Lady Olivia's Undoing is Finished

Good Morning. It's been a long road to finally have this story finished, but now I can say it is. Yay me. I started off with a simple intention -- to show Lady Olivia at her best and worst. And then I turned her story into this monster with all kinds of sub-plots and intricate facts that no one would really care about. After writing nearly 35,000 words (and for those of you who aren't writers that translates into roughly ten chapters). I allowed my critique partner to read it and she said, "NO!"

So I stripped it back down to what I had originally started with, and rewrote it. It took longer than I anticipated, but it's finally done.

You'll have to excuse the cover, it was done by me as my cover designer is on vacation (but will hopefully take care of it once she returns.)

Here is the cover copy.

Lady Olivia Leighton, Duchess of Caymore, has wealth, privilege, and is one of the most influential women in London. However, since the death of her husband Fitzhugh a decade earlier, Olivia has kept a secret from Society. One, that if discovered, would ruin her.

Within the span of twenty-four hours, Olivia’s idyllic life is turned upside-down. With tragic news of the heir presumptive, Olivia fears the Caymore title will revert to the crown.

Olivia’s butler has never been who he appears to be, and falling in love with him was something she hadn’t planned. His sudden departure for Spain leaves them both at a crossroads for their future.

And the one man who could expose the buried past arrives on her doorstep.

At the Boxing Day Ball, a malicious trick uncovers Olivia’s hidden skeleton. Humiliated, she flees Society – disgraced. However, her presence is required at Court. Enquiries to her whereabouts turn up nothing.

Lady Olivia has disappeared.

I know it doesn't sound like a romance, and it doesn't end like the rest of my romances, but this book is a prequel to the series ending. I couldn't write the last book without my readers knowing what was going on, so I wrote this. 

There's also another prequel which will be forthcoming as soon as I get to it. I'm hoping to have both of these out by the fall. Anticipated release date for the end of the series is Christmas 2014. Whew!

When I first started writing (ten years ago) I never thought in a million years I would write a series. But I have, and it's almost finished. And then I'll start writing my next one. No rest for the wicked. 

Lady Olivia's Undoing is available for pre-order on Kobo, Apple, and Smashwords only. (I've been having trouble with links lately, so when I find them on the websites, I'll put them up here.)

Anne Gallagher (c) 2014

Working on the Next Book -- Lady Olivia's Undoing

Good Morning. Once I publish a book, I let it go into the universe with my very best wishes and never want to see it again. I look forward to future writing. And so, one week after publishing THE CAPTAIN'S COINCIDENCE, I started working on LADY OLIVIA'S UNDOING. (I took a week off to clean my house and get my yard prepped for spring.)

Lady Olivia

I've been writing like a maniac, mostly because this story has been brewing in my head for the last year or so. LADY OLIVIA'S UNDOING is one of the prequels to the last book in the series THE SEDUCTION OF MR. SUMMERVILLE. Lady Olivia has been a stalwart character in all of my books and I've wanted to give her her own story for quite a while.

Unfortunately for Lady Olivia, things do not go as she plans and she finds her world turned completely upside down. I'm so excited about this book, I don't even know where to begin to tell you about it.

Henry Wade,
Marquess of Dunbury

Let me try. Remember a couple of months ago, I told you I had been searching for a new Lady Olivia, and that I found Phyllidia Law to portray her. Well, I changed my mind again. Even Phyllidia did not have what I wanted in my latest version of Olivia so I found a new one. Isn't she great. I think she can fall in love with Quiggins all over again.

However there's also another reason why I needed a new Lady O. I've been going on about this "secret" she has for the last several months, but when I started writing her new story, I found another one... About this man. Henry Wade, the Marquess of Dunbury. Isn't he just delicious? Don't you think they'd make a great pair. Yeah, me too.

John Quiggins

But what about Quiggins, you may ask? Isn't Olivia in love with Quiggins? I thought they were having a glorious affair, so taboo, considering he's a butler. Ah, yes, my ever indefatigable John Quiggins.

Well, the problem with Olivia is that she's loved Henry Wade since she was 20. Unfortunately, she was betrothed to the Duke of Caymore and had to abide by her parents wishes. Henry, broken-hearted, left for the war. Well, 37 years later, their paths cross again** and Henry and Olivia meet and fall in love. They spend a wonderful year together. However, Olivia leaves Henry in a fit of pique because he won't marry her. And then all that trouble with Penny happened (THE LADY'S MASQUERADE) and Olivia never resolved her issues with Henry. Then she met John and fell in love with him. Yes, even duchesses fall in and out of love.

In LADY OLIVIA'S UNDOING, we finally get the whole story about Lady Olivia, who she truly is and how she came to be one of the most powerful influential in London during the Regency. I bounce back and forth through her memories to the present day. It's all very fascinating to me. I've never quite written a love story like this. And yes, it is a love story.

I've also done something I do not normally do in my books...I only have one Point of View (POV). Olivia's. I didn't want Quiggins mucking up the business of being in my head and changing my story. So I left him out. Therefore, the entire book is all Olivia.

We get to meet her family, her friends, find out what secrets she holds, and how her influence has shaped and destroyed lives. Oh yes, everything Olivia has done up until this point in her life has been for purely selfish reasons. And in SEDUCTION she gets her comeuppance. But that's another story.

So there we have it.

On another note, I do not think I will be posting regularly through the month of April. I would like to really concentrate on this book and just write it so I will be able to publish it before the summer. If I have enough time, perhaps I'll even be able to work on THE LADY'S SECRET. Another prequel to SEDUCTION. Another fascinating look at a different side of Lady Olivia's family.

** Olivia's affair with Henry begins with the new series THE LADIES OF DUNBURY. Coming from Shore Road Publishing in 2015. (Or late 2014 if I can keep my head above water.)

Tell me -- How impatient are you for a new book in a series to come out? Or do you just read them when you find them?

Anne Gallagher (c) 2014

Historical Research -- Non-Pertinent Information

Good Morning. Now that THE CAPTAIN'S COINCIDENCE is published (yes, yesterday as a matter of fact, and is available everywhere) I took a look at the next story I'm going to write in the Reluctant Grooms series. LADY OLIVIA'S UNDOING.

Now, for those of you who have read my books, you know Lady Olivia plays an important factor in almost all of them. She's a busy body of the first water, a dragon, a harpy, but if she likes you, her friendship knows no bounds. She also thinks she's a matchmaker.

What you don't know about Lady Olivia will surprise you, which is why this post came about. In order to write Olivia's story, and the subsequent two remaining books in the series, I had to do a lot of "unnecessary" research. I say unnecessary, but it's not. It's more tedious than anything really.

Olivia carries a secret that I didn't even know she had until last year, which is also why it took me so long to develop the first two books (LADY'S MASQUERADE and now CAPTAIN'S COINCIDENCE). I wanted to make sure I planted the seeds of it early, so if you care to read the whole series in order, it won't come out of left field. I guess you might call it a "theme", but I never intended it that way.

So, here's some non-pertinent information I had to develop for Olivia that involved research.

* She's a Churchill. Yes, THAT Churchill. (She's Winston's relative).
* She was married at 20, to a man who was 62. (I developed family trees for both.)
* Her friends when Fuzzy (her husband Fitzhugh) was alive included, the King and Queen, George Grenville, Duke of Portland, Shelburne, Lord North (these men were all major players in Parliament during the American Revolution.)
* She's a staunch supporter of the Whigs (although Fuzzy was a Tory).
* She's having an affair with the butler Quiggins. Shocking I know. But she loves him. (And by the way, Quiggins is not actually a butler. I touch on that a little bit in LADY'S FATE. And in uncovering who HE really is, involved more research.)

And so you may wonder, why did I do all this non-pertinent information searching? Because I need to know it. I can't write a book that involves the history of England during the time of the Regency without it. Even though it's fiction, I still need it to be believable. And even though sometimes I fudge a little on the details**, I still need to make it coherent. I need to sound like I know what I'm talking about. And for the most part, I do.

I can't claim I know everything, because well, I'm a writer, not an historical researcher (although, I could probably get a job doing that), but I know more than most, and I could probably get through a round of Jeopardy and win the "Regency" category. lol

If you follow my blog posts, you know I kvetched about the research I had to do for COINCIDENCE. Ships, cannon fire, mapping, nautical references (I can insult someone fifteen ways to Sunday now and not swear once), traveling times, America and their part in the Napoleonic Wars (which incidentally was a lot more than they teach in school), and who was in charge of what department at Whitehall. I did the same thing with Greenleigh in ROMANCING LADY RYDER with the Russians.

Some of it showed up in the books, but for the most part, I didn't bog the story down with all the details. You would have been bored. (Maybe you are) But to me, those unnecessary bits of research that mean nothing to you, allow me to develop the stories and my characters more fully (at least in my mind) so I can give the readers a fuller broader scope of it all.

** As for fudging the details -- because what I write is FICTION, I have taken some information and distorted it to make it fit better in my book. In COINCIDENCE for instance, the Pirate Moody was a real pirate from North Carolina. However, he plied the waters off the coast of America in the early 1700's, not 1800's. Also, I refer to the artist Thomas Gainsborough. In my story, however, he is Thomas Gaines-Borough, so he can be related to Richard Gaines the hero in COINCIDENCE. (I'm sure I'll get letters about THAT.) In the DUKE's DIVORCE, I took the facts about divorce in the early 1800's and distorted them to fit the book. And we all know that Prince George could not create Letters Patent, however, he had a hand in them for William in MASQUERADE. I write FICTION.

Tell me -- How far do you go when researching? Do you get in, get what you need and get out? Or, do you follow the trails of tangents that you think might be important, or maybe interesting?

Anne Gallagher (c) 2014

I'm on Pinterest, Pricing Changes, and Other News

I've been meaning to mention this for sometime now and keep forgetting. I recently changed all the pricing on my paperback versions from $14.99 to $12.99 with the exception of THE LADY'S MASQUERADE which is now $10.99.

I've also brought the price down on the e-versions of A
ROMANTIC REGENCY COLLECTION to $1.99. Four novellas for the price of two.

And I also brought down the price of THE EARL'S ENGAGEMENT to $2.99. So I hope if you haven't read it yet, you will.

I've also finally put this into paperback.







If you didn't know this, and I'm sure you didn't because I've only mentioned it once in a teeny tiny little aside at the bottom of a post, I'm on Pinterest. I have all my books there, with pictures of my characters, or rather, who I'd like to think they are.

I recently added LADY CADORET'S LONGING (something I've been meaning to do for awhile and just haven't been able to get to it. It took me awhile to find the right pictures of Edward and Daniel.

And I found some pictures of houses where I think my characters might live so I added those to my boards as well.

I'm in the process of making boards for the other books that will (hopefully) be coming out this fall. (see below)

You can find me on Pinterest here 

(If the link is broken, it's http://www.pinterest.com/RegencyAnne)


In other news, I've also started on THE LADY'S SECRET, a prequel to THE SEDUCTION OF MR. SUMMERVILLE. Falling asleep one night, I thought of the most fabulous opening lines and jumped out of bed to write them down. When I transposed them into my file on the computer, I felt compelled to keep writing. The word count is not very high, but it is a start.

I've also begun another novella, LADY OLIVIA'S UNDOING, another prequel to THE SEDUCTION OF MR. SUMMERVILLE. This one deals exclusively from Lady Olivia's viewpoint. And I believe this novella will make a few readers go hmmmm.... I love Lady Olivia and knowing she carries a great secret, I've been wanting to spill it for some time. In this little tome, you find out what it is, and as Lady Olivia's world falls apart, you get to see how she does or does not cope.

I would like to say the Not So Secret Story Project is done, but it's not. Not too much longer now to go and I do need to have it done by the 22 so I'm working day and night to finish it up. Then it's off to the critique partners and beta readers for consideration, then we revise and hopefully format for publication. Soon, very soon.

And then I will be working on THE CAPTAIN'S LADY, book two of The Reluctant Grooms series. This book has been sitting on my hard drive for almost 8 years and in such a state of disrepair, it's much like the first version of THE LADY'S MASQUERADE. I need to really get in there and revise it. Hopefully, that won't take too long. I'm hoping by Thanksgiving.

And then we're onto the final books in the series and will hopefully wrap this up in the Spring of 2014.

After that, I have another series planned. I think. I'm working on the outline now. But I'm not really looking into that for some time. Maybe after next summer.

So, I hope you'll stick around for the next little while. Things will be happening.

Thanks for stopping by. See you next week.

Anne Gallagher (c) 2013

Intimate Portrait -- Lady Olivia

Over the course of my years writing, I find myself working on two or three stories at a time. This gives my brain a break from the tedious details one may find oneself enmeshed in in a particular plot. While working on the Not So Secret Story Project, Lady Olivia burst into my subconscious and wouldn't leave me alone. I've had her story in the back of my head for awhile now, thinking I would get to it when I finished what I'm working on now.

But she wouldn't let go and so I decided to sit down and write the opening paragraphs. Well, the opening paragraphs turned into three chapters. So I sit here with almost 7,000 words of her novella and itching to finish it. The reason, I believe, she was so insistent in the first place was that I needed to find a picture for her cover. Which meant I needed to find a picture of her.

Lady Olivia #1

Oh, I had a picture of Lady Olivia when I first started writing my stories. She was a sweet little old lady who had nothing better to do than play matchmaker for friends. But as the stories evolved, she became much sharper in my mind. I also needed to do a genealogical tree to figure out just who she was related to. As a member of the Aristocracy, everyone is eventually related to everyone else. And if that is so, then she isn't as old as I portrayed her to be.

Lady Olivia #2

So, I found this Lady Olivia. She fit the part a little better. She's a little bit younger, a little bit prettier, and I know her character from watching period dramas on the BBC. She also played Mrs. Bennett in Sense and Sensibility, so there is that. However, as much as I liked her for Lady Olivia, there was something missing. And I figured out what it was as I started writing her story. She's not sexy enough.

John Quiggins

Not that a sweet little old lady can't be sexy, but she's got to play alongside Quiggins. I had always intended for Lady Olivia and Quiggins to fall in love, as a secret backdrop to everything else that's going on in my little Regency world. And as I found Quiggins very early on, I thought him the best possible Quiggins there could be. Yes, I love Quiggins. He's the strong silent type, and very capable of making women swoon. He's also gentle, kind, and has a few secrets of his own.



Lady Olivia #1 was certainly too old. Lady Olivia #2, was the right age, but I found as I was writing this story, she's just not sexy enough. I wanted someone who could pass off the aristocratic air, yet remain a woman. Judi Dench and Helen Mirren could pass muster, but they're not soft enough for me. I needed Lady Olivia to have that touch of vulnerability, yet be tough enough to fight with the men. And I finally found her.

Lady Olivia #3 we have a winner

I think she is the perfect embodiment of Lady Olivia, heart and soul. Vulnerable, soft, sexy, yet with that face full of character. And if I do say so myself, I think she and Quiggins make a perfect match.

Lady Olivia is hands down my favorite character that I've ever written. She's tough when she needs to be, but gentle as well. She believes in doing what's right, even when it's wrong. She likes to meddle in other people's affairs, especially when it comes to love.

Having had her first husband die on her, she spent ten years of her life alone (until she met Quiggins). And during that time, she was a wreck. Sure she had her charities, what rich woman didn't. She had her friends, she had her garden. But until she met Quiggins, she didn't have love. When he appeared, it was as if a light was turned on inside her and wouldn't turn off. If she was going to be in love, then everyone else should be as well.

However, in this new story I'm writing about her, I get to tell her secret. Her one very big, very ugly secret, that if it ever came out, her whole world would be upside down and she would be cast out of Society. Oh yes, my friends, cast out. Because what Olivia did was so nasty, so heinous, so disgustingly out of character for her, people will be shocked. Shocked I tell you.

This little novella also ties up a few loose ends that have been straggling around from my other books. A few reviewers had qualms about what happens after the books end, so I decided to tie everything up in a nice neat bow before we get to the final novel in the series.

 THE SEDUCTION OF MR. SUMMERVILLE.

Yes, we get to know Lady Olivia's secret beforehand, but what follows in TSoMS is how it all plays out. I think it's going to be a fine ending to a very satisfying series. Well, at least I hope so.

Don't worry, Lady Olivia will certainly get her comeuppance, and Society will be shocked indeed, and I am purposely going to make you wait until the very last page to let you find out what happens to her, but just remember, I'm a romance writer. Everyone gets a happy ending.

So, what do you think of my new Lady Olivia?

Anne Gallagher (c) 2013