So much is going on. Thanks to all of you who have read Pleasures of a Tempted Lady, and thanks so much for your emails–I love hearing from readers. And I appreciate all of you so much!

I’ve turned in my next book, The Duchess Hunt–it’s the start of a new series, The House of Trent, and I’ve started to write book two, The Rogue’s Proposal! This is the story of the bad-boy younger brother of the Duke of Trent, and it’s going to be a blast writing his story!

I’m researching Bristol for the beginning of the book, because Bristol is where the heroine lives and where her father made his fortune. Today, I came across a sad little story from La Belle Assemblee in 1810:

An inquest was held on Monday March 20 at Worcester on the body of the son of Mr Harris, attorney of that city. It appears that this was on his return to school after having visited his parents. While on the road he wept, and said to the female who accompanied him that he would not go to school. She intreated him return home; this he also refused to do and when they arrived at a place called the Ketch, he said “Good bye”, and rushing down the steep plunged into River Severn and was drowned. The Jury found in their verdict that the deceased being under the age of discretion (twelve years old) and not knowing good from evil did in the passion of either grief or discontent cast himself into the Severn and was there drowned.

My goodness. The poor kid. I am dying to know why he did what he did… 🙁 My writerly mind wants to write a story about him, in which he crawls up on the other side of the bank, lives in seclusion for a while, then falls in love with the girl, and they marry and live until they’re 90 and have 10 children. Sigh…

Do you ever read stories in newspapers or elsewhere that pique your imagination like this? It seems like I do a lot, but I always want to twist them into happy endings.

I still have lots of books left from the RWA conference, so I’ll choose one poster to win 5 books of their choice from my list!