it was he was taking her. She was entirely confident in that. “What do you mean?” She suddenly had the idea that he meant something quite nefarious. She leaned forward and whispered, “Are you an outlaw, Mr. Bain?”
He blinked. He glanced at the lad as if to assure himself he could not hear, then leaned forward, so that he was only a few inches from her, and whispered, “No.”
She swayed backward. “Then how is it you are adept at disposing of another man’s complications?”
He leaned against the tree again. “I just am.”

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
 
 

Book Info:

There’s no matchmaking an unruly heart

When a prominent Scottish family faces a major scandal weeks before their daughter’s wedding, they turn in desperation to the enigmatic fixer for the aristocracy, Nichol Bain. Remarkably skilled at making high-profile problems go away, Nichol understands the issue immediately. The family’s raven-haired ward, Maura Darby, has caught the wandering eye—and rather untoward advances—of the groom.

Nichol assuredly escorts Maura toward his proposed solution: an aging bachelor for her to marry. But rebellious Maura has no interest in marrying a stranger, especially when her handsome traveling companion has captivated her so completely. Thankfully, Nichol loves a challenge, but traveling with the bold and brash Maura has him viewing her as far more than somebody’s problem. Which raises a much bigger issue—how can he possibly elude disaster when the heart of the problem is his own?

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Meet the Author:

Julia London is the New York Times, USA Today, and Publisher’s Weekly bestselling author of more than fifty novels, including the popular Cabot Sisters series and The Highland Grooms historical romance series. She is also the author of the Pine River contemporary romance series as well as the Lake Haven series. She is a six-time finalist for the prestigious RITA Award for excellence in romantic fiction, and the RT Bookclub award recipient for Best Historical Romance for Dangerous Gentleman. She lives in Austin, Texas.

She lives in Austin, Texas.
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