![\"Bevie-and-Homer-med-quality-199x300\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/kate-hill.com\/compellingbeastsblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/Bevie-and-Homer-med-quality-199x300-199x300.jpg?resize=199%2C300\")
Why do I love a bad girl?<\/p>\nWhy do I love a bad girl?<\/p>\n
I love a bad girl.\u00a0 At school, I absolutely adored William Makepeace Thackeray\u2019s Vanity Fair<\/em> and fell in love with his anti-heroine Becky Sharp, a penniless, social-climbing governess who secretly marries her employer\u2019s son amidst a whole lot of money-grubbing and social politics.<\/p>\n That\u2019s just my kind of story!<\/p>\n I never warmed to Thackeray\u2019s heroine, the rather insipid, but very virtuous and sweet, Amelia Smedley, but of course, she was the perfect foil to Becky.<\/p>\n In a few days my own anti-heroine, Araminta, will make her flashy return to the scene in my Regency-set Daughters of Sin<\/em> series about the sibling rivalry of five sisters \u2013 two nobly born, three illegitimate. Beyond Rubies<\/strong> 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\u2026well, rather compromised.<\/p>\n Of course, Araminta is too much of a bad girl to be my heroine. Each book in the Daughters of Sin<\/em> series has one of the good sisters as its heroine, while in each, Araminta\u2019s exploits leads them into either scandal, murky intrigue or outright danger.<\/p>\n And bad girl Araminta nearly<\/em> gets her comeuppance. That will, of course, disappoint the readers who want to see Araminta \u201crun over by a phaeton\u201d or who are compelled to keep reading for the satisfaction of seeing her \u201crun through with a rapier.\u201d<\/p>\n Here\u2019s a bit about it.<\/p>\n Beyond Rubies<\/strong><\/p>\n Fame. Fortune. And finally a marriage proposal from a handsome viscount!<\/p>\n Kitty La Bijou, London\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n Gifted an exquisite ruby necklace by her noble lover, Kitty unwittingly becomes the target of a ring of dubious operators in London\u2019s underworld, headed by villainous viscount, Lord Debenham.<\/p>\n Salvation comes in the guise of two men: dashing Lord Nash who offers Kitty the respectability she craves. Available August 16 at Amazon.com<\/a> | Amazon UK<\/a> and other retailers.<\/p>\n![\"beyond-rubies-web](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/kate-hill.com\/compellingbeastsblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2016\/08\/beyond-rubies-web-1-200x300.jpg?resize=200%2C300\")
In Beyond Rubies<\/strong>, one of the illegitimate sisters, Kitty, is the star of the show \u2013 literally \u2013 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\u2019s not, but it takes her a while to figure that out and there\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n
\nAnd brave and noble Lord Silverton \u2013 the man she loves \u2013 who doesn\u2019t.<\/p>\n