Dear Reader…
I love history. I also love romance. And by romance, I mean the modern romance genre, not romance in the sense of Ivanhoe.
What’s the difference, you ask? Well, strictly speaking, “romance” in the academic sense applies to stories about the noble feats and adventures of heroes and knights. Sure, there is often a romantic component—a damsel in distress to be rescued or a lady whose favors are to be won—but there’s no requirement for those romantic elements to be central to the plot or that the love story ends happily. Some romances in this mold, in fact, end very unhappily—Wuthering Heights and Frankenstein are both classified as romances, after all!
So when I say I love romance, I mean a love story that ends with a happily ever after for the protagonists. And because I also love history, it makes sense that I’ve gravitated toward writing historical romances (though I do write the occasional contemporary romance as well, if that’s your jam).
My new release, Sleeping with the Enemy, is the fourth book in my Regency-set Lords of Lancashire series. But don’t worry. There’s no need to go back and read the first three books in the series (although I hope you’ll want to!), because this story really stands on its own. The hero of the book, Geoffrey Langston is related by blood or marriage to the characters in the first three books, but he doesn’t make any on-the-page appearances in any of them because he is an officer in the British Army and since Britain was at war with Napoleon Bonaparte throughout most of the first two decades of the nineteenth century, he was never actually “around” when the events in the other books took place. This means you don’t need to read those books to catch up on his backstory or anything.
Laura Farnsworth, the other main character, is an American widow who finds the injured Langston by the side of the road after the Battle of Plattsburgh in upstate New York toward the end of the War of 1812. (For confusing reasons, it’s called the War of 1812 but it actually lasted until the end of 1814.) She takes him home, nurses him back to health, and as is wont to happen in romance novels, they both catch feelings. Those feelings are complicated, however, by the fact that Geoffrey is a British officer and Laura is an American, and the two countries are currently at war. The stakes only get higher when Geoffrey is accused of treason and desertion. How will the pair get their happy ending?
All I can say is that I wrote the book to find that out, and I hope you’ll want to find out, too.
Love,
Author (Jackie)
About the Author
Jackie Barbosa can’t remember a time when she didn’t want to be an author when she grew up, but there were plenty of times when she wasn’t sure she ever would be. As it turns out, it just took her about twenty years longer to grow up than she expected!
On the road to publication, Jackie took a few detours, including a stint in academia (she holds an MA in Classics from the University of Chicago and was a recipient of a Mellon Fellowship in the Humanities) and many years as a technical writer/instructional designer for a data processing company. She still holds her day job, but her true vocation has always been writing fiction and romance in particular.
Jackie is a firm believer that love is the most powerful force in the world, which that makes romance the most powerful genre in the world. Don’t ever let anyone tell you otherwise!
WEBSITE & SOCIAL LINKS:
Website: http://www.jackiebarbosa.com
Twitter: https://twitter.com/jackiebarbosa
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/JackieBarbosaAuthor/
About the Book
When Mrs. Laura Farnsworth discovers the blood-stained body of a man wearing the distinctive red coat of the British army, her first instinct is to let dead dogs lie. It has, after all, been just two days since the Battle of Plattsburgh, and the disposition of enemy corpses is hardly her purview. But then the man proves himself to be very much alive by grabbing her ankle and mumbling incoherently.
After almost twenty-five years in His Majesty’s service, Lieutenant Colonel Geoffrey Langston never expected to wake up in heaven, much less being tended by an angel. But when he regains consciousness in the presence of a beautiful, dark-haired woman and with no memory of how he came to be there, what else can he think? Except it’s rather odd for an angel to have an American accent.
As the long-widowed Laura nurses the wounded Geoffrey back to health, the attraction between them heats from a simmer to a boil. Bound by his oath to the British crown, Geoffrey should be working to find his way back to his regiment and from the, to England. Instead, he’s sleeping with the enemy…and thereby committing the crime of desertion if not treason. But then, who’s going to find out?
If only Geoffrey didn’t have a family back home who refuse to take “missing in action” for an answer.
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