Dear Readers,

I tried to think of an April Fool's Day joke for this newsletter, but I've never been good at pranks. As a kid, I fell for them so easily. An easy mark, they called me. 🤣 So I tend to just forget it's even a day people do things on.

I am still doing things, though (just not tricksy things)! Still honing my skills at photoshop. Two books with different editors, writing a secret project novella I won't divulge ANYTHING on until July. And I've starting to look toward my next WIP, which is tentatively called Binding the Baron. I've been trying to think of a quippy, easy way to explain this series, and the closest I can come to is Charmed meets Bridgerton. But really, Amanda Quick's alchemist books are hugely influential. And the setting is on the cusp of the Victorian period (1830s).

I'll begin talking more about it in June. I still do not have a cover designer for the series because I'm trying to discover / analyze the best direction to go with it. While I do this, I've been playing around with making my own cover mock ups for the book, playing with a lot of different styles. Here's a few:

Which do you like best?

Discover a New Book

Have you read Cerise Deland's Lord Fournier's Shameless Princess?

Driven by duty, he rushes to help her. Torn by desire, he must save her, then leave her…if he can bear to let her go.

Try out Collett Cameron's The Spinster's Secret Stake!

He vowed to protect her—even if it meant risking her heart and his life.

You want to see a sneak peak of my next book, Much Ado About Hating You? Here's a small glimpse of chapter one!

No man with an ounce of self-esteem would be caught dead hiding behind a bush. Richard Clark was a man. No doubt about that. But he must have surrendered every bit of self-worth because he’d been crouching so long behind the shrubbery he couldn’t feel his feet. His ankles were buzzing. And his knees screamed curses that would surely follow him into the afterlife.

All because of a woman. Two women, really, but one in hellish particular.

The least offensive of the two, Miss Selena Bell, blushed prettily by the peonies, talking to Richard’s sister-in-law, the bride to be in a fortnight, Mrs. Evelina Denby. And in Richard’s experience, where Miss Bell was, her cousin, the most offensive woman he’d ever met, would surely follow. Like flies to a pile of dung. Inevitable.

He had to escape. How close was the next bush? Why had his brother put the box hedges so far away from one another? Wait… Richard had done that. Following a fashionable trend in landscape gardening. Damn trends to hell. Much better to make landscape decisions and gardening choices based on covert escape routes. That other box hedge must be two fathoms away. At least. He tried to stretch out his arms on either side to measure, but his elbow met the bush, which stabbed him, sending him toppling to the side.

“Bloody—” he hissed, righting himself.

If he darted, even while crouching, someone was bound to see him. And if that someone was Miss Bell’s cousin, well he wasn't sure what he would do. Something drastic, no doubt. No options other than the drastic remained when facing a she-devil.

What he needed was a shield.

“John!” he screamed so loudly the name scratched his throat.

All the sounds from across the lawn—the chatting and laughing and whispering—stopped. Bound to happen when a man screams another man's name.

But the footsteps, foot stomps, more like, started the sound back up again, slamming toward Richard like an out-of-control stagecoach.

Excellent. John was on his way.

“What are you doing?” his half-brother hissed as gleaming hessians appeared in Richard’s truncated field of vision. Richard craned his head back to see John grin at the party guests and raise a hand. “All's well. Merely an injured cat.”

“Quick thinking, Brother.”

“Stand up, man. What are you doing down there?”

“Hiding. I’d think that was obvious. Also obvious—I cannot stand up or risk giving my position away, thus defeating the very point of hiding in the first place. I thought you said the Bells weren’t coming.”

John’s scowl lifted. He looked damn near delighted. “I did say that, didn't I?”

“You dirty liar.”

“If I had told you Samuel Bell's daughter and niece would be attending my wedding, you would have run off to London or Bath or the Continent.” He smoothed his jacket. “And I need my brother this weekend.”

“You do not. You do not need me at all. You wish to torment me.” At least Richard was currently tormenting John in a roundabout way. Everyone at the party would think it odd he was talking to an injured cat.

“That’s not true. Now will you stand up? People think I've gone mad talking to a bush. Or the dying cat behind it.”

***

I'll be sharing more about this novella in the coming weeks (It's up for pre-order now here). If you have questions about the book or characters, let me know, and I'll answer them in my next letters!

Happy reading!

Charlie

(Now in Kindle Unlimited!)

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(these books are in KU)

Read the entire series now!