Monday, October 19, 2015

Today THE STANHOPE CHALLENGE 11+ months on #Regency bestseller lists! THANK YOU from Cerise!



I am delighted to announce that as of today THE STANHOPE CHALLENGE about 4 brothers, 4 love affairs, 4 marriages and one big family curse is officially on Amazon's Regency bestseller list for 11 months! Eleven.  On ARe's for more than 2 months, as well.

Astonishing and delightful to behold, that achievement makes me very proud and very, very grateful to thousands of readers worldwide who have bought the box set and enjoyed it.

This box set's reception has taught me much about the habits of those who read Regencies, those who buy this genre and what many look for and appreciate in a book and a box set.

The set, I do believe, has done well because of the very nature of the stories. First, it is a family tale. Four brothers, titled and talented, have agreed that marriage is not a fine idea in a family supposedly cursed by an incident more than one hundred years before their time. This incident was not even of their making but done to them by King Charles II who took a Stanhope wife to be his mistress and destroyed the love affair between the Stanhope couple.

Second, the price of 99 cents remains appealing to many. While it is "a deal" to many who love to read, it is also a great price by which an author can be introduced, so to speak, to a new reader.  That phenomenon has occurred here as many of those readers have tried my other Regency romances.

That has sustained me and my writing throughout the past 11 months.

It also encouraged me to try my hand with another box set with five of my colleagues who write Regencies.  The success of THE INCOMPARABLES, also a best seller at Amazon and ARe, has been truly wonderful.  With Sabrina York, Susanna Medeiros, Suzi Love, Lynne Connolly and Dominique Eastwick, I put together this collection of novels about heroes who fought at Waterloo. This set sells for 99 cents and will soon go off sale! Do purchase this wonderful set of superb stories NOW!
 Amazon  ARe   KOBO    NOOK



Monday, October 12, 2015

Hire #Regency HER BEGUILING BUTLER for #99cents before @cerisedeland raises his salary!

Butlers in Regency period England earned 50 guineas a year! Plus room and board!
That is equal to $80.00 if one does not count for two centuries of inflation.
Still. Poor, isn't it?
My story about a butler in a fictitious Regency era London household stars a man who isn't really a butler, but he tries very hard.
Come see why! And buy him for 99 cents before his salary rises!
BLURB:
   The lovely widow at Number Ten Dudley Crescent hopes to lead a merry life without any husband to replace the elderly one she recently buried. Yet Lady Ranford finds herself in a pickle. Her new butler, Finnley, is not only the most obstinate man she’s ever met, but also an enigma.
   She’s never been lured to naughtiness with a man. Heaven knows, she certainly shouldn’t fantasize about the tall, dark, scowling creature who runs her household like his finely tuned pocket watch.
   But she can’t help herself. She needs to taste him—or dismiss him.
Finnley, poor fellow, has a few risqué dreams of his own about how he’d like to handle the delectable widow. Alone in his rooms, he tries to deny how her humor riddles his mind and how her beauty steals his breath away. 
   None of his solutions are proper.
   All of his desires are quite…dear me…scandalous.
   But what’s a butler to do when the very life of his beloved employer is at stake? And he cannot control his need to protect her and…ahem…bed her?

Need a Nibble of HER BEGUILING BUTLER?  Copyright 2015, Cerise DeLand. All rights reserved.
“What is your background, Finnley?”
He frowned. Why would she ask? His cover was superb. His acting, excellent.
“Ah, ah.” She waved a forefinger in front of him. “No prevarications, sir.”
He shot ramrod straight. “I told you of my past. You have my reference.”
She inched closer to him, so near he could see the purple rays in the glory of her velvet eyes. “I do, dear Finnley. But why do you speak with such crisp precision? Why do you command me with your very presence? Your power?”
“Ma’am?”  Was that his voice that sounded like an echo of his own? She should not undo him. But she did.
“Wallace Finnley. You have education and breeding. I can tell. Do you know how?”
He shook his head, her nearness a magnet to his body, his soul. Her lips, his only lure.
“For one thing, you own that very fine, very French Ferdinand Berthoud pocket watch. My great-uncle owned one similar.” She dropped her eyes toward the point on his chest where he kept his treasure. “I can hear the delicate chimes when it rings every quarter hour.”
He should have left it in his rooms. But it was the dearest memento he owned from his grandfather. Besides, he ran his daily duties by the precision of it. “I cannot part with it. It keeps me on task.”
“It does. I see it.”
“May I go now?”
“No. Certainly not. I would learn more. You say you come from Yorkshire. But I detect no hint of it in your pronunciation. You went to school. Some fine institution that weaned you from your native speech. Where?”
Good god. She was perceptive. He set his jaw. He’d not reveal his year at Edinburgh. He never told anyone of that, he’d hated it so. “The Army was my schooling. Taught me responsibility.”
“Your rank?”
“Captain.”
She smiled at him, her face around her eyes crinkling in appreciation. “So then your family purchased a commission for you?”
My father gave me nothing of value. “I ran away. Began as a recruit.”
“Noble of you.”
Book 2 Coming soon!
“Necessary, ma’am.” He shook his head, thinking them done, moving to rise.
She caught his hand. “A moment, Finnley. There is more to your story. From your time in the Army, I see then when and how you acquired your demeanor with those under your command.”
He wished to escape her touch and her sound perception. “The Army gave me a good education.”
“And war is a demanding teacher,” she concluded.
“It was. I wish to never fight again.”
“Nor do any of us. My brother died. At Waterloo.”
He schooled himself to remain placid. Her brother had been his best friend. What he did here for Alicia was as much for her as for Jerome.
“I find it intriguing, dear Finnley, that with such rank in the military, you now offer yourself in domestic service.”
Her statement, he knew, was a question and he had to avoid the whole answer of his origins. “Being a butler is an honorable occupation.”
She fell back to her cushions, her hand dropping and freeing him of her hold.  Her expression told him she was dismayed with his obstinate ways.
He stepped backward and rubbed his wrist. 
She stared at him, clear-eyed and assured. “Finnley, I will be forthright. I look into your endearing blue eyes and can see that when you speak truth to me, your pupils darken and enlarge.”
What?
Book 3 soon to follow!
“And when you lie to me, your pupils constrict and your body tightens like a drum.”
Well, damn. Foiled by my eyes?
Once more, she took his hand and put his open palm to her soft cheek. “Might you care for me, Finnley?”
Might? There was no might.
“I see in your eyes that you do,” she whispered. “Tell me who you really are, dear sir. And then we can begin again. Anew.”

AUTHOR BIO :
   An author acclaimed for her eloquence and scintillating tales of romance and suspense, Cerise DeLand writes historical and contemporary novels with spice and charm. Visit http://www.cerisedeland.com

HER BEGUILING BUTLER, #1 in series about naughty servants and their delightful masters and mistresses!
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Tuesday, October 6, 2015

Cerise visits #London with 10 BURNING Questions About #Regency #England!

Every author and many readers often wonder precisely what is real and what is true fiction in any novel.
As I walk around London, I am asking myself these often overlooked aspects.
See if any of them are also your burning questions!

1. If I live on Brook Street, is it really a friendly walk to Oxford Street?
2. If I want to buy a hat at a milliner's shop or visit a dressmaker on Half Moon Street, must I hire a carriage, say, if I live in Grosvenor Square?

3. And if I do hire a carriage, where would mine be housed? Is there a mews behind many of these famous squares in Mayfair? Or were there?

4. How do the numbers run around a square? Might not seem like a Burning Question, but when one writes a series (as I do) about folks who live and work in one, it helps to know how the numbers run or ran so that I'm not sending people helter-skelter.
5. In the rear of grand squares do alleys run? Or are they something else? Named something other than alley or access or lane?
hmmm.

6. When I go to Rules, opened in 1798, what's on the menu that a lord and lady might have ordered for their meals?
Think I'll ask my waiter!

7. Where can I get bangers and mash? (And why?)

8. I also need a pasty. My mother made them often and I yearn for a good one. Question is where do I go?

This pix of the TOWER gives me chills because it shows the poppies,
one ceramic flower for each man lost in the Great War
from each country in the Empire.
9. Finally, when I go visit the TOWER for my empty-umpth time, will I still get that little shiver of excitement...and will Mr. DeLand (who frankly seems addicted to the place!) once more swear he was there long ago with William, his pal?

10. In Bath, can I find one superb little gift for my new granddaughter? And in London, I must find a really good set of English buses or trains for my grandson. Question is where?

Ta Ta! Talk soon! When I get answers to these I will post them! Yes, I know. You think I am thorough but a little barmy, too, eh?