There’s nothing as exciting to an author as a new book cover, and my new cover is even more exciting to me because I have been waiting a long time to see it. Finally! Here is Bastien’s book!

Some of you have been waiting a long time too. This is the third in my Sons of the Revolution series, and it was pushed back from publication in April. It will now be published in February 2012.

If you’re thinking that the title changes as well, you’d be right. It was originally titled The Making of a Rogue, but as you can see that morphed into The Rogue Pirate’s Bride.

I’m so sorry for any confusion this has caused, and I’m sure all of you who were kind enough to pre-order The Making of a Rogue and then Once a Rogue will sigh with frustration when you have to go and pre-order The Rogue Pirate’s Bride.

Maybe I can ease that frustration for you? How about an excerpt? Click here to read an excerpt.

Want more? How about a copy of The Making of a Gentleman? How about 2 copies? Great! Just let me know what makes pirate heroes so sexy, and I’ll randomly pick two people to win signed copies of The Making of a Gentleman (the story of Bastien’s twin brother Armand).

In the interest of full disclosure, I must confess we had a little flub today, and I wasn’t supposed to be blogging. But today’s blog is my responsibility, and I needed to get something up fast! So I grabbed this fun blog that originally appeared on September 23 at Love Romance Passion. If you’ve already seen it, sorry for the repeat.

In my new historical romance, Lord and Lady Spy, both the hero and heroine have secret identities. He’s secret agent Wolf, and she’s secret agent Saint. The fun thing is that while Sophia and Adrian have been married five years, neither knows of the other’s secret. And how the sparks fly when the truth is revealed!

I love stories with secret identities. This isn’t my first secret-identity book and probably won’t be my last. Why are secret identities so sexy?

1. When you have a secret identity your secret self can do things your public self never would. As Lady Smythe, Sophia would never tell her husband what she wanted from him in bed. But as Agent Saint, she’s more than happy to give a few orders.

2. Secret identities mean lots of midnight rendezvous and clandestine meetings. Sometimes these dark, furtive meetings can lead to more than simply spy business.

3. Secret identities mean dressing the part. A dowdy lady of Society can dress as a sexy siren when she’s playing her role as spy.

4. Secret identities mean secret scars. How much fun to compare battle wounds, especially when they’re in interesting places!

5. Secret identities mean you have an excuse for slipping away from a boring ball or house party. On business—or pleasure!

6. When you have a secret identity you have the chance to meet your spouse all over again for the first time. Who wouldn’t want to experience that initial spark of attraction again?

7. A secret identity as a spy means Sophia and Adrian have to come up with lots of explanations for prolonged absences when they’re working on a mission. But they also get to travel the world.

8. Secret identities mean secret talents. Sophia has skills with a dagger, and Adrian’s a crack shot with a pistol.

9. Secret identities mean you don’t get much share of the applause for your accomplishments. On the other hand, your accomplishments often bring you into contact with the most powerful men and women of the day. Why, yes, prime minister, I would like to come to dinner!

10. And, finally, secret identities are sexy because it’s a secret we the reader know and the characters don’t know. At first. I love to guess how the hero or heroine will realize the secret and how he or she will react. I think this scene in Lord and Lady Spy is pretty sexy and exciting.

Do you like secret identity stories? What makes them sexy? Our JQ friend Mia Marlowe is offering a copy of her latest, Improper Gentlemen, to one random commenter!

My family is so important to me.  The concept of family makes its way into just about every book I write. The book I’m writing for the Fortunes of Texas series (An Unexpected Fortune, May 2012) is all about family dynamics, as is my three-book Special Edition series, which will hit the shelves toward the end of next year. I’m working on a proposal for a juicy southern family saga. Naturally, all this writing and research about family has me thinking a lot about where my people came from.

A good friend of mine can trace her family tree all the way back to Henri II, of France and Charlemagne. I was enthralled and envious to hear this. I’ve always wanted to know my ancestry, but short of urging my retired father, who’s busier now than when he was doing the 9-5 grind, to take up the project, I’ve never done much toward that end ( in all my spare time ). But having heard about my friend’s roots, I’m once again inspired to learn about my lineage.   Plus, I’m convinced that this friend and I must be distant cousins since we both have relatives from the Ozarks – could those roots stretch all the way back to France? Maybe that would explain why I’m such a Francophile.

Several years before my grandmother passed away, I asked her to write down the birth dates and deaths of as many relatives a she could remember. But even she could only recall four or five generations. I wish I had time to take up the project, but since I don’t, my goal is to busy my father with solving the puzzle of our past.

Have you ever traced your family tree or do you know of anyone who has? Any interesting findings?  Any good tips on how to start the process and what to expect along the way?

Tomorrow is September. You do not know how long I’ve been waiting for it to be September! I’ve been waiting years for it to be September, even though I didn’t know it.

I started writing a book I called Lord and Lady Smythe in 2007. I worked on it, put it away, worked on it some more, wrote other books, tried to get it published, put it away again, and then in 2010 I dragged it out one last time.

I had always been in love with the concept for the book. What if Mr. and Mrs. Smith (like the movie with Brad and Angelina) lived in the Regency? Two married spies who don’t know the other’s secret identity who have to work together? I loved the premise, but I couldn’t make it work.

Until 2010. I finally figured out what was keeping these characters apart, what was driving them, what made them interesting enough to fuel a book.

And now four years later, Lord and Lady Spy, which has been with me for so long will finally be available to all of you. See why I’m so excited for September?

I want you to be excited about September and Lord and Lady Spy too. I’m giving away five copies of an excerpt book featuring an excerpt from Lord and Lady Spy. It also features excerpts from authors you love like Zoe Archer, Katharine Ashe, Monica Burns, Robyn DeHart (yes, one of our own!), Lila DiPasqua, Elizabeth Essex, Alexandra Hawkins, Sophie Jordan, Vanessa Kelly, Kris Kennedy, Mia Marlowe, Ashley March, Elisabeth Naughton, Miranda Neville, Heather Snow, and Emma Wildes.

Want a chance to win? Just tell me what you look for in a book excerpt.

Oh, and if you get a chance, check out my blog tour. There are tons, seriously so many, opportunities to win a copy of Lord and Lady Spy, and it all begins Friday.

And don’t forget tomorrow begins our Guess the Jaunty contest. Check back daily and comment on blogs by our Mystery Jaunty!

I have four Special Editions coming out in 2012. All of them are set in Texas: three are in a
fictional town outside of Dallas (I’m calling it Celebration, Texas). The other one is part of the popular Fortunes of Texas series and it’s set in the fictional town of Red Rock,Texas, which is supposedly 20 miles east of San Antonio.

It’s the first time I’m writing about Texas. I’m excited to be spending so much virtual time there because a have quite a bit of family in the Dallas area. I’m vaguely familiar with the state – enough to know it’s flavor, and, of course, I can call on my family with any questions.

In the past, I’ve set books in Orlando and Paris because I’m familiar with those cities.  The only real place I’ve written about that I’m not familiar with is Boston. It was part of a Special Edition continuity (I was one of six authors writing books for this series).  I actually visited before I finished the book so I could make sure I captured the essence of the city.

I’ve heard of authors writing on a wing and prayer, setting books in regions they’ve never visited. But I shy away from doing that because I strive to get everything exactly right. So, if I make up the city – it might even be a fictitious city based on an actual city – I feel better about taking artistic license and not being bound by maps and facts.

I have two questions for you: do you like reading books set in fictional places or imaginary worlds?   If you prefer actual cities, how much leeway to you give an author to fictionalize neighborhoods and the texture of the area?

One of the things about writing that I didn’t realize when I first started was how profoundly personal it would be. Perhaps that makes me an idiot, but that aspect kind of took me by surprise. But I suspect that writers, genre fiction and romance writers, in particular, are very much in tune with their own personal issues – the things that make us tick, that big bag of crud we drag around filled with our greatest fears and insecurities. I suppose song writers probably are equally as aware, but I digress. The point of all of this is if you pay close attention you start to notice things about you – not all of them are the icky things either.

Recently I was reading a book and I had a big epiphany that doesn’t really surprise me, as I can clearly see the pattern in my reading tastes and several of the books I’ve written myself, frankly I’m surprised it took me quite so long to notice. Especially when I look back on a post I wrote here four years ago. So here it goes….when it comes to guys, those romantic hero types, I really am drawn to the pursuer. I suppose this might be why I don’t gravitate toward the more traditional alpha hero because they aren’t always pursuers.

The book I was reading recently that brought all this to my attention was Suzanne Enoch’s The Care and Taming of a Rogue. Now Suzanne is one of my very favorite authors, she’s definitely my go-to gal whenever I need a good pick-me-up because her books are just delightful and perfect in all the right ways. And I love, love, love her heroes. And her heroes are always pursuers, even if they don’t quite understand it themselves, they are completely captivated by the heroine, just can’t get enough and go after her full-throttle. Their unwavering pursuit just makes me feel all gooey on the inside. This is what romance novels are about for me.

Now there are plenty of great ways to put together a romance novel, but at their core, it’s either boy pursues girl or girl pursues boy and both work. But for me that one that makes me come back again and again is the former. It even happened in my own love story. When I met The Professor I wasn’t so sure about him. He was really smart, an intellectual and frankly I felt a smidge intimidated and wondered what we’d ever talk about. And he was so very different from any man I’d ever dated or been attracted to. But he pursued me deftly and it worked.

So how about you? What kind of hero do you gravitate to? Do you notice when you’re reading which character is the pursuer?

Every writer has their process. It’s as unique to each of us as the tone of our books. And eventually if you sit back you begin to see the pattern in your own work, the steps you have to take to make the magic and transform that brilliant idea into a book people can read. Writing is a lot like putting together IKEA furniture. At first it seems like since you’re a relatively intelligent person who can read and walk upright that you’ll be able to do it and then after a while that little cartoon man begins to mock you and you end up in a heap on the floor with a splinter, a half-empty bottle of wine and mascara streaming down your face.

As a writer, I’m fascinated by other writer’s processes. Perhaps because I’m always looking for new tools to add to my bag of tricks, and partly because there’s that need to justify the way I do it, to make certain I’m not a complete hack. So if you’re ever around a group of writers, you’ll hear things like this, “What do you write? Oh, are you a plotter or a panster? Oh yes, don’t you just hate synopses…”

Not that anyone asked, but here are mine…

Idea – either I spontaneously get an idea or a manufacture one, either way, pretty exciting stuff.

Brainstorming – this is just the rudimentary brainstorming, not really specifics, just possibilities, again exciting. This has got to be one of my favorite parts. Perhaps because in the midst of brainstorming (which can truly be quite magical if the ideas are working) Emily and I get to gossip a lot. But we only ever talk about nasty people.

Character work – while this part can be challenging, it’s also fun, it consists of finding the right picture to use as my inspiration, so I get to spend quite a bit of time on-line looking at sexy actors. Ryan Reynolds, or Johnny Depp or Hugh Jackman, pick your poison, it’s research, I tell the Professor. It’s my job to find out what *other* women find attractive. I also work on archetypes, Myers-brigg, GMC, conflict and connection b/w hero & heroine, character arcs, etc.

Plotting – the story rises from the characters’ GMC, their relationship and their growth, again, this part can be challenging, but is also in the fun category. I use Scrivener, real index cards, post-it notes, Excel, sometimes all of that, sometimes only one, just whatever I need to get the book into focus.

Proposal – this is the three chapter/synopsis stage and this is where it becomes painful. While working on the synopsis, I’m never more aware of the fact that I’m just making stuff up (I realize that is the case ALL of the time, but it doesn’t always feel that way). The synopsis is certainly not easy, but I find this exercise so useful because it takes the jumbled mess in my head and it puts it into a semi-organized state. It also forces me to look at the external plot a bit more – I tend to build from the internal stuff and forget there has to be action going on. When I hit the chapters, sometimes the opening scene is clear in my head and flies onto the page, but frankly this is rare. Most of the time it takes me much longer to write these first 3 chapters than it does any other chapters in the book. They are daunting to me. I know the characters, or at least I know things about them and I know how I want them to come across, but I haven’t yet let them loose to walk and talk on their own. And with the series, it adds even more complexities of taking a secondary character who thus far has only had dialogue and digging into their internal thoughts. I often call my critique partner to whine about the fact that I’ve forgotten how to write a book, I’m a total hack and I’ll never get done. This stage is hard, and painful and really not all that fun, in fact it’s my very least favorite part and it’s my very slowest stage. It’s like swimming through molasses while a mound of fire ants chase after you.

Rough draft – the pain from the first three chapters usually lasts until chapter 5, possibly 6, and then I begin to hit my stride. I get into the fun part of the book, the middle. I know, some people call this the sagging middle, but for me, it never sags, it flies. Not to say it’s easy, hardly, but I tend to know more of what’s going on, I get to really get that relationship going and it’s just the best part of the book. And then I hit the ending, the last 2 chapters for me usually go at lightening speed during this draft, sometimes only ending up 10-15 pages worth of material. I rush it, I admit it. Because by now I’m just ready for it to be over with and I know the ending will probably have to change. I should mention that at some point during this rough draft (possibly more than once) I make a frantic call to Emily for emergency brainstorming (okay this isn’t the only time she gets a frantic call, it happens all the time) because I’ve realized that I’m missing something huge (almost always my big, black moment, which I swear I had at the time of synopsis writing, but it has since shrunk to a small, slightly grey moment). I should also note that I do not revise as I write, so the rough draft is full of notes, questions and blanks for me to catch during the next round. This used to be my favorite part, but not so much anymore, but it has its moments.

Read-through – this is what happens after I’m done with the rough draft and usually ends up with another phone call to the critique partner where I whine and complain that the book is total crap and I won’t be able to fix it. But during this read-through, I make notes to myself on everything, big (new scenes) and small (punctuation or word choice). Then I write a revision letter to myself. This part is not fun.

Revisions – these are my revisions, not those from my editor. This used to be my least favorite part, but I think that’s because I didn’t know what I was doing. Now I kind of like it, but I’m only just getting used to saying that, so don’t make me repeat it. I’m a layer-er – which means that I go through the manuscript 4-5 times at this stage. The first two being the biggest moves. I add new scenes, I delete stuff, I fix all the things that are inconsistent with character, because now I really know them, I layer in emotion and texture and make sure I’ve been clear about all the elements of each character’s GMC, I look up research questions that I left blank in the first draft, sometimes I rearrange stuff. It’s major surgery. My rough drafts are often 100+ too short, so the layering really is significant. So begrudgingly I say this is the fun part.

Critique – I have a few readers that get the whole thing at this point, the first time they’ve seen it and they give me feedback. I sometimes take it and sometimes ignore it, but it gives me reassurance having other eyes look at it before I turn it in. This part is just fine.

And then I’m done and can turn it in. At this point, I know it’s the best I can do, but I’m still nervous as hell that it’s awful. But I’m still feeling happy that it’s over with and I’m beginning to fall in love with my next idea which is sure to be easy and wonderful…

So why am I writing all of this? Well, I’m working on revisions right now and they’re going far too slowly for me. And I’m certain the book is terrible and I should scrap it and come up with a new idea. But I won’t do that because I know from my process that all of those emotions are normal for me at this stage. I also know enough to know that how I’m feeling about something is not the same thing as the reality of that something. Oh, there I went and got all philosophical on y’all.

In any case, if you’re a writer, tell me about your process so I can steal your cool methods. And if you’re a reader tell me something interesting about what you do, are you an organized person or do you fly by the seat of your pants and wait for the day to take you where it will?

5 days from now When Tempting a Rogue hits the shelves. I’m always excited for release day, but this is the first time that I’ve been sad about it as well. When Tempting a Rogue is my last book as Kathryn Smith. For now, anyway.

While I’m really excited about the new things coming my way and the new books I’m writing under new names (Kady Cross, Kate Cross, Kate Locke), I’ve been Kathryn Smith my entire life. I’ve written as Kathryn Smith since I sold to Avon in 1999.

What it comes down to is that I feel like I’m giving up a bit of myself. I suppose it’s normal, and change always brings anxiety with it — even if it’s really good change. I have that incredible hopeful feeling about each of these new ventures and there’s endless possibilities ahead.

Yup, it’s terrifying.

So, I want to hear about big changes you’ve made. Big decisions that have led to wonderful — or maybe not so wonderful things. More importantly, I want to know if the risk was worth it. Oh, and don’t forget to pick up When Tempting a Rogue on your next trip to the bookstore. It might be a collector’s item one day.

When I began writing, I never thought about my author brand. I’m not a jar of peanut butter. I’m a person, right? Well, it turns out your author brand is kind of important because it’s reflected in your titles and covers and, obviously, your stories. My stories are different from everyone else’s stories, and I don’t mean that I write historicals and Kristan and Cindy write contemporaries. I mean, my historicals are different from Margo’s and Robyn’s too.

So what is my brand? What makes my stories unique?

I write books set around the Regency period of England. It’s referred to as the Regency because the Prince was declared regent and took control of his father’s powers when George III went quite mad. Actually, the Regency didn’t officially begin until 1810, and my stories are usually set in the early 1800s, but they’re still considered more Regency (lighter and faster) in tone than Georgian (a bit darker, heavier).

I write books that have a lot of adventure. My heroes and heroines are often threatened, shot at, forced to abscond through windows, and quick to jump on a schooner for Calais. They sneak into prisons, break into buildings, steal carriages, and all around get into quite a lot of trouble. My stories are fast-paced and exciting.

My heroes and heroines fall in love. First and foremost, I write romances. I write about a man and a woman who meet (or meet again) and fall madly in love. The road to true love is never easy, but they manage to find their way—while dodging a few bullets or cannonballs, as the case may be.

And this is why I’m so excited that I’m being re-branded. The cover for my next release, Lord and Lady Spy, reflects this re-branding. I’m going to have bolder titles and covers that really illustrate the kinds of stories I write.

The downside is that those of you looking for The Making of a Rogue are going to have to wait a little longer. It’s getting a whole new look (though the story will not change). It will be released February 2012, and the title may change. Click here to read early praise for the book.

In the meantime, I hope you’re excited that Lord and Lady Spy is now a September release! Here’s a little sneak-peek.

Meet Lord and Lady Smythe, England’s preeminent spies. Their identities are guarded even from each other. After years of secrets and lies, their marriage is little more than a crumbling façade. But even love isn’t as important as The Mission—to defeat Napoleon Bonaparte.

All’s fair in love and war.

Okay Treasure Me has been out for about a month now and the reader feedback has been great. But if you haven’t picked up your copy, here’s a little inside peek to whet your whistle, so to speak. Enjoy.

Loch Ness, Scotland 1888

Vanessa made her way quickly through the noisy pub and took a seat at an empty table. Heavy wood paneling covered nearly every surface in the room. The floor currently acted as a small pool for spilled ale. But she needed to eat.
Gingerly she opened Jeremy’s notes and smoothed her hand across them. This was precisely the sort of place that Jeremy would balk at entering. He would despair at even laying his precious notes on the sticky surface. So she did it regardless, knowing that he wouldn’t be needing them anymore. Furthermore, he shouldn’t have left them lying around while he was off dallying with Violet.
All around her, large and hairy Scottish men sat at the tables slamming their mugs together, cursing and picking fights with one another. Were it not for her considerable practice at ignoring noise to focus on work, she might have been more distracted.
So Vanessa was quite used to pretending that nothing around her was meant for her attention. A skill that had come in handy on more than one occasion when she’d been stuck beside a bore at a dinner party. Or been persuaded to dance with an arrogant, yet ignorant, oaf at a soiree. She’d learned such a skill at home with her family where her mother and sisters spoke of nothing more than the next social engagement and which fabrics best complimented their coloring. Of course, they tried to include her, but Vanessa found none of that the least bit interesting. Instead she wanted to read or study, or more precisely, she wanted to dig. But until this very trip, she hadn’t yet gotten the opportunity.
Now Vanessa was finally here. Here in Scotland where the history was mixed heavily with myth, and the soil was rich with undiscovered fossils, all waiting for her to unearth and categorize them. First thing tomorrow morning, she would hike over to those castle ruins and find her way into the caverns beneath. Jeremy was wrong about Mr. McElroy’s discovery, and if the poor Scotsman were still alive, she’d find him to tell him so. It had been a point of contention between her and her would-be-husband, but he’d taken the time to listen to her argument. She’d thought he’d been weighing her hypothesis. Now though, she believed that he’d merely been humoring her. Well, she would prove him wrong—him and the rest of the scientific community who believed her to be utterly unqualified.
She had tried to argue Mr. McElroy’s point by sending in several letters supporting his theory that the bone belonged to what the Scots called the water kelpie. But not one of them had been printed in any of the scientific journals. No, Vanessa didn’t believe a mystical creature still lived in those peat-stained waters. But something had lived there many years ago, and the evidence was just waiting for her discovery.
She put the tip of her pencil between her teeth as she collected her thoughts, then she jotted down a note.
“What’s a purty lass like you doin’ all alone?” A large necked man plopped into the empty chair adjacent to hers. His thick brogue, laced with inebriation, took some concentration to understand. As he looked over her notebook, his nose wrinkled. “What are you doing there in that book?”
She closed the pages over her hand to mark her spot and glanced at him above her spectacles. “I am working, sir, and you are disturbing me.” Perhaps she should have stayed in her room. But she’d been hungry, and the barmaid had said this was the only place she could eat. So she’d sat to wait for her lamb stew.
He laughed, a gritty, dark sound. “Disturbing you, am I? Well, we’ll see about that.” He reached over, and with one swift pull, he’d yanked her onto his lap, knocking the notebook to the floor in the process. She struggled against him, kicking at his legs and trying to pound on his chest, but he clasped both her wrists in his vice-like grip.
“Unhand me, sir!” she said loudly, continuing to fight. She eyed Jeremy’s notebook lying facedown on the filthy floor. As gratifying as it might be to destroy something of his, she needed that research. “I must collect my notes!”
“I don’t think so. You’re a nice little morsel, aren’t you?” He buried his face in her hair. “And you smell real nice. Like flowers and honey.”
Vanessa’s heart thundered in her chest, the sound reverberating to pound in her ears. She had not carefully weighed the situation before she’d acted. She’d been so focused on her research, so intent on her own purpose, that she hadn’t bothered to think about this new environment. This was not the sort of place that a well-bred lady would travel alone. Yet here she was. Not very smart of her, she now acknowledged. This was precisely the impetuous behavior that her mother found so taxing.
But there was no need to panic; that’s the reaction her sisters would have. Vanessa, though, was level-headed and generally good at sizing up challenging situations. This one would be no different. She merely needed to stay calm, keep her wits about her, and figure out a way to escape. Perhaps she should simply jerk herself away and run up to her room. But with the current hold the man had on her, freeing herself was impossible. She could call for help. Perhaps people simply didn’t realize that she wasn’t interested in being handled by this man. Certainly a crowd this size would not allow this man to truly harm her.
But as three other large Scots stood and moved to her table, each of their expressions more lascivious than the next, she began to doubt her convictions. These men would not protect her. They would assist her assailant. She saw the great error in her logic. She had grossly underestimated her situation, and now she was in serious trouble. She doubled her efforts. Her legs kicked out, trying in vain to wiggle free from the man’s hold.
“What do we have here, Angus?” one man asked as he straddled a chair next to them. He ran a rough hand down Vanessa’s cheek.
She frowned at him and tried to pull away from his offensive touch. Had her hands been free, she would have walloped him good. Boxed his ears, or poked him in the eyes.
“A fine piece of muslin,” another man said. He moved his eyebrows up and down in a move that Vanessa could only assume meant he found her attractive. The irony of the situation was not lost on her. Finally she had a man sexually interested in her, something her mother had spent hours fretting about. But eligible, appropriate men, they were not.
The man who’d imprisoned her on his lap—Angus, the other man had called him–was trying to run his hand up her leg, but she managed to deflect his efforts with an elbow to his abdomen. The man next to him yanked on her hair, pulling her head back so she could see his grimy face above hers. His yellowed teeth smelled foul, a mixture of ale and rot. Her eyes watered.
“Oh there you are, love,” another voice said from behind her. “I’d ask you kindly to remove your hands from my intended.”
She could not see the owner of the voice, but this man sounded different from the others. While his voice still had the lilt of a Scottish brogue, his tone was more refined, cleaner around the edges. Though his words were polite, his tone was edged with a threat.
“Your intended?” Angus asked.
“Aye. I said let her go.”
“As you wish,” the man said, then he dumped Vanessa onto the hard wood-planked floor.
Vanessa landed with a thud, her wool dress splayed around her, revealing both ankles. A hand reached out to pull her to her feet. She snatched her notebook on the way up.
She looked up and found herself staring into the most alarmingly handsome face she’d ever seen. His long brown hair hung to his shoulders in a wild and unkempt way, but she could tell he’d washed it recently, not at all like the greasy, matted manes of the other men. A day’s worth of beard covered his cheeks and chin, but did nothing to hide his sensual mouth, which quirked in a subtle grin. But it was his crystal clear green eyes that seemed to void her vocabulary. She nodded like a simpleton.
He held her close to his side. So far, no one had resorted to fisticuffs, but two of the Scots still held a stance that suggested they might swing a punch at any moment. Vanessa found herself holding her breath, so she exhaled slowly.
“So, English,” Angus said, sizing up her rescuer. “You’ve come back to the wilds of the hills, have you?”
“Fits you’d find yourself a pretty Lady to wed,” another said. “What’s the matter, the local skirts aren’t good enough for the likes of you?” Guffaws of laughter surrounded them.
This close to her rescuer, she could smell him. A delicious combination of soap and leather and the pure smell of the clean Highland air filled her nose. She caught herself before she closed her eyes to inhale.
“Did you bring her home to wed her properly?” Angus asked with a wide grin that highlighted his foul teeth.
“None of your damned business,” her savior said. But she noted a slight tick in his jaw line.
“A true Scot would wed her here and now,” Angus taunted with narrowed eyes.
“Wed her, then bed her,” the other agreed with a grin.
“What’s the matter, English?” another asked.
Vanessa noticed how the man at her side clinched his fist that rested at her waist. Her savior never once met her gaze as he looked at the other men in the tavern. They were all slightly smaller than he, but two of them were as broad. Still he was only one man.
“English won’t do it,” Angus said.
“He ain’t a real Scot,” the other said. “Too much blue blood.”
The taunting reminded Vanessa of her young cousins who teased and quipped back and forth, goading each other into doing something unpleasant. Children’s folly, nothing more. But suddenly she realized how quiet the room had fallen. It had been so loud, full of boisterous voices and music coming from an old harpsichord in the corner of the room. Everyone waited, listening for what would happen between her defender and the wretched men who’d attacked her.
“Mavis,” Angus yelled. Then he held up his hand. A moment later, a rope soared across the pub, and he caught it in his fist. He took a step toward them. “Well, are you a real Scot or no’?”
“Nah, he’s an English,” the other man said.
At long last, the man protecting her, glanced down and met her gaze. His pure green eyes met hers, and her mouth went completely dry. She’d never been one to become lathered by the appearance of men. Her sisters had certainly fallen into fits of hysteria when handsome men had expressed interest in them, but Vanessa had never looked up much to take notice. But with this man, his rugged handsomeness was hard to ignore. She pushed her spectacles back up the bridge of her nose.
“We’ll do the ceremony,” he said in his low baritone voice. “I’ll marry her right now.”
Before Vanessa could ask any questions, she found herself facing the large stranger and both their right hands were tied together with the rope. The man before her repeated vows, and then nodded to her when it was her turn.
Vanessa tugged on her hand and realized it was indeed tied quite firmly to the man with the beautiful green eyes. The stench of the other men around her assaulted her senses. “Marry this man?” she asked softly, more to herself than anyone in particular.
Loud cheers surged around her, and if she wasn’t mistaken, she’d just accidentally married a Scotsman.

So as far as excerpts go, what are your favorite kinds? Do you like the first meet scene? Or a steamy scene? What kind of scene really makes you head to the store to pick up the book? I have a copy of Treasure Me and a copy of Emily McKay’s Seduced: The Unexpected Virgin ready to mail out to one lucky reader. Just comment to win.