This is a very special story because it’s a collaboration between one of my best friends and me. We both love the Regency period of England, particularly because of Jane Austen, and after spending so much time discussing writing and things Austen and Regency, we hit upon the idea that we should write a Regency novel together. We don’t live in the same state, so our collaboration takes place over the phone and over the internet. Our writing styles are very similar and we are enthusiastic about each other’s ideas, so it works beautifully. I’ve never had this much fun writing - we’re living this story together! We discuss plans, share research tidbits, and take turns writing sections. It’s an energizing way to write because we write furiously, take a break, and all the while keep each other motivated.
There are two heroines - Lucia Beacham (my friend’s character) and Sophia Edwards (my character), best friends who live in Hampshire, a southern county of England. (It’s also Jane Austen’s home county.) Throughout their very opposite-running love stories and other complicated affairs, they are there for one another. Always. Sophia feels plagued by her brother-in-law’s visiting friend Stephen Brown, who’s the opposite of what she’d hoped for in a husband, while Lucy becomes dear friends with Sophia’s cousin Joseph Chapman but falls in love with a mysterious suitor named Richard Adams. Will either young woman make the right choice for herself?
Although the above painting is gorgeous, our heroines look nothing like them - Sophia has red hair and Lucia has strawberry-blonde!
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