There is nothing like the writing life. Since retiring from my part-time job I have been able to write on most days. I say most because I’m being truthful here. Some days I just don’t want to write and some days I procrastinate. No thanks here to my fellow author who introduced me to www.thejigsawpuzzles.com. I don’t need to find things to procrastinate over!
But the reason I am excited is that June will see the publication by Books We Love of my second book, Cold Gold. This is a revision of my self-published book, Always A Lady in the Bandit Creek Books series. I liked my characters, Lord Randolph Buxton and his wife Lady Serena. They are something like an Edwardian Nick and Nora Charles. For those of you not familiar with Nick and Nora, they were characters created by Dashiell Hammett, maybe better known for penning The Maltese Falcon. They, and their fox terrier Asta, appeared in the 1934 novel, The Thin Man. Many people thought Nick was The Thin Man but no, The Thin Man was the character Nick was tracking. Nick was a crusty cop and Nora an heiress. Later, in the early 80s, there was the television series Hart to Hart, starring Robert Wagner as Jonathan Hart and Stefanie Powers as his wife Jennifer.
I liked the idea of a husband and wife team. I liked the idea of portraying a loving couple working together. A reviewer of Always A Lady wrote they felt that the story was unfinished, and when I went back and looked at it I thought, you’re right. I didn’t want to pick up where I left off, so rather than carry on I revised it and it will be published by Books We Love in June as Book #1 in The Buxton Chronicles as Cold Gold. Book #2 will be titled On Borrowed Time, and is planned for early 2014, and Book #3, Shell Shocked, is planned for July 2014.
This playing with my characters will be repeated with my Regency characters. Lucius, Earl of Avondale in my first Regency title, His Dark Enchantress, has a sister Juliana. Her story will be told in His Ocean Vixen. Two more characters from His Dark Enchantress, Lord Skeffington and Lady Olivia Darnley, will appear in my third Regency, His Unexpected Muse (working title).
So now I’ve shared with you why I am excited, I now have to get back to that most mundane of jobs – laundry. No, this is not procrastination, it is necessity!
The Whys and the Wherefores of Life, by Victoria Chatham 