Spotlight & Giveaway: THE GENTLEMAN’S GAMBIT by Evie Dunmore

Today it is my pleasure to Welcome author Evie Dunmore to HJ!

Hi Evie and welcome to HJ! We’re so excited to chat with you about your new release, THE GENTLEMAN’S GAMBIT!

 
Hello!
 

Please summarize the book for the readers here:

We’re in Victorian England. Introverted academic and suffragist Catriona Campbell inconveniently falls in love with Elias Khoury, a handsome scholar from the Middle East who helps her professor father with some artefacts at Oxford University. Soon however it becomes clear that Elias’s motives are not at all what they seem, and Catriona faces the decision to do the right thing or to safely stay out of all sorts of trouble…
 

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

I’m afraid I don’t have favourite lines in my own work. I’m happy to leave it up to the reader to highlight their favourite lines and often it’s a bit of a surprise what they choose. We all look at a text through our own lens and I just can’t see my own words from an angle that would allow me to go wow this is an amazing quote, Evie! I did enjoy writing the banter for this couple, with him being so playful and her frequently not getting it, and then him finding her seriousness and confusion endearing.
 

Please share a few Fun facts about this book…

One side character, Mrs Weldon, who was a real life person, shows up as a wronged spiritualist in TGG, and without wanting to spoiler anything, some of her actions were key to changing a really discriminatory law in Britain at the time. When I researched her story, her face looked familiar to me, and sure enough, soon a poster of her face for a Victorian advert for Pear’s Soap showed up. I had used this exact same advert in my second novel, A ROGUE OF ONE’S OWN. Turned out that Mrs Weldon hadn’t just changed history, she was also a model for facial soap in her fifties. I thought it was very fun to discover that I was already familiar with Mrs Weldon, just in a wholly different context.

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

I think his first attraction is of the primal sort because she climbs naked out of a lake in front of him. The second time he meets her, she’s literally and figuratively buttoned up and now it’s the aloofness that intrigues him. Vice versa, she can see that he’s good-looking but more so she senses a spark in him, a light, intelligent sense of joy that really appeals to her quiet, serious nature. It’s an opposites attract scenario until they realize how much they truly have in common.

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

I did have tears in my eyes when I wrote the epilogue. The LEAGUE OF EXTRAORDINARY WOMEN series is about love and romance, but also about ride-or-die female friendship, and seeing all the girls together one last time in that context just put a lump in my throat.

‘Annabelle’s nose stung with tears, after all. She felt Hattie’s hand in hers and clasped it tightly.
“This is a new dawn,” she said.
“It’s rising over ruins, though,” Hattie murmured.
“Yes,” said Annabelle, “but we are looking at the silver lining.”’

Readers should read this book….

For escapism, swoons and some giggles, and, if one is so inclined, some interesting historical insights from a fascinating era.

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

I’m working on something new, something adjacent to both history as well as romance – currently I’m just curious where that journey will take me. The next upcoming release is THE GENTLEMAN’S GAMBIT.
 

Thanks for blogging at HJ!

Giveaway: 1 Paperback copy of THE GENTLEMAN’S GAMBIT, US only

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Excerpt from The Gentleman’s Gambit:

Catriona has decided to finally accept Elias Khoury’s scandalous invite to a chess game, not knowing he sent it with ulterior motives…

“I’m not certain this is wise,” MacKenzie muttered when they arrived at St. John’s Senior Common Room.
Catriona paused with her hand on the doorknob. “You know what they say, MacKenzie?”
“I’m sure ye’ll tell me.”
“There are three kinds of stories: a man goes on a journey; a stranger comes to town, and, a man hunts a whale.”
MacKenzie put on her polite you-are-the-lady-and-I-am-but-a-simple-woman expression.
“Where are we women in this?” Catriona asked. “Women rarely leave town. Our stories tend to begin with the arrival of the stranger.”
“Yer hunting plenty of white whales in yer study,” MacKenzie said under her breath. “There’s yer story, no need for an entanglement with an outlander.”
An entanglement was the opposite of her desires; immunity was the aim.
“We are just playing a game,” she said, and opened the door.
The Senior Common Room was a calm space with dark wood paneling and low-legged leather furniture. The sweetish smell of coal fire and the low murmur of male voices hung in the air. Elias Khoury was the only man she saw. He had chosen a table in a bay window nook and was in the process of setting up opposing armies with practiced efficiency. At her entrance, he looked up. A pang of feral excitement hit her belly, and a smile began in his eyes. He stood. When she arrived at the table, the corner of his mouth tipped up.
“You have decided to play,” he said, his voice low and husky. His eyes were more green than blue in the soft light. Thinking of him as an experiment helped to hold his gaze, as if someone else was doing it in her place.
“I have,” she said. “Prepare to be checkmated.”

Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved.
 
 

Book Info:

Deeply introverted Catriona lives for her work at Oxford and her fight for women’s suffrage. She dreams of romance, too, but since all her attempts at love have ended badly, she now keeps her desires firmly locked inside her head—until she climbs out of a Scottish loch after a good swim and finds herself rather exposed to her new colleague.

Elias Khoury has wheedled his way into Professor Campbell’s circle under false pretenses: he did not come to Oxford to classify ancient artefacts, he is determined to take them back to his homeland in the Middle East. Winning Catriona’s favor could be the key to his success. Unfortunately, seducing the coolly intense lady scholar quickly becomes a mission in itself and his well-laid plans are in danger of derailing…

Forced into close proximity in Oxford’s hallowed halls, two very different people have to face the fact that they might just be a perfect match. Soon, a risky new game begins that asks Catriona one more time to put her heart and wildest dreams at stake.
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Meet the Author:

Debut author Evie Dunmore wrote THE GENTLEMAN’S GAMBIT inspired by the magical scenery of Oxford and her passion for romance, women pioneers, and all things Victorian.

In her civilian life, she is a consultant with a M.Sc. in Diplomacy from Oxford. Evie lives in Europe and pours her fascination with 19th century Britain into her writing.She is a member of the British Romantic Novelists’ Association (RNA).
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