Instead of trying to find your perfect match in a dating app, we bring you the “Author-Reader Match” where we introduce you to authors you may fall in love with. It’s our great pleasure to present Jane Ashford!   Writes: Jane Ashford writes historical romances set in the Regency period. She would love to make readers laugh out loud. She likes to delve into the foundations of relationships and how true love is rooted in the depths of personality, along with wild physical attraction, of course. Her couples challenge each other and reveal their real selves through action before they find their happy endings.   About: Born in Ohio, I’ve lived in New York, Boston, LA, and London. Reading has been my favorite thing ever since I could. I read more mysteries and science fiction than romance because I love them and I don’t want to risk lifting ideas. I’m particularly fond of exploring new worlds or alternate versions of ordinary reality such as those in Charles de Lint’s Newford books, the Fallow Sisters trilogy, and Elizabeth Moon’s Remnant Population.   My ideal reader Loves language and interesting expressions Is looking for a vacation from current events and some laughs Appreciates kindness and characters…

Instead of trying to find your perfect match in a dating app, we bring you the “Author-Reader Match” where we introduce you to authors you may fall in love with. It’s our great pleasure to present Jane Ashford! Writes: Jane Ashford writes sparkling historical romances set in the Regency period. Her dream is to make readers laugh out loud. She prefers heroes who achieve their HEAs by showing kindness, and particularly by recognizing a heroine’s needs and fulfilling them. She also sees true love as a process. Wild physical attraction is obligatory, of course, but desire alone doesn’t make a lasting match. Her couples challenge each other and reveal their true selves through action before they find their happy endings. She creates believable, humane characters while stirring up a bit of fun. About: Born in Ohio, I’ve lived in New York, Boston, LA, and London. Reading has been my favorite thing ever since I could. I read more mysteries and science fiction than romance because I love them, and I don’t want to risk lifting ideas. I’m particularly fond of in-charge characters – Sherlock Holmes, Vanessa Michael Munroe, Jack Reacher, Murderbot. On the other hand, I always cry at some point during Call the…

1–What is the title of your latest release? The Duke Who Loved Me 2–What is it about? Circumstances showing a pair who have known each other for years that they belong together, despite obstacles. Particularly the duke, in this case. 3–What do you love about the setting of your book?  It includes the house of an aristocratic hoarder. The deceased previous duke was eccentric, to say the least. 4–How did your heroine surprise you?  She was tempted by the idea of becoming a princess. 5–Why will readers love your hero?  Besides being a drop-dead gorgeous duke, he learns a great deal about himself, the heroine, and the inequities of society and appreciates the chance to do so. 6–What was one of your biggest challenges while writing this book (spoiler-free, of course!)?  Showing how two people who have known each other for a long time can realize they are in love. 7–Do you look forward to or do you dread the revision process?  I like it. I often learn interesting things about the characters and story in that stage. 8–What’s your favorite snack to have on hand while writing?  Tea and cookies! 9–Where would you go for an ideal writer’s retreat? …

Strange Holidays This is an unprecedented year, isn’t it? Here in London, we are in a newly declared complete shutdown. The streets have gone silent under the strings of Christmas lights.  We had tickets for a Pantomime performance, which is a big English thing that I do not understand and so thought we would explore. But, cancelled. We were going to take a drive in the country around Christmas and enjoy the traditional landscape. But we’re not supposed to leave the area. No farflung trips either, obviously. So it’s really home for the holidays this year! Our neighborhood is fairly empty and feels safe. Also we have food and warmth and lots of stuff to watch on various streaming platforms. Thank you, Roku! I’ve had Zoom visits with friends. Ebooks are a blessing. A few keystrokes, and there’s a new story ready to carry me away. What would we do without those? (I really don’t know!) We feel healthy and are grateful. Still, it seems like time to consider all the ways to be cozy and festive while staying in. The Spanish heroine of my new book EARL’S WELL THAT ENDS WELL is comforted and reminded of her lost homeland by familiar…

Welcome back to Fresh Fiction, Jane! Please tell us a little about yourself and the fourth book in The Way to the Lord’s Heart series, A DUKE TOO FAR. I’ve been writing Regencies for quite a while now. I love spending time in that world. The Way to A Lord’s Heart series is a sweeter saga than The Duke’s Sons, and A Duke Too Far focuses on the youngest couple in the group. The heroine hasn’t even made her bow to society as yet. Peter Rathbone, the impoverished Duke of Compton, has lost his beloved sister Delia and is at a loss as to what to do next. The crumbling family estate is in ruins, his finances are in disarray, and he didn’t have the usual upbringing expected of an aristocrat. How do these hardships and unique personality traits shape the man Peter has become?  I think they made him both more resourceful about practical matters (like carpentry) and more reticent in society. He knows he’s not the rich aristocrat people expect on hearing “duke.” When we meet Ada Grandison soon after the death of Delia, one of her closest friends, and she believes Delia may have left a clue…

The Reluctant Rake – excerpt Sir Richard Beckwith emerged from his elegant town house on a chilly spring evening wearing a black silk domino over his dark gray pantaloons and long-tailed coat of dark blue superfine. Any one of his friends would have been astonished to see him in this guise, still more to see him out of evening dress at nine o’clock. Had they known that a pocket of the domino held a black mask, they would have been dumbfounded. None of Sir Richard’s exclusive circle was likely to see him tonight, however. When he hailed a hackney cab and climbed in, he directed it to a part of London little frequented by the haut ton. If certain of its men from time to time made their way through these unsavory streets, they did not mention such excursions in polite society. A cold mist rose from the greasy cobblestones, enlivened here and there by hoarse laughter and singing as the hack rattled past some gin mill or bawdy house. One victim of blue ruin went so far as to grab for the cab, hoping to jerk its occupant into an alleyway and fleece him. He missed his target, however,…

My new book is called How to Cross a Marquess. Five years ago, Roger Berwick and Fenella Fairclough rebelled when their fathers tried to marry them off. They would not be ordered about! A whole lot has happened since then. They’ve both changed, and now a fiery attraction has flared between them. It’s just too ironic. Circumstances have brought these former enemies much closer than they ever could have anticipated. But various people don’t like that idea at all. The path to a happy future is convoluted. So for these two: H is for history. Theirs is complicated. O is for oh! Neither expected the passion that has flared between them. So surprising with someone you’ve known for most of your life. But people change. W is for the worrisome anonymous letters spreading rumors about them through the neighborhood. How do you fight an invisible adversary? T is for time. There seemed to be so much, and now there’s nearly none. O is for opponent. But who is it? C is for choleric. Roger finds his temper sweetened by his lovely neighbor. R is for reminiscence. Roger’s mother has much to recall. O is for overset, as circumstances spiral out…

Family secrets play a big role in A Lord Apart. The hero and heroine discover a connection from the past that they had no idea existed. I’ve found some family secrets of my own through genealogy research, which can turn up unexpected information about our forebears. Census data may be particularly interesting, though sometimes you have to you read between the lines. For example, my great-great-grandfather on my mother’s side reported his job as “photographic artist” in the 1870 US census. I’ve always been delighted by this unapologetic claim. Here’s a man who saw himself as not simply a photographer, but as an artist. He was in his twenties at the time. I “picture” him responding to the census taker with pride. Maybe making sure the person wrote what he said, exactly. This ancestor named his daughter “Vida Delight.” I can almost hear him saying it. The census says his wife was “keeping house,” and it appears that her parents lived next door. Her father, fifty, is listed as a shoemaker. I begin to wonder how the artist and the craftsman got along. Friction? Admiration? Mutual incomprehension? Pictures of shoes? On the other side of my family, I discovered through…

Alone in her bedchamber later in the day, Gwendeline thought over what the countess had told her. Why had such a sought-after gentleman, the type her father had called a real out-and-outer, taken an interest in her? Why had he been the one to come and fetch her, or the infant he said he’d expected? If he was a leader of the ton, and Gwendeline saw no reason to doubt his mother’s description of his position, what was his interest in her? Friendship with her parents seemed the only possible explanation, but he never spoke to her of them or appeared eager to answer when she tried to do so. Quite the opposite, in fact. This thought reminded Gwendeline of a series of odd remarks she’d caught since coming to town. Both Lady Merryn and her son had made references she didn’t understand to her “situation.” Gwendeline hadn’t been aware that she possessed a situation in the sense that they used the word; seemingly, it was an awkward one. And she was becoming more and more interested in finding out exactly what it involved. She didn’t relish the thought that the people surrounding her knew more of her circumstances than…

Verity Sinclair looked around the opulent drawing room, drinking in every detail of the decor and the fashionable crowd. She had to resist an urge to pinch herself to prove she was actually here, and not dreaming. It had taken her five endless years to convince her parents that she should have a London season. They hadn’t been able to see the point of it, no matter what advantages she brought forward. Papa and Mama were quietly happy living in a cathedral close and being held up as models of decorum for the whole bishopric. Verity, on the other hand, often thought she’d go mad within those staid confines. She sighed. She loved her parents dearly, but for most of her life she’d felt like a grasshopper reared by ants. Indeed, at age eight, she’d shocked her parents by asking if she was adopted. She hadn’t meant to hurt their feelings or to imply any lack of affection. Their differences had just seemed so marked. Mama and Papa relished routine; Verity yearned for adventure. They read scholarly tomes; she pored over Robinson Crusoe and accounts of the voyages of Captain Cook. They preferred solitude or the company of a few…