We are on Tour with Avon Books Blog to bring to you readers and excerpt into Julie Anne Long's Pennyroyal Green Series It Started with a Scandal!
As the tenth book in the series, It Started with a Scandal will readers into the plight of our misfortuned heroine trying to keep herself employed with her son, and the Lord who find her in his house trying to change him. If you are new to this series, enjoy! there is a lot of great dialog and crafty characters to delight you. Long standing readers of the Pennyroyal Green Series, delight in continuing characters and frumpy Lords!About IT STARTED WITH A SCANDAL:
Lord Philippe Lavay once took to the high seas armed with charm as lethal as his sword and a stone-cold conviction: he’ll restore his family’s fortune and honor, no matter the cost. Victory is at last within
reach—when a brutal attack snatches it from his grasp and lands him in Pennyroyal Green.
An afternoon of bliss brings a cascade of consequences for Elise Fountain. Shunned by her family and ousted from a job she loves, survival means a plummet down the social ladder to a position no woman has yet been able to keep: housekeeper to a frighteningly formidable prince.
The bold and gentle Elise sees past his battered body into Philippe’s barricaded heart . . . and her innate sensuality ignites his blood. Now a man who thought he could never love and a woman who thought she would never again trust must fight an incendiary passion that could be the ruin of them both.
Our Thoughts On:
There are many great historical romance series out there, and some have as long of a set as The Pennyroyal Green Series, but few can keep up with characters as charming, dangerous and doomed, as Julie Anne Long’s. It Started With a Scandal is a fresh book in her line of the series with two characters that have been damaged in their lives and are both looking for a fresh start in their ways.
Elise Fountain made a mistake many years ago, one of the heart, that brought her scandal and misfortune in life, and she is trying to live up to her own expectations and that of keeping her son. There are not many who see a woman of worth this loose morals in this series, but Elise doesn’t let society keep her down, no she takes the reins with her latest job, housekeeping for a new Lord in town.
Lord Philippe Lavay does what he wants. He is like the epitome of the Mysterious Loner Dude, grumbling away in his dark rooms, with his dark mood and dangerous past. His days of fighting for his kin and country are over, and the damage done to his person haunts him while he has driven himself out of society. Cantankerous and prone to destructive moods within his household, Lord Lavay has driven his previous housekeeper away and finds himself face to face with Elise Fountain.
Pride goeth before a fall, always. She possessed many fine qualities, but she could also be perverse and obstinate, which even those who had claimed to love her were forced to admit. She would not be defeated by this man.
Elise and Lord Lavay both come heads to heads in this books, at first glance Lavay seems to dislike everybody. Elise doesn't let his attitude get to her, this may be her last job that she can take and keep her son Jack with her. Elise isn’t going to let some pouting Lord push her around, but while trying to get Lord Lavay out of his slump Elise find herself caught in a position more dangerous than just being fired again, she finds herself caring for Lavay more and more each day. Lavay himself has cast away the idea of finding love, and while he tries his best to keep away from his new housekeeper, he finds her creeping into his gruff exterior one cup of willow bark tea and massage at a time.
Now previous readers of the Pennyroyal Green Series will see the return of several characters throughout this book. Lord Lavay was the person who was rescued by Lyon in London, and Olivia returns also. Also Seamus Duggan returns from A Notorious Countess Confesses charming readers with his roguish appeal. And fans of I Kissed an Earl will find the return of Violet Redmond and her husband the Earl of Ardmay Asher Flint. So fans of previous books will get a little glimpse at some of their favorite characters.
Where We Share an Excerpt!
Now as part of this tour we are participating in sharing Chapter 1 of It Started with a Scandal, and this will be part 3 of the excerpt, so if you want 1-2 then below the excerpt will be listed previous blogs holding the first two parts of Chapter 1.
IT STARTED WITH A SCANDAL CHAPTER ONE PART THREE
Philippe glanced up in time to see Mrs. Fountain take a quick little extra step at the doorway of his chamber as she departed. It looked suspiciously like the beginning of a...frolic. He frowned. God, how the little details of the running of a household bored him. Odd, when the details involved in running a ship were so very similar and he relished those. It was just that one was a job for a man, and one was a job for a woman. Her doubted Mrs. Fountain was that woman. Why should she succeed when three others had already failed? He'd sacked two of them and the third had fled. He of course already knew certain things about her—the things the worthy Mrs. Winthrop had chosen to divulge, anyhow—that she was capable of the job, at the very least—and the fact that the quality of her character had allegedly been endorsed by the Redmonds. His closest friend, the Earl of Ardmay, happened to be married to a member of that esteemed family If there was any advantage to all of the people and events that had led to his convalescent exile in Pennyroyal Green, Sussex, England—cutthroats and kings, seductions and beheadings, exquisite pleasure and excruciating pain, sword fights, gun fights, pirate fights, the utter destruction of his way of life until all that was left of him was the stony-cold, ruthless determination to restore it—it was that he could read people as fluently and swiftly as he read five languages. Questions were merely a way to distract his subject while he quietly summed them up.. Mrs. Fountain's posture, her diction, her ability to look him in the eye and string together formal, persuasive English sentences, to use a word like “politics”...all of it betrayed more breeding than the usual housekeeper possessed. She was proud. Proud people often did excellent work; proud people often thought they were above their work. Proud people would find it difficult ot use the servant's stairs. His intuition told him she had a temper. And she blushed and pet the furniture, as if she'd never seen velvet before. Mrs. Fountain, was also, he suspected, a trifle desperate. He knew a bit about desperation. But whilst she spoke, a spiral of glossy black hair had escaped from its bondage of hairpins and settled against her temple like a treble clef. She didn't seem to be aware of it. It was so at odds with her precise speech and rigid spine that his mind had blanked and he'd almost forgotten what he was about to say. He'd almost forgotten to even think. He sighed. He'd unnerved her. It didn't matter. She would doubtless be gone within a fortnight, and hopefully the desperate Mrs. Fountain wouldn't take the rest f his silver with her. Charm had begun to seem superfluous in light of other urgencies. Certainly it had been no defense against the band of cutthroats who'd attacked him in London and left him with a lot less blood, a little less money, few more scars, and in debt to the last person on earth to whom he wished to owe his life. And he always, without fail, honored his debts. He stood again, slowly, stiffly and turned toward the window. The rain had ceased, and the sun was beginning to drop, and the sky was blushing. Pink had rushed into Mrs. Fountain's cheeks when he'd told her she could have the job. It had been rather like the sun rising to illuminate a delicate landscape. He'd ducked his head, feigning distraction, to spare her dignity. But not before he'd noticed a tiny impression, a dimple, in her chin. He'd imagined pressing the tip of his finger into it, just so. Perhaps further indication that he was right to ease up on his laudanum.
END IT STARTED WITH A SCANDAL CHAPTER ONE PART THREE! To read the rest of Chapter One, check out these blogs:
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On The Author:
About JULIE ANNE LONG
USA Today bestselling author JULIE ANNE LONG originally set out to be a rock star when she grew up (and she has the guitars and fringed clothing stuffed in the back of her closet to prove it), but writing was always her first love. Since hanging up her guitar for the computer keyboard, her books frequently top reader and critic polls and have been nominated for numerous awards, including the Rita, Romantic Times Reviewer’s Choice, and The Quills, and reviewers have been known to use words like “dazzling,” “brilliant,” and “impossible to put down” when describing them. Julie lives in Northern California.
Visit Julie at http://www.julieannelong.com, http://www.facebook.com/AuthorJulieAnneLong, or twitter.com/JulieAnneLong
Visit Julie at http://www.julieannelong.com, http://www.facebook.com/AuthorJulieAnneLong, or twitter.com/JulieAnneLong
Where to buy IT STARTED WITH A SCANDAL
Barnes and Noble: http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/it-started-with-a-scandal-julie-anne-long/1121318431
Google Play: https://play.google.com/store/books/details/Julie_Anne_Long_It_Started_with_a_Scandal?id=eWmdBAAAQBAJ
1 comment:
Thanks for your review. I love this series and it's good to read that characters from previous books make an appearance. Thanks for the opportunity.
Carol L
Lucky4750 (at) aol (dot) com
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