Sometimes characters don’t follow the author’s plans.
The romance between the Duke of Haynesdale and Esmeralda Ballantyne was planned to be a sub-plot that carried through the entire series of The Ladies’ Essential Guide to the Art of Seduction. By book four (The Hellion’s Heart) it’s become clear to me that these two need their own book and so they’ll get it.
Some of the scenes in their book will appear in earlier books in the series. They may be shorter or told from another point-of-view. This book will include more (new) scenes and more detail about these two. It will be published as book seven in the series so that there are no spoilers in the other books of the series—you’ll know they’re together by the end of book six, but The Duke’s Desire will fill in all the gaps.
Publication is planned for a year out because there will be two more books in the series first:
• The Hellion’s Heart will be published in July
• Book five will release in October 2024
• Book six will release in January 2025
• The Duke’s Desire, book seven, will be an April 2025 release.
• Book eight will be Sylvie’s story with publication planned for August 2025.
• The series will wrap up with a Christmas novella in November 2025.
The pre-order for each book will be created when the book itself is completed, so keep an eye out for those. I really like this plan. Once I get ahead of things a bit, I’ll see about sliding some other stories into my schedule, too.
I’ll show off some of the new covers in my next Knights & Rogues newsletter, including The Duke’s Desire. That goes out June 5 so there’s still time to sign up.
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