Elizabeth Hoyt | The Middle Child

So my May book is the third in a four book series set in Georgian England. The series is The Legend of the Four Soldiers and the book is To Beguile a Beast. The other three books are about soldiers coming home from war. But To Beguile a Beast doesn’t have a soldier hero.

Sir Alistair Munroe is a civilian naturalist.

The other three soldier heroes were in the British army when their regiment was decimated by the French and their Indian allies. They volunteered for the army or bought a commission, but in any case, they chose to be there.

Sir Alistair just happened to be at the wrong place at the wrong time.

And while the other heroines in The Legend of the Four Soldiers series are aristocratic heroines, Helen Fitzwilliam, the heroine of To Beguile a Beast is no aristocrat.

Nor is she a lady.

Sigh. Middle books like middle children sometimes don’t exactly fit in. When planning a series I often save the hero that I understand the best for last. I try to start out with a strong, likeable hero in the first book. The inbetween books are a place where a writer can experiment a little. And by experimenting often the best characters are born.

So To Beguile a Beast features a heroine who is a former mistress on the run from her erstwhile lover, and a hero who is scarred, surly, and lives in a dirty castle. On paper they certainly don’t look like an obvious match, but I think by the end you’ll believe that Alistair’s and Helen’s love is true, lasting, and very, very romantic.

I hope you enjoy reading To Beguile a Beast as much as I enjoyed writing it!

Elizabeth Hoyt
www.elizabethhoyt.com