Dear Reader;

Unicorn Bride is a book close to my heart and I’m very excited to make it available to readers again—especially with Dar Albert’s beautiful cover! Alienor and Dagobert’s story was one I wrote before I had learned any “rules” of writing historical romance, and a love story I wrote exactly the way I wanted it to be told. To me, it has some of the flavor of historical fantasy, a genre which I love to read. Unicorn Bride was the second book I sold to a publisher, but was published third. It was part of Harlequin Historicals’ launch of bigger books, and had a beautiful cover painted by Judy York in its original edition. That was June 1994.

I was a little bit concerned when I began to edit the book file. It had been more than twenty-five years since I’d last read the book—I don’t re-read my books after they’re published—and while I remembered how much I loved the book, I feared it might not stand the test of time very well. To my relief, I still loved the story. If I wrote this story now, I might tell it in a different way, but I liked the way it unfolded in this version. There are some changes in this edition, but not many. I used an inverted sentence structure to give a medieval flavor to my early books, and I’ve taken that out in this edition, as it seemed cumbersome to me now. Phrases like “fearless he was” have become “he was fearless.” Some adverbs have been deleted—oh, I used to love them!—and some long sentences have been broken into smaller ones. While this made for a fairly intense edit at my end, I doubt that this edition will read very differently from your memory of its earlier version, if you read it before.

There is a Pinterest page for Unicorn Bride, where you can see some of my inspiration.

I always considered Unicorn Bride to be book one of my Unicorn Trilogy and you will find it labeled as such on many reader review sites—even though that designation was never on the cover or in the metadata. Book two in this trilogy is Pearl Beyond Price, the story of Alienor and Dagobert’s son, Thierry. It is currently unavailable in e-book, although you may find an old mass market edition available online. My plan is for it to be the next backlist medieval romance that I republish, so please watch my website for updates on that.

I hope you enjoy Unicorn Bride.

All my best—
Claire

For generations, legend had stalked the battlements of the fortress Montsalvat. And now Alienor de Perpignan found herself promised in marriage to the man at the heart of the oft-whispered tales: Dagobert, Count de Pereille. A near-mythic being rumored to be a beast by day – and more than a man by night.

That Alienor was his true-destined bride, Dagobert de Pereille had no doubt. Indeed, with her exotic beauty and blade-bright spirit, she could be none other. But could he who bore the mark – and the curse – of ancient kings ever trust her enough to open his heart?

“Another delicious Delacroix delight!”—Affaire de Coeur

Finalist
Best Foreign Historical Romance
Affaire de Coeur

New edition coming August 20, 2019!

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