Elizabeth Hoyt GIVEAWAY

Available: Now Amazon/B&N

Publisher: Grand Central

Type: Historical Romance

A Masked Man . . . 

Winter Makepeace lives a double life. By day he’s the stoic headmaster of a home for foundling children. But the night brings out a darker side of Winter. As the moon rises, so does the Ghost of St. Giles—protector, judge, fugitive. When the Ghost, beaten and wounded, is rescued by a beautiful aristocrat, Winter has no idea that his two worlds are about to collide.

A Dangerous Woman . . .

Lady Isabel Beckinhall enjoys nothing more than a challenge. Yet when she’s asked to tutor the Home’s dour manager in the ways of society— flirtation, double-entendres, and scandalous liaisons—Isabel can’t help wondering why his eyes seem so familiar—and his lips so tempting.

A Passion Neither Could Deny

During the day Isabel and Winter engage in a battle of wills. At night their passions are revealed . . . But when little girls start disappearing from St. Giles, Winter must avenge them. For that he might have to sacrifice everything—the Home, Isabel . . . and his life.

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Past Books In The Series

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Elizabeth Hoyt is the New York Times, USA Today, and Publishers Weekly bestselling author of historical romance, including reader favorite, The Raven Prince.

Elizabeth was born in New Orleans but grew up in St. Paul, Minnesota. She was fortunate to be able to travel extensively as a child, visiting St. Andrews, Scotland; Germany; France; and Belgium. She spent a year in Oxford, England and was a summer exchange student to Kawasaki, Japan.

Elizabeth has a BA in anthropology from the University of Wisconsin at Madison and, as a result of having no clue what to do with her life thereafter, a career history as a barista, a (terrible) sales clerk, a Wisconsin Revenue Service data entry slave, and an archeological field work grunt. Fortunately, Elizabeth married relatively young and produced two children who kept her busy until her mid-thirties. At about this time, when her youngest was entering Kindergarten, Elizabeth’s mother hinted that perhaps Elizabeth should get a Real Job.

Sadly, Elizabeth was so delusional she thought writing a romance novel might qualify as a Real Job.

But! Five years later, to everyone’s surprise, she actually sold that romance novel (The Raven Prince) and began a rather successful career as a Romance Novelist. This was most fortunate since Elizabeth is singularly unqualified to do anything else but Make Up Stories.

Since then Elizabeth has written eleven books to critical acclaim: The Prince Trilogy (The Raven Prince, The Leopard Prince, and The Serpent Prince); the Legend of the Four Soldiers series (To Taste Temptation, To Seduce a Sinner, To Beguile a Beast, and To Desire a Devil); and the Maiden Lane series (Wicked Intentions, Notorious Pleasures, Scandalous Desires, and the upcoming Thief of Shadows.) All of Elizabeth’s books are set in eighteenth century England and all feature a fairy tale story that serves as a foil to the main story.

Elizabeth’s books have finaled five times in Romance Writers of America’s prestigious RITA award contest, have won two Romantic Times Reviewer’s Choice Awards, and were nominated for a third. All of her books have received Top Pick reviews from Romantic Times BookReviews magazine. Wicked Intentions, Notorious Pleasures and Scandalous Desires received starred reviews fromPublishers Weekly. Four of her books were voted into All About Romance’s (AAR’s) Top 100 Romances of All Time list and six were Desert Isle Keepers at AAR. Elizabeth’s books have been translated into thirteen languages.

Elizabeth researches extensively for her historical romances, both by reading books on topics such as: history, costume, warfare, social mannerisms, and cooking, and frequenting museums whenever she can to study portraits and the little dogs that aristocratic Georgian ladies seem to always be holding. When desperate she often consults Mr. Hoyt, who is an archaeologist and Historical Research Wizard.

Elizabeth lives in central Illinois with a trio of untrained canines and a garden in constant need of weeding.

• Elizabeth’s interview at All About Romance

Fun Facts about Elizabeth

Elizabeth is a five-time Romance Writers of America RITA finalist, has won two Romantic Times Reviewer’s Choice Awards, was nominated for two more, and was nominated for a lifetime award in Innovative Historical Romance—despite the fact that she’s only been published for three years at the time. All of Elizabeth’s books to date have rated a “Top Pick!” from Romantic Times Book Reviews. Elizabeth’s books have been translated into thirteen languages: Russian, French, Spanish, Italian, Turkish, Japanese, Portuguese, Czech, German, Hungarian, Thai, Chinese, and Indonesian. At sixteen Elizabeth Hoyt was once accidentally locked in the Ashmolean Museum—the oldest museum in Britain—in Oxford England. Apparently, she didn’t hear the bell that warns that the museum is about to close. She denies categorically that the reason she didn’t hear the bell was because at the time she was looking at risqué Greek pottery. Elizabeth spent much of her youth catching frogs in the ponds of Minnesota—her father was a frog biologist. To this day she is one of the few people in the world who can tell the difference between a frog and a toad. Elizabeth once won a pumpkin in a fourth grade composition contest. Despite—or perhaps because—of this prize she did not take up writing again until she was thirty-five. Elizabeth has three dogs named (in descending size) Max, Fritz, and Rue. All three dogs are mutts and were acquired from the local animal shelter. None of the dogs are trained. Elizabeth met Mr. Hoyt on an archaeological dig. Her initial impression was that he was something of a jerk. Time would prove otherwise. Elizabeth is an avid—some would say rabid—gardener. She has twenty-six named varieties of daylilies in her garden and too many different hostas to count. Don’t get her started about the iniquity of slugs. One of Elizabeth’s few skills is eating with chopsticks. She was adept at this even before she spent a summer in Japan as a teenager.

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I have one copy of Thief Of Shadows to give to a US or Canadian winner! Simply comment to enter and answer his question:

What is your favorite historical romance book?

Thank you to the great ladies at JOAN SCHULHAFER PUBLISHING & MEDIA CONSULTING for providing the copy of the giveaway today! I will leave this contest open until July 3rd 2012 with the winner announced shortly afterwards. Don’t forget to leave me a way to find you if you win.  

An Affair With Mr. Kennedy by Jillian Stone

Available: Now Amazon/B&N

Type: Historical Romance

Publisher: Pocket Stone

My Copy: Sent

London, 1887. Part stoic gentleman, part fearless Yard man, Zeno “Zak” Kennedy is an enigma of the first order. For years, the memory of a deadly bombing at King’s Cross has haunted the brilliant Scotland Yard detective. His investigation has zeroed in on a ring of aristocratic rebels whose bloody campaign for Irish revolution is terrorizing the city. When he discovers one of the treacherous lords is acquainted with his free-spirited new tenant, Cassandra St. Cloud, his inquiry pulls him unexpectedly close to the heart of the conspiracy—and into the arms of a most intriguing lady.

Cassie is no Victorian prude. An impressionist painter with very modern ideas about life and love, she is eager for a romantic escapade that is daring and discreet. She sets her sights on her dour but handsome landlord, but after she learns their meeting was not purely accidental, she hardly has a chance to forgive her lover before their passionate affair catapults them both into a perilous adventure.

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Detective Zeno Kennedy only has a matter of time before a notoriously elusive bomb group strikes again. Standing in his way of finally finding out their identities is his new tenant, Cassandra. He knows she has connections within the group but can’t be sure if she is aware of who she associates with.

Cassandra knows her new landlord has questions for her but she can’t focus on those and her career as a artist too. She is determined not to fall into bed with a man again, no matter how much she desires to. Slowly, Zeno is wearing her defenses thin and she is finding herself with him more and more.

Zeno is going to need her help to catch those in which he seeks. If he happens to fall into her bed in doing so, well…neither of them are prudes.

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An Affair With Mr. Kennedy was unlike any historical romance I have read to date. Normally I find historical romances to have female characters that are so prim and proper that they make me want to scream within the first couple of chapters . This one opens with a trip to a hospital in which women are lining up to use a machine that is geared toward calming the hysterical woman. A.k.a a mechanical orgasm producer. I found the whole scenario highly amusing. Not only that people actually used to believe that orgasms would keep women in line but also that they could cure some illnesses. I found it refreshing to find something like that in a historical that is typically wrote one way and one way only.

I also enjoyed the suspense aspect and the constant threat to Cassandra from a shadowy bomb group. Zeno made the perfect hero to Cassie’s adventurous spirit. They worked well together and I was always surprised by the situations they found themselves in. Zeno never seemed sure what her connection to the bomb group was but he also never truly suspected her of being a part of them either.

Cassies mother was the one character that stayed with me the longest after putting the book down. She was incredibly blunt and seemed so out of place for that day and age. I found myself snickering at her conversations with Cassie and in Cassies responses.

Having said all that I still had the same issue with this one as I do with a lot of historical romances. In between the good parts there seemed to be a lot of filler that I found to be hard to get through. I found myself wanting to skip the middle parts and get back to the parts where Cassie and Zak simmered, constantly wanting each other and being unable to deny themselves. I am glad to say though that those spots weren’t all that common. I liked how Cassie had the opportunity to help Zeno with his case by posing to be a high class, well, hooker. I found it amusing how well she fit into the role and what a good actress she was in the face of possible danger. She had a lot of spunk and I adored that about her.

I really wished the aspect of Zeno’s ex girlfriend would have been played up more. I thought that could have been executed much better. He had been thinking her dead for quite sometime before he finds her again and realizes she’s a part of the bomb issue.

An Affair With Mr Kennedy is still a refreshing addition to the historical romance genre.

I give An Affair With Mr Kennedy by Jillian Scott 3.50 stars!