My Temptations

 Hello, dear readers! So I think I have shared bits of what I am up to next, but thought it was time for a more substantial update. That is, assuming I can stick to plan, which is proving a little challenging right now.

Many of you have been asking about the audiobook for A Generation's Secrets, and Verona and I are working on it right now. This book is a huge undertaking to do as an audiobook because it's so long, so it's going to be a while, but we are in progress! As for an audio book for Crimes, I'd love to do it but we need to get much further along with the one for AGS before I can consider that too much and not break my brain.

Other exciting news in the Constant Love series is that Cristina Huelsz and I have signed a contract for a Spanish translation of A Constant Love. When she said at the JAFF Reader / Writer Get Together that continuations tend to be more popular in Spanish than variations, I mulled that over for a little while and decided I should give it a shot with ACL. That is the only book I am committed to translating at this point – I would love to do the whole series but it will depend on how well the first book sells.

I've also been up to some summer travelling including a return trip to England. I am so grateful to have had another chance to go back after the pandemic. I may share some bits from my trip as time allows but I have been quite heads down on writing and I always tend to prioritize that if it's going well.

Mottisfont

 So what I have I been writing? I was quite committed to starting up on the fifth book in the series, A Dangerous Connection, after The Crimes of Elizabeth Darcy was published, and I've made a good start at more than 30,000 words. If I wrote normal-length books that would be a third or a fourth of the way through but if you are here you probably already know that is not my forte! Based on progress through my outline, though, it is looking like this one will not be nearly as long as AGS, which is a bit of a relief, as I've learned a book that long is a beast to edit.

I have this theory about writing and that is that whatever project you're working on is like your spouse at the time, and as soon as you start working on it, other projects start trying to tempt you into affairs. When I was writing AGS, Crimes was eating my brain and I really wanted to get to it. By the time I was editing Crimes, I was so ready to get back to writing and to the series.

But, of course, now that the series is my spouse again (it's an on again, off again relationship, haha), I've had temptations. Writing Lady Anne in AGS made me really consider the different options of how her character could be. You saw one borne out in that book. Another, of course, is that she's much like Lady Catherine, but I have no interest in writing that. A third would be that she's a good person, much more reasonable than her sister, confident in her role, and (at least in my head) absolutely committed to foiling Caroline Bingley at every possible turn. I've had a thought to do a variation with that Lady Anne for some time now and up until recently it's been my main temptation.

Then out of the blue (well, not completely out of the blue, I've been devouring JAFF fantasy books over about the last half year while always having loved the Temeraire series) last week I decided I really really really wanted to do a dragon book. Like pounded out 10 pages of world building and outline in a couple of hours really really. 

So now I have two books trying to tempt me away from my "spouse"! They probably won't succeed...I tend to believe a certain amount of discipline is needed in writing and if I went off and wrote bits of what took my fancy on any given day I'd never actually complete anything. But it wouldn't be unprecedented if I dropped everything and wrote something else – that's how Mistress came about.

I'm trying to remind myself of all the reasons why I was excited to get to this book, in particular finally writing Sarah Kelly's point of view and telling more of her story than we've gotten a chance to see so far. I'm about to get to a key chapter for her, so that should help me stay with it. In the meantime I thought I'd share an early except from her point of view, for the fact that readers are also waiting for the next in the series is also helping to motivate me to stick with it!

The Neapolitan sun was warm on Sarah Kelly’s back as she walked across the Largo del Castello. Sarah loved the warmth, although she was the only woman in the square wielding a parasol with such caution; her pale, freckled countenance took nothing to burn in this sun, and she would have appreciated the protection of their olive skin. The parasol was a pretty one – a perquisite from Mrs. Darcy – and she took care to ensure it was always fully shading her face.

Sarah was not alone. Mills, one of the seamen from the Baltimore Clipper Georgiana, walked beside her. Captain Stanton had few rules for the ladies on his yacht, but one of them was that they should always be accompanied in foreign ports. Sarah did not mind this. She did not think she would have explored the city with such comfort without the presence of Mills. He was older than her father, good-natured, and always willing to walk as far as she liked. Often together they had wandered the piazzas and narrow streets of the city, pausing to admire the palazzos and partake in sorbets or water ices. They had wandered other places before this, too: Paris, Lisbon, Barcelona, Monaco, Malta, and Venice. Sarah still marvelled at all of the places she had been, feeling at her heart that she was still the little girl who had thought she should never leave County Galway, and after that, London.

Sometimes Sarah’s sister, Brigid, walked with them. But Brigid had served as Lady Stanton’s maid for ______ years now; she had been to all of these places before, part of the Stantons’s many travels. Brigid was a timid creature, as well – she did not have a heart for wandering unfamiliar streets. Sarah was not timid, but she was wary, cautious, aware of how the world could be. So she was grateful for Mills.

“D’ye want to stop for ices?” asked Mills, motioning towards a shop.

They had left the piazza and turned down one of the thin, winding streets that seemed to comprise so much of the city, and even in the shade provided by the buildings siding them, ices still seemed like a fine idea. Sarah told him so.

She chose Parmesan gelati, one of her favourites, and they ate in the shade beside the building, watching the passersby. Sarah savoured a mouthful of gelati and felt deeply content in that moment, deeply grateful that life had led her to be here, in this place, at this time. She could not say she had regrets. She did sometimes look back and wonder what might have been, but she could not regret. She was safe, and secure, and still more she was happy – although life had taught her to value the latter less than safety and security.

As you can see, I tend to be rather rough with things in the beginning and leave blanks that have to be filled in...this saves me from going down rabbit holes trying to figure things out, although I still end up finding myself down some of them.

I'm curious what you all think about finally getting to Sarah's story. And if you ever thought a dragon book would be in the future for me, because up until last week I would have said absolutely not!