The Reluctant Bride is so much more than a Regency romance; it's romance woven through a plot full of spies, traitors and adventure. Add one of the most swoon-worthy heroes – who's not even titled gentry! – and you get a truly fantastic historical. It was a joy to work with Beverley Eikli on this book and I'm happy that her long-awaited publication day has arrived. Beverley's here today with some interesting insight about her approach to editing and the many changes this book has been through.

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Beverley: Hi Rachel, Thanks so much for having me here.

Rachel: Thank you for stopping by! I remember during our first set of exchanged emails when we were introducing ourselves you told me up front that you quite enjoy the editing process and looked forward to it. Music to an editor's ears! Since a lot of authors fear edits, what's your secret? 

Liz Harris is not a cookie-cutter romance author; her unusual locales and atypical relationship dynamics bring something fresh to the genre, and her detailed descriptions of those locales truly whisk the reader away to another time and place, taking on as much importance as the characters themselves. Her latest novel, A Bargain Struck, is a romance in reverse: a marriage on page two that leads to love by the final page. The Daily Mail calls it a "sure hit", and I quite agree! Today Liz is here to share with us how she goes about plotting and revising her early drafts of a book.

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Many thanks for inviting me to join you today, Rachel.

I was handed the idea for my first published novel, The Road Back, on a plate – or, rather, in an album: the novel was inspired by the album compiled by my uncle after he’d visited Ladakh, north of the Himalayas, in the 1940s.

My inspiration for A Bargain Struck came from a very different source – it came from the radio. While driving along one day, thinking about what to write that would fall into the same genre as The Road Back, I heard someone talking about mail-order brides from Russia. I sat up. The concept of mail-order brides was a really romantic concept, I thought. But not in Russia. Before I’d reached my destination, I’d relocated my developing storyline to the wide open plains of Wyoming, where mail-order brides were a common occurrence, and set the story in 1887, a very interesting year in the history of Wyoming.

Blurb: How much must she pay for the chance to call her life her own?

When Bet­sey Dob­son dis­em­barks from the Lon­don train in the sea­side resort of Idensea, all she owns is a small valise and a canary in a cage. After an attempt to forge a let­ter of ref­er­ence she knew would be denied her, Bet­sey has been fired from the typ­ing pool of her pre­vi­ous employer. Her vig­or­ous protest left one man wounded, another jilted, and her char­ac­ter per­ma­nently besmirched. Now, with­out money or a ref­er­ence for a new job, the future looks even bleaker than the deba­cle she left behind her.

But her life is about to change … because a young Welsh­man on the rail­road quay, wait­ing for another woman, is the one finally will­ing to believe in her.

Mr. Jones is inept in mat­ters of love, but a genius at things mechan­i­cal. In Idensea, he has con­structed a glit­ter­ing pier that astounds the wealthy tourists. And in Bet­sey, he rec­og­nizes the ideal tour man­ager for the Idensea Pier & Plea­sure Build­ing Company.

After a life­time of guard­ing her secrets and break­ing the rules, Bet­sey becomes a force to be reck­oned with. Together, she and Mr. Jones must find a way for her to suc­ceed in a soci­ety that would reject her, and fig­ure the price of sur­ren­der­ing to the tides of love …

Why I read this book: While at the 2013 RT Convention I passed an author’s gorgeous display in Author Alley, by far the best there. The display made me stop and look, and the book’s cover made me want to read it. I also admired the creative marketing tools like magnets advertising the fictitious vacation resort where the book is set. The following day the author had set-up station at the Giant Book Fair and was standing in front of her stall, telling passers-by that they could have a play on her vintage typewriter. The author’s engaging attitude got me to stop and have a quick chat, and I couldn’t resist buying the book – the only book I bought from an unknown-to-me author at the Giant Book Fair, out of hundreds of authors (and I only bought two other books, from my fav authors). My point with all this? Creative marketing really does pay off. In fact, I was so intrigued by The Typewriter Girl that it was the first book I chose to read out of the 30+ books (mostly free) that I left the convention with.

Blurb:
Those who prosper by thievery, thuggery, or by ruining another, have chosen to live on the devil’s dime.

She is a beautiful, talented violinist. He is a crusader against crime, using his newspaper column to expose injustice and bring down those who lived on the take -- on the devil’s dime.

​When investigative reporter Jess Pepper’s column re-opens a twenty-year-old case, he has no idea it will put a target on the back of his sweetheart’s father. And get her abducted. Now he has forced an innocent Samaritan into the public eye, and set a corrupt precinct chief on a course for revenge. Jess must discover not only who wants this good man dead, but how to save the woman who has turned his world upside down and captured his heart.

Why I read this book: I bought this title for my Kindle in December 2011 for $2.99, and have no memory of where I heard of it and what led me to buy it. I randomly chose the title from my Kindle list last month when scrolling for something to read, probably because the author’s surname starts with B, so it was near the top. (Did you think it was a scientific or fair process? Psh)

Blurb: Sometimes survival isn't just about staying alive ...

Widowed and alone on the frontier, Elspeth Stewart will do whatever it takes to protect herself and her unborn child from the dangers of the wilderness and of men. Though her youthful beauty doesn't show it, she is broken and scarred from the way men have treated her. So when a stranger wanders onto Bethie's land, wounded and needing her aid, she takes no risks, tying him to the bed and hiding his weapons before ministering to his injuries. 

But Bethie's defenses cannot keep Nicholas Kenleigh from breaking down her emotional walls. The scars on his body speak of a violent past, but his gentleness, warmth, and piercing eyes arouse longings in her that she never imagined she had. As Nicholas and Bethie get caught-up in the French & Indian war, they reveal to each other both their hidden desires and their tortured secrets, and discover that riding the flames of their passion might be the key to burning away the nightmare of their pasts.

Why I read this book: I'm a long-time fan of Clare's and bought the e-book the week it was published.