will couldn't think of an appropriate response, so he tapped the pile of manuscript pages that lay before him. "i suggest that before we look closely at any given scene, we discuss the fact that your hero, lord xavier hawtrey, loses his memory after being thrown from a horse and no longer remembers his own wife."

"my readers will love it," the duchess said instantly. and defensively.

"i have no doubt of it," will said, pitching his voice to a soothing tone. "but will they accept the fact that lord xavier miraculously remembers his wife's face only once he believes his evil second cousin has murdered her? i think your readers would prefer that he at least attempt to save her life. from good will, if not because of the family connection."

her grace sighed, and pulled the manuscript pages toward her. "i suppose you have a point. but we'll have to figure out how to keep the scene in which he throws himself off the cliff in the throes of guilt. chuffy adores that plunge, and you know that chuffy is my best critic."

will chose his words carefully. "i am somewhat concerned that lord xavier would be dead before he could . . ."

and so it went.

if truth be told, the annual month during which will bucknell joined their family, editing her latest manuscript and arguing with chuffy, was one of her grace's favorites in the year as well.

though a woman who loves so dearly, and is so dearly loved in return, can find joy in almost every moment. certainly in every month.

and definitely during every consultation with her husband.

romancing a career, in 1800 and thereafter

this novel owes a great deal to its sources, but even more to the readers who have celebrated my work, encouraging me to write an (astonishing to me) twenty-four novels to date. in creating a female author of romance novels around the turn of the nineteenth century, i wanted not only to depict how much fun it can be to plot and write romance, but also to honor the authors of the time. for the most part, the authors' work is no longer in print, though their novels were enormously popular at the time. authors like sarah scudgell wilkinson supported themselves writing adventuresome fiction such as the fugitive countess (1807). anna maria bennett began her long bestselling career with anna (1785), whose first printing sold out in one day. the novels could be extremely lucrative: in 1796, fanny burney was paid 2,000 pounds for her novel camilla, including its copyright, which would be over 100,000 in today's pounds. that doesn't mean their work was universally celebrated, of course. the review that plagued mia so much that she can recite it from memory was real; it was published in graham's lady's magazine in 1848, and the novel exhibiting "vulgar depravity and unnatural horrors" was emily bront