Why do I love a bad girl?
I love a bad girl. At school, I absolutely adored William Makepeace Thackeray’s Vanity Fair and fell in love with his anti-heroine Becky Sharp, a penniless, social-climbing governess who secretly marries her employer’s son amidst a whole lot of money-grubbing and social politics.
That’s just my kind of story!
I never warmed to Thackeray’s heroine, the rather insipid, but very virtuous and sweet, Amelia Smedley, but of course, she was the perfect foil to Becky.
In a few days my own anti-heroine, Araminta, will make her flashy return to the scene in my Regency-set Daughters of Sin series about the sibling rivalry of five sisters – two nobly born, three illegitimate. Beyond Rubies is Book 4 and Araminta has been competing for the affections of one very dangerous gentleman who unexpectedly marries her sweet and placid sister, Hetty, leaving Araminta…well, rather compromised.
Of course, Araminta is too much of a bad girl to be my heroine. Each book in the Daughters of Sin series has one of the good sisters as its heroine, while in each, Araminta’s exploits leads them into either scandal, murky intrigue or outright danger.
In Beyond Rubies, one of the illegitimate sisters, Kitty, is the star of the show – literally – as she goes to London to seek her fortune and becomes the most highly acclaimed actress of the day and also mistress to dashing Lord Nash, whom she believes is her destiny. He’s not, but it takes her a while to figure that out and there’s a lot of cloak-and-dagger over the mysterious origins of a diamond and ruby necklace which Araminta has sold in order to achieve a dubious outcome, and which embroils Kitty before she gets her man.
And bad girl Araminta nearly gets her comeuppance. That will, of course, disappoint the readers who want to see Araminta “run over by a phaeton” or who are compelled to keep reading for the satisfaction of seeing her “run through with a rapier.”
Here’s a bit about it.
Beyond Rubies
Fame. Fortune. And finally a marriage proposal from a handsome viscount!
Kitty La Bijou, London’s celebrated actress, is on the cusp of achieving her greatest ambition when Lady Debenham, her secret half-sister, involves Kitty in a deception that plunges her into a world of treachery and deceit.
Gifted an exquisite ruby necklace by her noble lover, Kitty unwittingly becomes the target of a ring of dubious operators in London’s underworld, headed by villainous viscount, Lord Debenham.
Salvation comes in the guise of two men: dashing Lord Nash who offers Kitty the respectability she craves.
And brave and noble Lord Silverton – the man she loves – who doesn’t.
Available August 16 at Amazon.com | Amazon UK and other retailers.
Thank you so much for hosting me, Kate 🙂
I think a lot of people really like a thoroughly well-drawn ‘bad girl’.