Unrequited love is one of my favorite themes in a romance novel, yet HOW TO PLEASE A LADY is the
first time I’ve ever used it. Just think of some of the most heartbreaking love
stories--Gone with the Wind, Wuthering Hearts, The Phantom of the
Opera, and more—which use this wonderful plot device so adeptly. Is there
anything more heart-wrenching than being in love with someone who doesn’t love
you back? Most unrequited love stories end tragically (The Hunchback of
Notre Dame, Cyrano de Bergerac are particularly tragic).
Even Charlie Brown’s love of the Little Red-headed Girl can make my heart break
just a little bit.
These stories that make your heart hurt for the poor sap who’s in love with the
unaware and often unknowingly cruel recipient of their affections always appeal
to me as a reader. It was a little more difficult as a writer because I wanted
my characters to be happy and torturing either one wasn’t easy! None of the
stories on my list ended happily, but I’m a romance writer and sad endings just
aren’t my schtick. But I still love the idea of a man in love with a woman, who
is blissfully unaware of that love.
Such is the case for my hero, Charlie, who is desperately and horrifyingly in
love with the daughter of an earl. Worse, Charlie is the estate’s head groom and
has no chance of ever winning his lady’s heart. For one, he would never let the
lady know of his feelings. He’s a servant, she’s a lady and in Victorian England
that should be the end of the story.
But fate does bring them together and life had a way of leveling the playing
field, which is what happens in my story. Poor Lady Rose hasn’t a clue that
Charlie’s heart picks up a beat every time he sees her. She likes Charlie, even
considers him a friend, but the invisible wall between servant and master is
almost impossible to climb. Until the walls are gone.
In writing HOW TO PLEASE A
LADY, it was important that I not make Lady Rose seem knowingly cruel.
Rather, she is a little clueless, perhaps self-centered, and very much a lady of
her times. The wonderful thing about Charlie is that he forgives Rose for her
unwillingness to even consider him as a possible match. He knows as well as she
does that the two of them would never be able to live a life together in England.
But all that changes when the two reach American soil where class is far less
important.
Jane Goodger lives in Rhode Island with her husband, three children,
Chihuahua, one-eyed cat, and a ferret. She works full-time, and operates an
editing service in between writing Victorian-set historical romances. In her
free time (hahahaha), Jane watches HGTV and dreams of fixing up her 1940s
colonial. A former journalist, Jane has lived in Virginia, Washington, D.C., and
Pozzuoli, Italy.
Run though they might, love will find them
Lady Rose Dunford is
shocked--and titillated--by the number of female visitors coming and going from
her mysterious new neighbor's Manhattan brownstone. Recently widowed by the
death of her very sweet, but not very exciting husband, Rose finds it difficult
to imagine just what the attraction could be.
And then she meets the
bachelor in question. Not only is Charlie Avery dashing and outrageously good
looking--she knows him! He is none other than the man who once helped her escape
the dreary matchmaking plans of her father, the man she once dreamed she could
love. Can Charlie's presence next door be an accident? Or has he come to show
her everything he has learned about…
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