Lord of Darkness winner!

The winner of a signed copy of Lord of Darkness by Elizabeth Hoyt is:

 

Karen H in NC

 

Congratulations, Karen! Please send your full name and address to theromancedish (at) gmail (dot) com with "LOD Winner" as the subject and I'll get your book in the mail. Thanks to everyone who stopped by!

Today's Special -- Q&A with Elizabeth Hoyt

I am thrilled to welcome back New York Times and USA Today best selling historical romance author, Elizabeth Hoyt! Elizabeth is the author of the popular Maiden Lane series from Grand Central. If you haven't read her books, you should! You can check out my review of her latest NY Times best seller, Lord of Darkness, here. Also, did you know that Elizabeth has a BA in anthropology? Indeed, she does! You can find out more about her and her interesting life at www.elizabethhoyt.com. Elizabeth was kind enough to take the time to answer a few (or more) of my many questions! :)

Hello and welcome back to The Romance Dish, Elizabeth! We are thrilled to have you join us today.

 

Thank you for having me! ;-)

 

Congratulations on your newest release, Lord of Darkness! Can you please share a little bit about the book with our readers? 

Lord of Darkness is the fifth Maiden Lane book and features reader favorite, Lady Margaret Reading who in the last book found herself pregnant by her murdered lover. A marriage was hastily arranged for her with Godric St. John, a widower grieving the loss of his beloved wife. Fast forward two years. Lady Margaret lost the baby on her wedding day and has spent the years since recovering in the country. Now she’s come to London to seduce her husband and have a baby. But Godric is hiding a rather important secret… 

He is, indeed. Lord of Darkness is the fifth book in your popular Maiden Lane series, set in London during the 1730s. What drew you to that time period? 

It’s a very visceral, dynamic time period. London was the biggest city in Europe and it was growing exponentially. The aristocracy was living in gilded splendor while at the same time the very poor were literally starving on the streets. And then, to add fire to the mix, England discovered distilled alcohol in the form of gin, which was both readily available and cheap.  

And you are so brilliant at mixing the aristocracy and the poor!

 

**SPOILER ALERT!** If you’ve not read the Maiden Lane series, you may want to skip to the next question!** The infamous Ghost of St. Giles is a key character throughout this series. Did you know from the very beginning that there was going to be more than one Ghost?  

Yup. When I started thinking about a masked crusader, I thought of the vicar in Dr. Syn, Alias the Scarecrow (a Disney movie no one but me seems to have seen with a mild mannered minister by day who turns into an avenging masked scarecrow by night.) And then I thought about all the other tropes/themes I’d love to explore, and very soon thereafter I realized I had too many ideas for just one character. Thus was born three Ghosts of St. Giles. 

As you know, I love your books and especially this series. While each of your Maiden Lane books features an unforgettable hero and heroine, your secondary characters are hard to forget as well. Several of my previous favorite secondary characters have gotten—or will get—their own story (thank you!), so now I’m curious about a few more, such as: Lady Phoebe Batten…Adam Rutledge, Viscount d’Arque…Captain James Trevillion…and most recently, Sarah St. John. Will any (or all) of these characters get their own story someday?  

The brief answer is yes, I do plan something for each of these characters—whether or not I’ll get around to them is of course another matter. A lot is up in the air at the moment because I just finished out a contract. We’ll have to see what gets negotiated into my next contract. ;-) 

Oh, I pray you get to tell their stories! Okay, I know from your Faceboook posts that you own dogs and your books have dogs in them, too. Do your fictional dogs share any characteristics with your real life dogs? 

Well, my big dog, Darla—a lab-basset hound mix—is very silly and loves her tummy rubs, but she’s not nearly as scary looking as Jock from The Raven Prince or Lad from Scandalous Desires. Mouse from To Seduce a Sinner was modeled on our late rat terrier, Pickle, who loved beyond reason her family and was pretty snotty to anyone else. I think only a terrier lover would understand the attraction of a small, snarly dog. ;-) 

So funny. And speaking of funny, you have also written humorous contemporary romances under the pseudonym Julia Harper. I adored both Hot and For the Love of Pete. Do you have any plans to write more contemporaries in the future? 

Not at the moment, but I do have a book fully outlined—I’d love to write it someday! ;-) 

I really hope you get to. *g* Your characters and their storylines are so intriguing. Which comes first for you—the characters or the story? 

Oh, definitely the characters, though I usually have an idea of their situation or the thing that they’ll have to face, so that’s a nice start on the story. 

If your life was a romance novel, what would be the title? 

LOL! “Clueless Middle-Aged Woman Somehow Makes Good Writing Romance” 

Oh my goodness, that's awesome! So, what activities do you like to do in your spare time? 

I read, garden, and play with my dogs. 

Aww! Can you give us a hint about what is up next for you? 

Yup! Duke of Midnight is coming out in October this year (the release date got moved up a month) and will feature Maximus Batton, the Duke of Wakefield and Artemis Greaves.

 

I can't wait!!!!

 

 

Quick Six time! 

Alpha or Beta? Alpha  

Coffee or tea? Both! 

Early bird or night owl? Early bird

Mountains or beach? Mountain 

Diamonds or pearls? Pearls 

Chocolate or vanilla? Chocolate

 

Thank you so much for answering my questions, Elizabeth! Now it’s your turn—is there a question you would like to ask our readers? 

Thank you for having me on The Romance Dish! Readers can learn more about my Maiden Lane series and Lord of Darkness at my website: www.elizabethhoyt.com. You can also chat with me on Twitter (https://twitter.com/ElizabethHoyt), Facebook (http://www.facebook.com/ElizabethHoytBooks?ref=search&sid=1033016156.428653851), Goodreads (http://www.goodreads.com/author/show/16202.Elizabeth_Hoyt), and Pinterest (http://pinterest.com/elizabethhoyt/)

Now here’s my question for you: I’m leaving for Florida in two weeks for a writing retreat, but of course I’ll be bringing something to read. What have you read recently that you absolutely loved?

ONE lucky commenter (living within the United States, no PO Box, please) will win a complete set of the Maiden Lane books! That's all five books: Wicked Intentions, Notorious Pleasures, Scandalous Desires, Thief of Shadows, and Lord of Darkness!

Review -- Lord of Darkness

Lord of Darkness

Maiden Lane—Book 5

By Elizabeth Hoyt

Publisher: Grand Central

Release Date: February 26, 2013
 

Warning—this review contains spoilers for those who haven’t read the Maiden Lane series. 

Lord of Darkness begins two years after Thief of Shadows ends. Two years after Godric St. John was blackmailed into marrying Lady Margaret Reading.  In fact, the books starts off with Godric seeing Megs for the first time since they married...and she’s holding a gun to his head. Though, she has no idea she has her husband in her sights. Megs only sees the Ghost of St. Giles, whom she believes killed Roger, the only man she ever loved. 

Megs comes to London for one reason: to seduce her husband and conceive a child. She hasn’t seen Godric since their wedding day, but holds no ill will toward him because she knows he did her a great favor by marrying her. But now she desperately wants a baby. She doesn’t expect to see the Ghost so quickly upon her arrival, but decides it is the perfect time to exact her revenge. When the Ghost ends up saving her life, Megs begins to see him in a somewhat different light...which of course causes her to feel slightly uncomfortable and confused. 

Godric returns to Saint House just before his wife’s arrival. He doesn’t expect her to stay too long since his house is in no way fit for company. Because of his nighttime activities as the Ghost of St. Giles, protector of the weak, he prefers his privacy above all else. So imagine his shock when his wife tells him why she’s there! But Megs isn’t the only person who has felt loss. Godric lost the love of his life to a slow, debilitating disease only years before. At first he rejects Megs’s plea as he feels it would be a betrayal to his beloved Clara. Later, he tries to appease her in the hopes that she’ll leave, but by then he is already falling for her charms. When Megs discovers her husband’s secret, they make a pact to find out the truth behind Roger’s murder. But they must be careful as there are others who want the Ghost dead... 

What can I say about Elizabeth Hoyt’s books that I haven’t already said in my other reviews? With each new book she releases, she always delivers the goods. I don’t think she could write a bad book if she tried. Lord of Darkness features two previous secondary characters who are brought together by a marriage of convenience. But even then, they aren’t “together”. Megs enjoys her life at Laurelwood Manor but soon longs for a baby and decides to throw caution to the wind and seduce her husband. I love Megs’s reaction when she first encounters Godric sleeping in an old, ancient armchair wearing ragged slippers and half-moon spectacles, and she deems him to be just as ancient. Ha! Of course, he’s not that old—that’s just what he wants her to believe. That’s what he wants everyone to believe, that he’s boring and stodgy. When she finds out he’s the Ghost, she knows that she and everyone else had him pegged wrong.

 

She threw her head back, her dark eyes shining, her hair already beginning to struggle out of its confines as she started pacing in front of his fireplace. “Until yesterday evening I thought I knew you. I thought you were a staid, elderly scholar who lived by himself in a much too dusty mansion and once in a while for a bit of excitement went out to coffeehouses. And then”—she spun at the far end of the room, waving her hands as if battling birds attacking her head—“and then I find out that you’re a notorious madman who runs about in a ridiculous mask and gets into fights with footpads in St. Giles, and, Godric, I really, truly don’t think I know you at all now.” 

She stopped dead and glared at him, her breast heaving. Dear God, she was magnificent when she was in a rage. 

He cleared his throat. “Elderly?” 

“Elderly?” She mimicked him in a horribly high voice, which he privately thought was a bit unfair—he didn’t sound like that at all. “That’s all you can say?...”

 

Godric has been alone for so long that when Megs hugs him for the first time it is a shock to his body and mind. Both have felt the keen effects of losing someone they loved with all their hearts and certainly never expected to find that kind of love again. Their relationship slowly evolves from passing acquaintances to a deep understanding of one another and they sincerely appreciate what the other means to them.

 

“He may help people in St. Giles, but I think he does it at the expense of himself.”... “It can’t be good for a man such as Godric—a sensitive, moral man—to deal with violence so often. It’s as if he’s chipping away at his own soul.”

  

****

 

He could spend hours thus, simply watching the constant flicker of changing emotions across her face. She was so vibrant, his Megs, so alive with hope and love and happiness. If she left him—when she left him—he didn’t know how he would return to his old life. 

It would be like living without sunlight.

 

Lord of Darkness is another outstanding, emotionally-charged historical romance from Hoyt. It is the fifth in her popular Maiden Lane series, and while you certainly don’t need to have read the other books in the series to enjoy this one, I would recommend that you do in order to gain a greater understanding of the characters and their actions. Plus, they’re all terrific books! Those of you who have read the series will relish seeing some familiar faces and getting updates on previous couples. Once again, Hoyt has produced another gem for my keeper shelves and, once again, she has penned another book that I highly recommend. She continues to keep me enthralled with the folks of Maiden Lane and if the snippet from her next one is any indication, I will be enthralled again come November.  

 

~Andrea