SHADOWS AND SILK SERIES #SophieDarling

Sofie Darling will be awarding a $25 Amazon or Barnes and Noble GC to a randomly drawn winner via rafflecopter during the tour.

Shadows and Silk Series

Three Lessons in Seduction

Tempted by the Viscount

by Sofie Darling

GENRE: Historical Romance

Since Regency romance is, at heart, historical fiction, there are certain specific challenges that accompany the writing of it. (I would also like to note that these challenges happen to be where I find the fun in writing the genre.)

First, there is the history itself. It must be researched and respected. It must be correct, and it’s on the writer to make sure it is. (Never underestimate the readers. They KNOW their history.) But here is where the fun lives, too. For example, when I was researching the first novel in my Shadows and Silk series, Three Lessons in Seduction, I knew what year (1824) and city (Paris) the story needed to be set, but I needed more information about the political situation to fully develop the spy intrigue. After a few days of scouring the internet and my local library, I’d found the perfect historical situation and event to twine the story around.

Second, there is the language. It’s vitally important to get this correct, and it’s a tricky balance. We can’t have the hero walking up to the heroine and saying, “What’s up?” It’s too modern. This is where reading period fiction like Jane Austen and the Bronte sisters has been useful to my writing. I’m able to absorb the spoken language of the period and utilize it with my characters.

For me, however, the greatest challenge of writing Regency fiction is making the story relevant to a modern audience without being anachronistic. I like to create characters who exist within aristocratic English society, but don’t always play by its rules. But it takes knowing and (again) researching the time period to figure out how much a character can be an outlier without being completely out of time. I have a rule: if someone did it once, then it’s fair game. For example, in Tempted by the Viscount, my heroine, Olivia, is a divorcee. In fact, she is only the fourth woman to be granted a divorce by Parliament on the grounds of desertion. Why is she the fourth? In actual history, there had been three divorces granted by 1825, so I felt free to add Olivia to their number. If there had been zero divorces, then I would have had to go a different way with the story.

So, yes, there is a bit of extra work that goes into writing Regency romance, but it’s just so much fun that I don’t mind it a bit!

Thank you so much for inviting me over today!
Xo, Sofie

THREE LESSONS IN SEDUCTION Blurb:

Lord Nicholas Asquith needs his wife. Too bad he broke her heart ten years ago.

Can he resist a second chance at the love he lost?

When Mariana catches the eye of the man at the center of an assassination plot, Nick puts aside their painful past and enlists her to obtain information by any means necessary, even if it means seducing the enemy agent.

Even if the thought makes his blood boil.

Only by keeping his distance from Mariana these last ten years was he able to pretend indifference to her. With every moment spent with her, he feels his tightly held control slipping...

Can she trust the spy who broke her heart?

Mariana spent the last decade forgetting Nick. Now she has the chance to best him at his own game, an opportunity she can’t resist, even as her view of him begins to shift. Increasingly, she wants nothing more than to seduce her own husband . . .

It’s only a matter of time before mad passion ignites, a passion never convincingly extinguished. A passion that insists on surrendering to the yearning of the flesh and, quite possibly, of the heart.



Excerpt from THREE LESSONS IN SEDUCTION:

“Unbutton your dress?” Nick repeated. It wasn’t possible he’d heard those words in that order.

“Have you spent a single minute of your life bound within layers of corset, shift, and tightly buttoned dress? Has this ever been required for one of your spy missions?”

He couldn’t miss the scorn in her voice. “Never.”

“Then you’ll have to trust me when I suggest that it’s a bloody fantastic idea for you to unbutton me. You’ve done it before, in case you’ve forgotten.”

“I haven’t,” he said, his voice incapable of more than a low, gravelly rumble.

She blinked, and a moment passed.

Reason bade Nick exit the room and abandon the entire proposition. Under no circumstance should he close the distance between them and place his hands on Mariana’s body. Paper thin layers of chartreuse silk and muslin between his fingers and her skin wouldn’t be enough.

A few quick steps could carry him to her.

A few quick steps could undo him.

BUY LINK:
https://www.amazon.com/Three-Lessons-Seduction-Sofie-Darling-ebook/dp/B074WGWGMK/

TEMPTED BY THE VISCOUNT Blurb:

London, April 1825

Lord Jakob Radclyffe left his past behind in the Far East. Or so he thinks until a ruthless thief surfaces in London, threatening to ruin his daughter’s reputation. With the clock ticking, Jake needs the scandalous Lady Olivia Montfort’s connections in the art world to protect his daughter’s future.

Olivia, too, has a past she’d like to escape. By purchasing her very own Mayfair townhouse, she’ll be able to start a new life independent from all men. There’s one problem: she needs a powerful man’s name to do so. The Viscount St. Alban is the perfect name.

A bargain is struck.

What Olivia doesn’t anticipate is the temptation of the viscount. The undeniable spark of awareness that races between them subverts her vow to leave love behind. Soon, she has no choice but to rid her system of Jake by surrendering to her craving for a single scorching encounter.

But is once enough? Sometimes once only stokes the flame of desire higher and hotter. And sometimes once is all the heart needs to risk all and follow a mad passion wherever it may lead.


Excerpt from TEMPTED BY THE VISCOUNT:

His feet began a slow prowl forward, steadily erasing the distance between them, inch by deliberate inch. She should feel panicked, or, at least, unsettled, by his purposeful approach. But those feelings refused to take hold. The anxiety and anticipation of seconds ago flared into a single overwhelming sensation: desire, white hot, ravenous.

He drew within a foot of her and stopped. The only sound in the room the jagged in and out of her breath.

So this was what it was to be a wanton? Aching from the nearness of his withheld touch, excruciatingly delicious and exquisitely tortured all at once.

“Why are you here?” she muttered.

“How should I answer that question?” he returned, his voice a low, masculine register that quaked her to her core. His head lowered, lips hovering just above hers for one, two, three rapid heartbeats, his breath a whisper across her lips. “Like this?”


BUY LINK:
https://www.amazon.com/Tempted-Viscount-Shadows-Silk-Novel-ebook/dp/B07CHP5ZSD/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1535511283&sr=8-2&keywords=Sophie+Darling

Sophie Darling, Author

Sofie Darling spent much of her twenties raising two boys and reading every book she could get her hands on. Once she realized that she was no longer satisfied with simply reading the books she loved, that she must write them, too, she decided to finish her degree and embark on a writing career. Mr. Darling and the boys gave her their wholehearted blessing.

When she’s not writing heroes who make her swoon, she runs a marathon in a different state every year, visits crumbling medieval castles whenever she gets a chance, and enjoys a slightly codependent relationship with her beagle, Bosco.

WEBSITE:
http://www.sofiedarling.com/

SOCIAL MEDIA LINKS:
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Twitter: https://twitter.com/sofie_darling
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sofiedarlingluv/
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GIVEAWAY INFORMATION 

Sofie Darling will be awarding a $25 Amazon or Barnes and Noble GC to a randomly drawn winner via rafflecopter during the tour.


a Rafflecopter giveaway