Spotlight & Giveaway: The Earl and The Country Girl by Eva Devon

Today it is my pleasure to Welcome author Eva Devon to HJ!

Hi Eva and welcome to HJ! We’re so excited to chat with you about your new release, The Earl and The Country Girl!

 
Thank you so much! I’m thrilled to be here!
 

Please summarize the book a la Twitter style for the readers here:

This stablehand is definitely more than he appears in USA Today bestselling author Eva Devon’s captivating tale of two complete opposites refusing to fall in love…
 

Please share the opening lines of this book:

“Promenade!”
Lord Felix Brightman, Earl of Enderley, was not given to following commands. After all, as one of the most powerful men in the land, he was not required to do so.
Yet, when Signore Antonio Morelli said promenade, Felix promenaded.
The Italian fellow was the most sought-after and excellent dance instructor in all of London.

Please share a few Fun facts about this book…

• Aristocrats in Paris and London really did fail to pay their bills! Really often!
• Perfume was big business during the Regency period.
• The Prince of Wales was devoted to his perfume.
• Class rules were very different for the ton, the middle class, farmers, and what we might now call peasants. For instance, young women would live cheek by jowl to young men because families often had to let out any available space to boarders to make ends meet.
• Gentlemen of the Regency were expected to dance as well as they dueled.

What first attracts your main characters to each other?

Surprise. They literally collide into each other in a lavender field. It’s quite romantic and out of the ordinary. Sparks do fly!
 

Using just 5 words, how would you describe your main characters”love affair?

Passionate
Loyal
Impossible
Witty
Inevitable
 

The First Kiss…

Let’s just say, it takes surrounded by beautiful flowers and herbs with touches and glances. The air crackles with desire as she teaches him to make herbal tinctures!
 

Without revealing too much, what is your favorite scene in the book?

“Come,” he urged, offering his hand to her.
“What?” She almost took a step back. “No.”
“I promised I’d introduce you,” he said with a slow smile.
She straightened her spine, refusing to show that she was intimidated by so much life and power. “You may do so at this distance. We shall be proper about it.”
“Proper?” he teased. “There’s nothing proper about a thoroughbred stallion. They are all muscle, and they are ready to run.”
“I don’t think it’s a very good idea,” she hedged.
He cocked his head to the side. “He’s perfectly gentle now. He and I understand each other. Well, not gentle, exactly. He’ll have his quirks, but I promise you’ll be safe.”
“Do not make promises you cannot keep,” she warned.
He leaned forward slightly, his dark hair tumbling about his shoulders. And there was a shadow now along his jaw, which did exactly what she’d hoped it would do when she told him not to shave. Since they had met that morning, he’d already grown quite a shadow. And it gave him a slightly less aristocratic demeanor.
He did look like a roguish horseman with that dark stubble. Someone who knew flesh better than all the others.
“I thought you were one for adventure,” he challenged.
She let out a note of protest at that. “How dare you?” she said with faux outrage. “Throw my dreams in my face. Wishing to be a perfumer is an entirely different thing than getting up on an animal like that.”
“Not really,” he returned, stroking his hand along the horse’s neck. The stallion dropped its head, its long lashes soft and lids fluttering half closed. “It’s all a chance.”
She sucked in a slow breath. “Fine then. If you wish it.”
And so she tucked her hand into his.
“Surely,” she said, looking about, “there needs to be a stable blocker.”
But before she could spot one, he was hauling her up, easily swinging her onto Wayward.
“Hold tight,” he called, swinging her up in front of him. “Never you fear. I’ve got you.”

If your book was optioned for a movie, what scene would be absolutely crucial to include?

She shrugged. “It is part of life. Surely, difficult things happen for you?”
He nodded, his stomach clenching. “Sometimes I have to tell families that their sons, husbands, fathers aren’t coming home. It happens far more often than I’d like, if I’m honest. I lose people that I have trained… And they don’t die easy deaths. I can’t protect them when…”
He swallowed the rest of his words, shocked that he had nearly spoken of far more than he should.
“I’m so sorry,” she said softly.
“Thank you.” He drew in a breath. “We all have the difficulties that we must bear.”
“In all honesty, yours sound far more difficult than mine.”
“They’re not,” he countered as he sucked in a breath. “Not really.” He moved closer to her then, wishing to end this sad line of discourse, and looked down at the pestle. “What will you do with this?”
She blinked, her breaths increasing. “I will steep it and then mix it to create a tincture.”
“A tincture,” he said, shaking his head.
“Yes, that can be taken orally,” she explained.
“And what will it do?”
“This one will help calm the nervous system,” she explained. “Many people are so overworked and so afraid about the war and various changes that are happening, they need this. It soothes them, you see.”
He lowered his head ever so slightly and whispered, “Do you feel anxious about the war and change?”
“I am hopeful that we shall see great things from all that is evolving around us,” she said, squaring her shoulders as if she refused to be cowed by the tide of life. “I have to choose hope or I would never leave the house or my bed.”
“Ah, and you accused me of being silly for optimism,” he teased, drawn in by her, drawn in by his awe of her. “You are just the same.”
She laughed at that. “I suppose I am. By the way,” she said gently, “the way you were with Mr. Perkins? I admired it very much. Thank you for being so kind to him.”
“You don’t have to thank me, Alice,” he said. “He’s a good man, and he’s been treated terribly. I’ll soon right it.”
She nodded, then returned to her work, taking the crushed herbs, putting them into oil.
He dared to rest his hand upon the table next to hers, but a breadth away. It felt like a shocking thing to do, and yet he could not stop himself. “Will you teach me what you are doing?”
Stilling, she let her hand linger next to his. “You wish to be taught how to make a tincture?”
“Why ever not?” he asked, his voice a low rumble to his own ears.
“All right,” she said. “Come.”
She let her hand slide from the table, studied the dried herbs and flowers hanging from the ceiling, and began to reach. She went up on tiptoe, her body a beautiful arc, but the flowers were just out of reach.
Felix did not think, only crossed behind her and raised his arm to gently grasp it for her. As he did so, his chest brushed her shoulders, and her hips teased against him.
She hesitated, her eyes fluttering closed, but then she stepped away.
He said nothing because he had done nothing that was truly out of propriety, but the shocks of need that traveled through him—and he was certain, her—was startling.

Readers should read this book …

If they wish to have a heart warming, breath taking escape! I absolutely love to whisk readers away from the cares of daily life and the difficulties we all must face. So, I always write with that in mind. Alice and Felix really stole my heart. They are opposites in every way, but are both so noble, loyal, and deserve love. This book is like a delightful bon bon or cup of tea to savor and warm one’s heart.

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

I’m currently working on my next indie book which is The Duke’s Absolutely Mad Marriage. It’s a fun book full of antics and characters who adore teasing each other. And this is also my next release!

Thanks for blogging at HJ!

Giveaway: 15$ Amazon card.

To enter Giveaway: Please complete the Rafflecopter form and Post a comment to this Q: Do you love a hero in disguise? Who is your favorite? And do you love it when a couple strikes a deal to help each other and are so certain they will never fall in love? Tell me your favorite arrangement!

 
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Excerpt from The Earl and The Country Girl:

“Get your hands off my lavender, good sir,” a woman called from behind him.
Felix straightened, stunned by the tone. He was not accustomed to being spoken to thus. The voice was quite startling, and the demand was absurd for an earl.
He whirled around to locate the owner of said voice and was shocked to find that the young woman was standing right near him.
Or she had been. But now she staggered back from his quick movement, her eyes flared, and she lost her footing.
He caught her instinctively, but the two of them went down into the field in an eruption of lavender blossoms. The scent of earth and vibrant flowers enveloped them.
“Devil take it!” she exclaimed. “Now your hands are on me.” She paused as if waiting for him to do something. “You should get them off.”
She was absolutely right.
He should get his hands off this young woman. But here, in the lavender field with purple petals floating about them and landing on them, he felt in complete disarray.
It was not his usual state of affairs. In fact, he was the one who usually put others in disarray.
He was a man of remarkable composure. Or so he prided himself.
“Forgive me,” he said, trying to remember to keep his voice not as aristocratic as it usually was. After all, he was here in disguise. Not the hat and false mustache kind, of course. This was different but still essential.
He was not supposed to be the Earl of Enderley here. This was not his lavender field.
He owned it. Of course he did. All of the land as far as the eye could see was his. All part of the estate he’d bought on that promise to himself of a bit of warmth and rest.
But he was a man of determined action, and Napoleon was raging on the continent. No, he spent all of his time recruiting young men to be spies in France and to make certain the war was going as it should.
Still, needs must, and the exposure of his land agent had to be done.
Yes, Felix was here to make certain that he was correct in his assumptions. He’d come disguised as a stable master who specialized in thoroughbreds to ascertain what was truly happening on his lands. It was made possible by the fact that he had never visited the property. Not once. He’d bought it purely based on a description.
He could not let the young woman in his arms know who he truly was, hence his need to keep his voice rough. And as he gazed down at her, he realized she was positively surprised but not horrified. She was staring up at him, her eyes violet, which seemed to match her lavender field, gazing upon him with wonder.
“Excuse me,” she clarified archly, “but what the blazes are you doing here? And your hands are still upon me.”
He frowned. So they were.
He pulled back, stood, and helped her up as well, though he realized how very much he’d liked the feel of her beneath him. The soft curve of her body when it had been pressed into his and the intoxicating scent of the lavender around them was quite overwhelming.
He studied her carefully, from the top of her blond, curly head to those wide, shocking eyes. Her nose was pert. Her mouth looked ready to set him down, which he absolutely adored. Her chin was elfin, pointed. One might have thought she was actually rather austere-looking, like she would be best suited in a crowded hall, demanding rights for women, refusing to be shouted down by red-faced parliamentarians.
He rather liked the idea of that, too.
He leaned back further, and she drew in a long breath. Her chest rose, and he noted the curve of her breasts pressed against the cut of her simple cotton gown.
It was quite the sight, but he was a gentleman, even if she was not to know that, and he would not be playing the rogue.
“Do forgive me, miss,” he said. “I was simply caught off guard. You have quite a striking voice.”
She laughed. “Yes, well, one needs a striking voice when one works in the fields.”
“You work in the fields?” he asked, hardly believing such a claim, stunned by the effect her laugh had on his person. That lush, rolling bell of sound had cause his skin to awaken and his body to tighten in the most delicious of ways.
He eyed her. She did not look like the sort of person who cut wheat or collected vegetables. “Do you take in the cabbage or something?”
She laughed again, a refreshing sound that was not manufactured for the delectation of lords. No, it was a full, throaty laugh that carried. Much like her voice.
She scooted away, then eyed him as if he was a fox that had got in her hen house and planned to make short work of him. “No, the lavender fields. They are my mother’s. And of course the apples, the pears, the freesia, a remarkable variety of flowers and herbs.” She brushed her hands together, removing the soil from them, and scanned the horizon. “Not all of them are in bloom at present.”
“I see,” he said. “Your family owns them.”
“Well,” she rolled her eyes, “of course we don’t actually own the fields. The only person who owns anything around here is the Earl of Enderley. He owns the estate Helexton.”
“Oh, does he, then?” he asked, trying to keep his face calm. “Well, then I must be in the right place.”
Her eyebrows darted up. “What do you mean?”
“I am his latest man of stables.”

Excerpts. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
 
 

Book Info:

Miss Alice Wright should be content. After all, her knowledge of herbal lore helps so many in her village. Yet she longs for more. For Alice dreams of becoming a famed parfumier in London, celebrated for her fine scents…even as her family’s past warns her of the perils of ambition. But when Alice collides—quite literally—with a charismatic gentleman in a field of lavender, her perfume-filled dream is suddenly within reach. Be careful what you wish for…

Lord Felix Brightman is certain that no one can see through his clever disguise as a stable hand. How else could he, the Earl of Enderley, accurately gauge the management of his Cornwall estate? But a pretty—and surprisingly pert—maiden sees through his façade instantly. So he offers Alice a deal: if she helps him out, he’ll do everything he can to help her realize her dream…

Yet attraction simmers in the air between them, and it’s not long before Alice and Felix find themselves tempted to compromise any notions of propriety. After all, lust leads to disaster. Marriage is out of the question. And Alice is determined that nothing shall stop her from pursuing her passions…even if the road to London—and certain success—could lead to certain ruin.
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