As a quick reminder, here are the books in the Marriage by Obligation Series:

I am not sure if this will complete the series or if I’ll add more books. Just this past month, I added Anyone But You to the series because a character in Midnight Wedding piqued my interest.

I don’t have a release date yet for Midnight Wedding

I want to wait until I get this finalized before I put it up on pre-order. It’s still in edits. I expect to have this out at the end of the month, but I can’t really say exactly when. I’ll probably just announce it on this blog for my August newsletter.

I’m getting close to 50,000 words in The Earl’s Jilted Bride

This book went in a tangent I didn’t expect when I started it, but in a good way. Essentially, this is the hero’s second marriage. His first wife had an affair with a servant and got pregnant. He managed to hide her infidelity to avoid scandal. She’s now dead, but he is raising the child as his own. He marries the heroine, thinking that his past won’t factor into the relationship between them, but he does struggle with whether or not he can trust her to be faithful. The fact that he isn’t the most exciting gentleman around adds to his insecurities. So that angle has been a lot of fun to work with.

I’m getting close to 40,000 words in Worth the Risk

This book also went in a tangent I didn’t see coming. It’s also turning out to be 20,000 more words than I thought it’d be. The basic premise of this story is simple. The hero gets sick easily because he has a weak immune system. Even though the hero is in love with the heroine, his older brother convinces him to leave London to live at the country estate because it’d be selfish to ask her to give up everything to spend a lifetime with him. This is a romance so, of course, she runs out to the country to marry him. But the way I thought things were going to happen when his brother finds out ended up being a lot different than I planned. I’m writing in the dark at the moment. I’m not sure exactly how things will get resolved. I just need to keep writing to find out. 😀

Anyone But You has been added to the Marriage by Obligation Series

I now have a title and a cover for Book 5 of this series. I did start this, but I got an idea for a historical western romance, and since I haven’t done any historical westerns in a long time, I figured I’d work on that. (I work on three books at a time.) I’ll get back to this when I wrap up The Earl’s Jilted Bride.

I just finished Chapter 1 of a historical western!

Would you believe it’s been a year since I tackled a historical western?

I am so excited about this one. The hero marries the heroine for money. She doesn’t know it. She believes he’s in love with her. He has every intention of keeping up the pretense of being in love with her, but he is struggling with being attracted to her because she’s not as pretty as most ladies. The story starts with his wedding day. Shortly after the ceremony, he gets word that his sister disappeared somewhere in Arizona. He decides to head out at once to find her, because he is worried about his sister, but his new bride offers to come along with him. He can’t figure out a way to say no, so she tags along with him.

These two characters spent their entire lives in Pennsylvania. It’ll be fun placing them out in Arizona where they will be out of their element. I believe that this will force the hero to look at the heroine in a different light. I’m going to put them in some dangerous situations, and he’ll be forced to depend on her in ways he never could in Pennsylvania where they had everything so easy.

Back to Regencies really fast, I do have plans to write a book for Horatio.

Horatio was the heroine’s brother in Secret Admirer. I posted the cover above because it always helps to jog my memory of who a character is if I can see the cover of a book. I’m thinking his book will start a new series, but we’ll see how things play out.

I’ll see you in August! Have a great July. 😀