Monday, February 13, 2017

Maybe Tomorrow

This month marks the release of my first timeslip novel. If I’d known they were such fun to write, I’d have written one a long time ago!
I was asked to write the story as part of the Enchanted Keepsake collection. There are some fabulous books here, and they all have the same theme. That a woman is condemned to travel through time, bringing happiness to others but never finding it herself.
In my contribution an American visitor to London finds a miniature portrait in a junk shop, and is rocketed back in time to the Regency. She meets Avery, Lord Northcote, the man in the picture. The person who sold her the miniature told her she had a return ticket. Once was all she had.But when disaster strikes she has a terrible decision to make.A few years ago I took a trip down the Thames to Hampton Court. I had a lovely day and enjoyed it very much. I never realized I’d be writing about it! And that is why I keep a diary. I dug up my account of the trip and recreated it for Tabby, and then, later in the story I show how the scenery has changed in two hundred years. It was an absolute treat to write and a great challenge.During the trip I saw a house I thought was absolutely lovely. It’s one of those Thames-side villas that
the fashionable of the Regency had built for weekend getaways (although they didn’t call it the weekend then!) and naughtier pleasures. During my research I found the perfect house, Marble Hill House, the residence of George II’s mistress, Henrietta Howard. It’s a gem of a house and although built a couple of generations before the Regency, I chose it because it’s lovely. It has a slightly racy history, but Henrietta held parties and received some of the most important people of the age. Ladies of society, of course, wouldn’t go there, but Henrietta was a woman of taste and refinement, encouraging poets, artists and other literary figures.
Describing houses then and now was a challenge and huge fun. I wanted to bring the London of yesteryear and today to life, to try to show how it might have changed—and how it stayed the same.Maybe I’ll write more timeslips!

Maybe Tomorrow

Two hearts beat as one - two hundred years apart!

Tabitha Simpson is on her honeymoon alone, after her fiancé cheated on her. In London she finds a tiny shop, where she buys a miniature portrait. The man in the picture calls to her, as if she already knows him. When she finds the full-size painting, magic happens, and she is transported back in time to 1816.

Avery is the Earl of Northcote, expected to marry and provide an heir. But when he finds Tabby on the sofa of his Thames villa, he is smitten. He doesn’t want anybody else. He will defy everybody and everything to have her.
But some things can’t be defied.

Tabby and Avery are madly in love, but they can’t stay together. Their lives are two hundred years apart.
When Tabby goes home, she knows she can’t return. Avery must spend the rest of his life without her, or find a way to join the woman he loves.

Buy the book here:
Amazon US Amazon UK Apple iTunes | Kobo | Barnes and Noble
Available in ebook or paperback.

Read the first chapter here




1 comment:

Elizaqbeth Hawksley said...

I love the photo of Marble Hill House, a place UI visited last year but, alas, we could only admire the outside. The inside wasn't open.

I can quite see that it is a wonderful setting for your exciting timeslip novel. Good luck with it.