After an unexpectedly busy day yesterday, I just posted the winner of the ARC contest for The Paris Affair. Sorry for the delay and thanks so much to everyone who posted!
Over the past week on Facebook I highlighted the Lescaut Quaret, my four linked historical romantic suspense novels which are now available as e-books. I realized I don’t post about them much here and thought I would repeat my thoughts on the blog. Though the emphasis is more in the love story in these books than in the Malcolm & Suzanne/Charles & Mélanie books, they also contain a balance of adventure, suspense, and romance set against the Napoleonic Wars. In writing them I was experimenting with a number of themes, settings, and historical events which I later used in the Fraser/Rannoch books.
Dark Angel, the first of the four, begins in Spain in 1813 in the midst of the Peninsular War. There is a social divide between the heroine Caroline and the hero Adam, which plays out in a different way between Malcolm and Suzanne. And the book introduces the French spy Robert Lescaut. In my mind, Suzanne/Mélanie is connected to the Lescaut family…
Shores of Desire is my first attempt at writing about Waterloo and post-Waterloo Paris. Not to mention a hero and heroine on opposite sides in the Napoleonic Wars, though it’s the hero, Robert Lescaut, who’s the French agent while Emma Blair is Scottish.
The French Revolution is so important to the back story of so many of my books, and Shadows of the Heart really gave me a chance to explore that dynamic. It’s also the book in which I wrote about pregnancy, childbirth, and caring for an infant long before I went through any of it myself (I was relieved on rereading it to find it rang pretty true). And the conflict between a radical journalist and a stylish aristocrat calls to mind scenes from this season of Downtown Abbey…
Rightfully His is a novel in which I explored political intrigue, the early days of railroads, and the complexities of a marriage of convenience. Charlotte and Francis are very different from Suzanne and Malcolm, but both couples are adjusting to a sudden marriage that is not all it seems from the outside. And this book features one my favorite villains I have ever created…
If you’ve read the Lescaut Quartet, do you see echoes of the Fraser/Rannoch books? If you haven’t read the quartet, what questions do you have about the books?
This week’s Fraser Correspondence letter is from David to Charles. Writing it gave me some insights into David’s father, Lord Carfax, who figures prominently in my WIP…
Tracy Grant - Novelist 