A Scandal To Remember ~

Book Two of the Gentleman Rogues

September 2004

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It would be completely scandalous for a royal princess to give her heart to a mere English nobleman....

Romantic Times K.I.S.S. Hero of the Month for September 2004 -
Click here for reviews   ~   Read chapters 1 & 2 here!

The exiled Princess Caroline has quite the dilemma. In the middle of an elegant ball given in her honor, she is stalked into a moonlit hedge-maze by a toweringly handsome man who then spirits her off to his gentleman's club. Then he informs her that not only is her life in danger from an unknown assassin, but he's there to protect her, whether she approves or not!

A spy for the Foreign Office, Andrew Chase, the dashing Earl of Wexford, detests playing nanny to arrogant royals. But the brazen and beautiful Princess Caroline takes his breath away, and the more he learns about this remarkable lady, the more she enchants him. Yet to save her life, Drew must reveal a shocking secret that could send Caroline's world spinning out of control...and risk losing his lady's love forever.

A Cinderella-In-Reverse story, A Scandal to Remember is a From Riches to Rags story...from Royal to Commoner...but with a delightfully regal happily ever after.

Author's Notes:

August 2004 -
Now that you've read the chapter 2 sneak peek, you can see that Princess Caroline hasn't time to deal with the likes of Andrew Chase, the arrogant Earl of Wexford who seems to think he has some control over her activities.  Not when she has her Boratanian treasures and historical artifacts to rescue before the Great Exhibition of 1851 to take place at Crystal Palace (see image below).  And with her coronation fast approaching, the last thing she needs is the mysterious Wexford looking over her shoulder at her every move.  Next month: the release of A SCANDAL TO REMEMBER!

July 2004 -
So what do you think?  After reading the sneak peek of the chapter 1, can't you just see Drew and Princess Caro together in the garden maze?  Okay, maybe they weren't exactly dancing, but they would have been if she hadn't been skulking around and he hadn't been following her through the shadows.  But the princess of Boratania has her own agenda and it surely doesn't include the surly, but exceedingly handsome, Earl of Wexford.  Hint: it all works out in the end.  And that's why I loooooooove romance!  Be sure to come back next month for a sneak peek at Chapter 2.

June 2004 -
Isn't that a gorgeous clinch?  Not only beautifully romantic, but all of the elements are correct!  In fact, the opening chapter actually takes place on the terraced garden and in the hedge maze on the grounds of an estate, at a ball being given in honor of the Princess Caroline.  Next month, you'll be able to check those elements for yourself.  Come on back for a visit and a sneak peek at Chapter One of A Scandal to Remember.  See you there!
 

May 2004 -
Here it is!  The official cover for my next book!  (Check back next month for the back cover image - with the most wonderful "clinch"/ artwork showing the hero and heroine!)

I'm often asked where I get the ideas for my books.  That question always stumps me, because I rarely have a ready answer that points directly from the original idea, to the finished story.  Although A Scandal to Remember is already on its way to the printer and therefore no longer a true "Work in Progress", it doesn't hit the stands until September, and has a great example of the process of taking an idea and turning it into a publishable story.

A Scandal to Remember is a Cinderella-In-Reverse story.  From Riches to Rags.  From Royal to Commoner.  But with a delightfully regal happily ever after.  

The seed of the idea had been following me since I was 16 years old and I first performed a scene from Anastasia in my drama class. It was the unforgettable confrontation between the exiled Dowager Empress and the young woman who calls herself Anastasia, daughter of the executed Romanov Tsar Nicholas and the Tsarina Alexandra.  You probably know the story -- the tsar and tsarina and their entire family -- including Anastasia -- were killed by the Bolshevics shortly after the Russian Revolution.  But long afterward rumors still circulated that Anastasia and her little brother Alexi had been spared and had been spirited out of Russia, where they went into hiding.

The play Anastasia opens ten years later.  An amnesiac young woman named Anna has surfaced from a life of wandering the streets and is being introduced to Paris society as the resurrected princess.  Anna's big test is to convince her grandmother, the Dowager Empress, that she is indeed the lost princess.  The confrontation scene is long and heart-wrenching as the Empress goes from disdain for the imposter princess, to scoffing, to wanting to believe, to finally believing that this woman is her precious granddaughter, her son's only surviving child.  Needing desperately to resurrect the love she had thought long dead, the Empress surrenders her heart to her memories, joyfully accepting Anna as her granddaughter.  

And here's where the seed of the idea for A Scandal to Remember comes in:  just before the empress leaves, bubbling over with her joy, she turns to Anastasia and says:  "Malenkaia, if you're not Anastasia. . . please. . . don't ever tell me."  

I love that line!  It speaks of the longing for love between two lost and lonely people, and the need to believe in each other. The young woman's identity doesn't matter, as long as both of them believe she's the long-lost Anastasia.  Is the woman Anastasia because the Empress believes her to be?  Does it matter who she is?  What is our identity based upon?  Does it depend upon how others see us?  Or how we see ourselves?

Years later, with that simple line of dialog plaguing me ever more strongly the older I got, I finally found a story to work around the concept -- A Scandal to Remember.

As you can imagine, the exiled Princess Caroline Marguerite Marie Isabella of Boratania is quite an imperious handful.  A perfect match for Andrew Chase, the Earl of Wexford, diplomat and master spy, whose assignment to protect the princess from an assassin thrusts them into a scandal of royal proportions.

Now, how I got from Anastasia to Cinderella-In-Reverse is another part of the story.