I’m happy to say that I’m on time for getting this newsletter out. 😀 I wanted to wait until Secret Admirer was available before posting it so that the links are live and ready to go.
Here is the official description:
Lady Rachel, the sister of the very wealthy and highly esteemed Duke of Creighton, has entered her first Season with great anticipation. She loves wearing beautiful gowns. She loves talking to her friends. She loves going to balls and meeting gentlemen. This is going to be the most wonderful time of her life. When she starts receiving missives from a secret admirer, it turns out the Season is even better than she imagined. What lady, after all, can resist the appeal of a mysterious stranger expressing his deep and abiding love in her?
She sets out to enlist the help of an unlikely ally to find out who her secret admirer is. She knows it’s not appropriate to be discussing such personal information with the butler, but he is the only one she trusts to not tell anyone. Little does she realize the very one she’s confiding in is the very one she’s looking for. And there’s no way he’s telling her the truth since her brother, and the rest of London, would never approve the match.
If interested, here is where you can find it:
Google Play (ebook)
Google Play (AI narrated audiobook)
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Secret Admirer sets up the other books that will appear in the Marriage by Obligation Series. So the main characters that show up in Midnight Wedding (Book 2), The Earl’s Jilted Bride (Book 3), and Worth the Risk (Book 4) will show up in Secret Admirer.
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Midnight Wedding is (finally) almost done!
I enjoy every book I write, but this is one I have had a lot of fun with. There is some serious subject matter in it. It has its dark, gothic moments. But it also has some humor, and it’s the humor that helps to balance out the darker tones so it doesn’t get too heavy.
What makes a book enjoyable to me are the characters’ personalities and how those personalities work together. This one has a wonderful character dynamic. You have your superstitious hero and a heroine’s brother who doesn’t give into superstitions and argues with the hero a lot. The heroine has a second brother, but he doesn’t argue with the hero like the other brother does. He does, however, keep after the hero to help fix things around the estate. The heroine is stuck in the middle of all of this. I’d say she’s the peacekeeper of the group. It’s the group dynamic that makes this one of my favorites. Ethan (Lord Edon) and Christopher (Mr. Robinson) are two of my favorite Regency characters because of their personalities, and I love it whenever they conflict with Lord Steinbeck or Lord Roderick. There’s something about bickering characters that make me chuckle. 😀
Anyway, I am at the point in Midnight Wedding where I’m coming up to the climax. I am not exactly sure how many chapters I have left. I already know what will happen and how things will be resolved. It’s just a matter of writing it down. My goal is to have the first draft done by the end of this month. I am hoping I can make it. I’d love to get this book out in July, but it might be August. It all depends on my real life schedule and when my editor can get the edits done.
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I am over halfway done with The Earl’s Jilted Bride
But I am not sure how much I have left.
Something crucial needs to happen in this book. I don’t want to spoil it by saying what, but before I can get there, I need the hero to wonder if the heroine is having an affair. You see, the hero’s first wife had an affair, so the child she had wasn’t his. I decided to make this child a girl. I would rather have his heir be his real child. His first wife died, and he is raising this girl as his own. He has hidden this scandal from society so no one knows the truth. But he is mindful of the transgression, and he is worried that the heroine will have an affair, too. The heroine won’t, of course, but I have had to set it up so that he worries about it. The heroine is deeply in love with the hero. At the moment, I am writing through that part of the story because it establishes the foundation for their relationship, and you need that foundation for the second part of the story to matter. If I had to guess, I’d say that by the end of the May, I should be ready to move to the second part.
I am in the last 1/4 of Worth the Risk
Worth the Risk is shorter than Midnight Wedding and The Earl’s Jilted Bride, so I’m closer to the end of this story than I am in The Earl’s Jilted Bride. The hiccup is that this is Book 4, and when I write, I write Book 2 first, Book 3 second, and Book 4 third. Depending on how much writing time I have, I don’t always get to this book. But that’s okay because it’s Book 4. I have more time to work on it.
The hero of this story is sickly. He isn’t “deathly” sick, but his immune system is weaker than other people’s, so he’s had to pretty much live in a world of isolation his entire life. His older brother worries about him and has insisted he leave London to stay at the country estate. That way, his brother will know he’s safe. Well, while in London (during The Earl’s Jilted Bride), the hero and heroine fall in love. The heroine follows him out to the estate, and they marry. This is causing the hero’s brother to fear for the hero’s life. I won’t say more than that, but I’m at the point where the brother is at the estate, and he’s not happy. To be fair to the brother, he is sincerely worried about the hero. His motives are not to hurt the hero. He believes he is going to help him. I’m not exactly sure how things will be resolved yet. I’ll have to write my way through it.
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A look into the future.
At the moment, I don’t have an idea for a historical western romance. I have inklings, but there’s nothing that excites me enough to write it. Maybe something will pop up between now and when I finish Midnight Wedding. I like to work on three books at a time. If I don’t have a historical western romance in mind by then, I will start on a new Regency series. I already have a plot for it and the characters I’ll put in place. The heroine in Midnight Wedding has two brothers. I have the plot ready for the oldest brother. He is the one who argues with the hero a lot. He’s more of a quirky character. For example, he’s very particular about his books and can remember the exact order he puts them in. Anyway, he ruined a lady’s reputation by gossiping about her, and to make things right, he’ll marry her. The lady won’t be thrilled with him, so that will make this a fun book to write. I don’t have a title for this one yet, and I don’t have a series title yet. If I can’t come up with a historical western romance idea, I’ll go with this one when I am done with Midnight Wedding.
I am not sure when The Earl’s Jilted Bride and Worth the Risk will be out, but my goal is to have them out this year.
Ruth Ann Nordin's Monthly Newsletter 
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