Today I am lucky enough to hand over the reigns to Sandra Owens. She is the author of a wonderful Regency Romance called The Letter. It is a wonderful story with amazing characters. You can’t help fall in love with both. Be sure to check out my review after Sandra’s take over. So, without any other babbling from myself I am handing you over to Sandra Owens!
Hello, I’m Sandra Owens, author of THE LETTER and THE TRAINING OF A MARQUESS. I’m honored to be invited to guest post today. I write both historical and contemporary romance. Although I love both, there is something about the Regency period that fascinates me.
The Regency era lasted from 1811 to 1820, not a very long span of years. Plenty of time, however, for the men and women of that period to create many scandals. In THE LETTER, my heroine, Diana, is unknowingly embroiled in a scandal the night before her wedding to the man she loved that resulted in her being married to an evil man. As THE LETTER is a romance, Diana does get her happily ever after with Michael.
Without doubt, truth is better than fiction applies to this time in history. For those nine years, it was a contradiction of strict rules and anything goes…as long as you weren’t caught, especially if you were a woman. Unless their disgrace was beyond unforgivable, in most cases men could weather a scandal. Women, rarely. Often, when their deeds came to light, their fathers or husbands would send the woman in question to one of their country estates, out of public view. Out of sight, out of mind, at least, that was the hope.
There are so many delicious true scandals of that time to inspire a writer searching for ideas. Diana’s story is fiction, but my favorite true scandal of the Regency era is that of Caroline Lamb and Lord Byron.
Born Carolyn Ponsonby, she married William Lamb, the second son of an earl and eventually Prime Minister. They had one child, a son deemed mentally defective, but in today’s terms might have been classified as autistic. At first, Carolyn and William’s marriage appeared idyllic. It was not to last, however.
At the age of twenty-six, Caroline met the then twenty-four year old poet, Lord Bryon, the sixth Baron Bryon, a man rumored for his many affairs, including an incestuous liaison with his half-sister.
After seeing Lord Byron, Caroline wrote in her diary, “That beautiful pale face will be my fate.” And so, he was. I doubt when she wrote those words, she had the slightest idea how true they would prove to be.
Lord Byron was Caroline’s tortured hero, he of the cherub face and lame leg. Sadly, he tired of her before she was ready to give him up. Her antics after receiving his letter ending the affair were to the extreme, such as dressing up as a man to stalk him and building a bonfire to burn all his gifts and letters. At one point in her attempt to win Byron back, she even sent him a letter, enclosing her pubic hair. When society shunned her, her husband sent her to Ireland.
Yet, as she lay dying, her husband, William, returned to her side. Don’t think he was all that heroic as he’d had numerous affairs of his own. Still, some of her last words were to ask for William, and one must wonder how great their life might have been if only they’d turned to each other instead of others in their search for happiness.
The scandal of Carolyn and Lord Byron was just one of many from an era of excess and debauchery, but I believe with all my heart that there was true love to be found amidst all the self-indulgence, such as that of Michael and Diana in THE LETTER.
Thank you for inviting me here today. I’ve enjoyed it immensely.
Sandra Owens
The Letter: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B00C1IHMGY
Book Blurb:
THE LETTER is the story of a betrayal that wasn’t. Even so, it still tore apart two lovers for eleven years.
On the eve of their wedding, Michael Jeffres, Earl of Daventry, found his betrothed— the woman who meant as much to him as the air he breathed—in bed with his cousin, Leo. Diana remembers nothing of that night. All she knows is that she was forced to marry Leo and then spent the next eleven years in hell.
When the two lovers are brought back together by a letter from Leo a year after his death, Michael and Diana must struggle through all the lies and secrets before they can find a love that far surpasses the one of their youth.
Review:
The Letter is a fantastically addictive Regency romance. It’s a wonderful story that begins with a letter sent from beyond the grave to turn the worlds of both Michael and Diana upside down. The undercurrents of trauma and recovery is wonderfully woven within the story of a love regained. Michael and Diana are the quintessential couple. She must regain who she once was after a horrifically abusive marriage that, if it weren’t for the trickery of Michael’s cousin Leo, she wouldn’t ever have been in. It isn’t just the characters of Diana and Michael though. It’s the story of a journey that both must make to come to where they should have been if it weren’t for evil in the world. I also adored many of the supporting characters such as Jamie, Derebourne and Aubry. They were colorful and added wonderfully to the story instead of weighing it down. Overall, I would recommend this book to all those who love a good Regency romance. It is definitely one you must get your hands on. After you read it, you will be like Michael and Diana and hope that there are windows in Hell.
I’d like to thank Sandra Owens for stopping by today and talking about her favorite Regency scandal. I’d also like to thank ABG Reads Book Tours for giving me this stop on the tour. For more information about Sandra you can visit her website mentioned above. If you’d like to learn more about The Letter you can go to Amazon, Barnes and Noble or any other book retailer.
Author Bio:
Sandra lives in the beautiful Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina. Most days, you can find her with her fingers on a keyboard, her mind in the world of her imagination. It’s a land where romance and happy endings exist, a land where anything is possible.
When her husband can drag her away from her computer, she likes to travel with her very own hero in their RV, but she always brings her laptop. There are still stories to write, after all.
A few highlights of Sandra’s life she fondly recalls are jumping out of a plane, flying upside down in a stunt plane, and riding her Harley in the mountains of Southern California and along the coast of Maine. She’s managed a private airport and held the position of General Manager of a Harley-Davidson dealership.
Although those events in her life were great fun, nothing compares to the joy and satisfaction she gets from writing her stories.