Susanna Fraser
wrote her first novel in fourth grade. It starred a family of talking horses
who ruled a magical land. In high school she started, but never finished, a
succession of tales of girls who were just like her, only with long, naturally
curly and often unusually colored hair, who, perhaps because of the hair, had
much greater success with boys than she ever did.
Along the way
she read her hometown library’s entire collection of Regency romance, fell in
love with the works of Jane Austen, and discovered in Patrick O’Brian’s and
Bernard Cornwell’s novels another side of the opening decades of the 19th
century. When she started to write again as an adult, she knew exactly where
she wanted to set her books. Her writing has come a long way from her youthful
efforts, but she still tends to give
her heroines great hair.
Susanna lives in
the Pacific Northwest with her husband and daughter. When not writing or
reading, she goes to baseball games, watches Chopped, Castle, and The Legend of
Korra, and cooks her way through an ever-growing cookbook collection. Find Susanna online at her
website, on
Twitter and
Facebook.
Please welcome Susanna to The Romance Dish!
Marriages of Convenience
My new historical
romance, An
Infamous Marriage, is a marriage of convenience story. The hero, Jack Armstrong,
meets the heroine, Elizabeth Hamilton, as her first husband, who happens to be
Jack’s childhood best friend, lies dying. They marry because in her newly
widowed state she is homeless and penniless, because he needs a caretaker for
his ailing mother while he serves in the Army, and above all because it was her
first husband’s dying wish.
I love a marriage of
convenience setup in a historical because of the constraints and challenges it
sets for the hero and heroine. They may hardly know each other, but they’re
stuck together for life, since divorce is all but impossible to obtain. Jack
and Elizabeth begin their marriage with no expectations of happiness
whatsoever--only a determination to do their duty. They have a long journey
ahead of them to find love together, but during their first dinner together as
husband and wife, they discover themselves capable of sharing laughter:
“Was there someone
else?” she asked. “Someone you wanted to carry to Scotland?”
“What would be the point
of telling you if there was?” he snapped. “It can’t be, now.”
She sighed. None of this
was his fault, but she couldn’t help envisioning some perfect, golden-haired
young beauty, perhaps a general’s daughter, who had danced with Colonel
Armstrong and dreamed of becoming his bride. “No. But if somewhere there is a
lady who sees me as an enemy for ruining her hopes, I should like to be
forewarned.”
“Fair enough.” He nodded
curtly. “There was no one. No one I could marry, at least.”
Elizabeth chose not to
press for more details on just what sort of women he couldn’t marry. No one
expected men to be chaste before marriage. Even gentle, devout Giles hadn’t
quite been a virgin.
But Jack seemed to
misinterpret her silence, for he shook his head and blew out a frustrated
breath. “Elizabeth,” he said gruffly, “we’ll make do. There have been
worse-suited couples.”
“I hope so.” From their
time together so far, she doubted it.
“Of course there have,”
he said bracingly. “Why, look at the Prince of Wales.”
She smiled. The
expression felt rusty from disuse. “Touché.”
“Or Henry VIII.”
Now Elizabeth couldn’t
hold back a giggle. “And which wife?”
“All of them, I think.
For a man who married six times, he didn’t have much of a knack for the state,
did he? Though Anne Boleyn and Catherine Howard had the worst of it.”
She took a sip of her wine,
eying him over the glass’s brim. “I do hope you prove a better husband than
Henry,” she said. “I should hate to lose my head.”
He laughed, and she with
him. When their merriment had passed, he watched her with greater warmth than
she had yet seen from him. Elizabeth felt a stirring of something—not desire,
it was too soon for desire—but of affection, of liking. She could see now why
Giles had been his friend.
What about you, dear
readers? Do you enjoy marriage of convenience stories? Which one is your
favorite?
I’ll be giving one copy
of An Infamous Marriage to a commenter on this post in your choice of
e-book format, and at the end of the tour I'll be giving away a grand prize of
a $50 gift certificate to their choice of Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or Powell's
Books to one commenter on the tour as a whole. You get one entry per blog tour
stop you comment upon, so check out my blog for the whole schedule! If you wish to be entered in the drawing,
include your email address formatted as yourname AT yourhost DOT com.
I look forward to
reading and responding to your comments, but since I live on the West Coast and
have an 8-5 day job, I won’t be able to check in till my evening.
Northumberland, 1815
At long last, Britain is at peace, and
General Jack Armstrong is coming home to the wife he barely knows. Wed for
mutual convenience, their union unconsummated, the couple has exchanged only
cold, dutiful letters. With no more wars to fight, Jack is ready to attempt a
peace treaty of his own.
Elizabeth Armstrong is on the warpath.
She never expected fidelity from the husband she knew for only a week, but his
scandalous exploits have made her the object of pity for years. Now that he's
back, she has no intention of sharing her bed with him—or providing him with an
heir—unless he can earn her forgiveness. No matter what feelings he ignites
within her…
Jack is not expecting a spirited,
confident woman in place of the meek girl he left behind. As his desire
intensifies, he wants much more than a marriage in name only. But winning his
wife's love may be the greatest battle he's faced yet.
