Hello, all, Stephanie Marie Thornton here! My latest historical novel, AMERICAN PRINCESS, reimagines the 96-year life of Alice Roosevelt, eldest daughter of U.S. president Theodore Roosevelt and owner of the famous needlepoint pillow that proclaimed, “If you can’t say something good about someone, sit right here by me.” Obviously, Alice Roosevelt didn’t mind breaking a rule or two. In fact, she rather reveled in shattering every rule she ever encountered! Here’s a list of the Top 10 Rules Alice Roosevelt Broke with Gusto… Rather than calling cards or lace fans, Alice was renowned for carrying in her silk purse a little garter snake named Emily Spinach. (She named her pet Emily for an aunt, Spinach for the snake’s green color.) Sometimes Alice let the snake slither free during state dinners at the White House, which certainly caused a ruckus! Alice sometimes received a dressing down from her parents for her lack of manners and decorum, including when she refused to remove her gloves to eat asparagus at dinner parties and also after she hunted down serving trays to help her younger siblings slide down the stairs of the White House. In a time when Edwardian young ladies were expected to…

Fake marriages are so fun to read (and write!). I love it when characters are caught off guard, and when they are forced to be in each other’s company on a continual basis, lots of unexpected things happen. Especially when they’re going places and doing things where they’re supposed to act like a couple. It’s easy for the lines to blur at that point. My characters always have huge barriers in place to ward off the opposite gender, but when it’s all fake, they can pretend without violating their own personal no-dating rules. Cue the fireworks. It’s even better when one of the characters has a secret crush on the other. So then they’re doubly pretending, desperately hoping the other doesn’t figure out that they’re not really faking it… Another aspect I love about fake marriages is the implied intimacy that goes along with being a permanent couple—and I don’t mean what happens in the bedroom! I’m talking about the real magic of being a couple. Sharing a sink while brushing your teeth. Making your spouse a cup of coffee in the morning. Wearing a ring that declares you married. All of these things having this underlying romance that can’t…