September 1st, 2026
Home | Log in!
Welcome to FreshFiction

Are you a reader
or an author?

Help us personalize your experience. Choose your role below.
You can always change this later using the switcher button.

or

You can switch anytime using the floating button.

Limited Time Fresh Fiction Access

Exclusive Marketing Opportunities for Authors

Curious about how Fresh Access helps authors gain more visibility and connect with active readers?

Discover premium promotional opportunities, enhanced exposure, and author-focused services designed to help your books stand out.

Read More →
📚 New Books This Week 📰 Latest News 🎪 Reader Games

Snowbound secrets, shifter wars, family lies, and epic battles β€” September delivers it all.

Slideshow image


slideshow image
Some promises cost you the one you love.

Test section:

slideshow image
The Temple of Kronos wants her dead. The Stoneslayer wants her destroyed. Neither will have her.

Test section:

slideshow image
A poisoned cousin, a five-year-old's life, and a family with too many secrets.

Test section:

slideshow image
Betrayal runs in her blood. Justice runs in his. Together, they burn it all down.

Test section:

slideshow image
"ANOTHER WINNER!"
From New York Times
Bestselling Cleo Coyle

Test section:

slideshow image
Running from her past, she finds a killer, a protector, and her faith.

A GROOM OF ONE'S OWN

A Groom of One's Own, July 2010
The Writing Girl #1
by Maya Rodale

Avon Books
Featuring: Henry William Cameron Hamilton; Sophie Harlow
384 pages
ISBN: 0061922986
EAN: 9780061922985
Kindle: B003MVZ3WO
Mass Market Paperback / e-Book
Add to Wish List

Purchase

"The Wedding of the Year!"

Fresh Fiction Review

A GROOM OF ONE'S OWN
Maya Rodale

Reviewed by Audrey Lawrence
Posted August 12, 2010

Romance Historical

Weddings! Pink and frothy, full of flowers and jewels - what was there not to like? Every new wedding Sophie Harlow had to cover for her newspaper column was different, but each had the same result. Every wedding evoked the memory of having been jilted right at the alter and each one made her sick with the emotional memories.

Yet, she loved her job and the bantering interaction between her and the other society writers at The London Weekly. They were widely known as the scandalous "Writing Girls" as many in London were still not as modern as they could be in 1832. Sophie relished the respectability, as well as the safe guards the four scribbling women used to protect their privacy. Being a journalist was better than the alternatives, as Sophie would remind herself at every wedding.

Knowing that her best friend, Julianna, would get the details, Sophie rushes from the wedding at St. George's, before her nerves make her a spectacle. Distracted, Sophie doesn't immediately notice that she is headed for a worse disaster, but fortunately, Henry William Cameron Hamilton, the 10th Duke of Hamilton and Brandon does. After rescuing the luscious brunette with the delightful pink lips, Mr. Brandon offers to escort Sophie home after making it clear he is not married.

Truer words were never spoken, but he just happened to neglect to mention that he is engaged! To make it worse, his upcoming wedding is the big exclusive Sophie has been commanded to cover. Sophie is appalled to discover her Mr. Brandon is set to marry the beautiful Lady Clarissa Richmond in less than a month. Sophie is dismayed, but is she dismayed enough to give up hope? After a lifetime of being a proper Duke, can Brandon give up his honor to follow his heart?

Maya Rodale has hit upon a winner of an idea with her new series, The Writing Girls. It provides a strikingly different means to write about the regency period while still being true to the era. I particularly enjoyed the interspersion of newspaper columns within and between the chapters. This device was a great vehicle to keep the plot moving and to highlight the stress and pretension that Sophie has to endure. This is a delightful read with its witty dialogue and strong secondary characters. Given that, some readers may find Sophie a little too brazen with her outrageous flirting with Brandon before his perspective in-laws and Brandon too dithering to be a hero you would want to dream about. Still, very glad it is a series! Enjoy!

Learn more about A GROOM OF ONE'S OWN

SUMMARY

Miss Harlow’s Marriage In High Life London, 1823 A handsome duke. His beautiful soon-to-be duchess. A whirlwind courtship. It is this author’s privilege to report on the event all of London is talking about: the upcoming wedding of the Duke of Hamilton and Brandon to the only daughter of the Duke of Richmond. Every details of the β€œWedding of the Year” will be reported in these pages as a London Weekly exclusive. But I, Miss Sophie Harlow, must confess to a secret infatuation with this β€œdouble duke” that can only lead to trouble. It is impossible that this notoriously upstanding gentleman would ever jilt his bride for a scandalous female newspaper writer. And yet...the arrival of a foreign prince, the discovery of a shocking secret, and one passionate kiss could change everything. Will this perfect duke risk the scandal of the year to marry the woman his heart desires? There are only just three more weeks until the wedding…

EXCERPT

β€œNewssheets! Only seven pence!” cried a young man standing at the corner with a stack of newspapers. β€œGet yer copy of The London Weekly!” he hollered, this time to the captive audience of dozens of people waiting to cross the street, including Sophie and Brandon. β€œDo you read such rubbish, Miss Harlow? Or are you particular to The Times?” Brand asked. Sophie managed a tight smile while thinking Oh, hell and damnation. Not only did she read The Weekly, but she wrote for it. She could not admit to that, nor could pride allow her to acknowledge The Times, archrival to her own paper, as worthy of her attentions. Nor did she wish to lie and said she did not read a paper at all. It would be horrible for Mr. Brandon to think her uninformed, or a fool. She so wanted to impress him. β€œI believe most of London reads that rubbish,” she said. When the path was clear, he pressed his hand at the small of her back to guide her through the crowds, and she experienced a shiver of pleasure. β€œThat is the truth. The Weekly is the one with those scandalous Writing Girls, writing about yet more scandals?” β€œThe very one,” Sophie answered, thinking that Mr. Knightly, proprietor of the paper, would love that description. β€œAnd what is your opinion of those scribbling women?” Everyone in town had something to say on the matter. She’d never been so keen to know what anyone thought until now. β€œI think it is scandalous, but far preferable to some of the other options available to a woman,” Brandon answered and Sophie smiled broadly. He would understand her chant of Seamstress or servant; governess or mistress. She was about to tell him that she was one of those scandalous women writing about scandal, but thenβ€” β€œOf course,” he continued. β€œI’d probably feel differently if the woman in question was one of my sisters, or my wife.” Sophie was, unfortunately, reacquainted with the sensation of hopes crashing and one’s heart sinking. β€œDo you have a wife?” β€œNo,” he said, and she waited for him to say β€œhowever,” or β€œbut” or to anything to send her hopes and heart into a tailspin, but he did not, and she dared to dream and entertain thoughts of This One.

BOOK SERIES

Writing Girl

A Groom of One's Own
A GROOM OF ONE'S OWN
#1.0 β€’ July 2010
A Tale Of Two Lovers
A TALE OF TWO LOVERS
#2.0 β€’ May 2011
The Tattooed Duke
THE TATTOOED DUKE
#3.0 β€’ March 2012

 

 

 

© 2003-2026 off-the-edge.net  all rights reserved Privacy Policy