Cecilia’s been busy!

For those readers who’ve enjoyed An Accomplished Woman, there’s good news on the horizon: Book 2 in the series Cecilia’s Mismatches, The Chaperon, is getting ready for publication! Leigh finished the content editing earlier in the summer, Brynn’s proofreading has just been completed, and the book is on to formatting. The Janet B. Taylor-designed front cover is complete, which is just as pretty as all my books! We’re in the process of finalizing the back cover art for those who adore the cover so much that they must have a hard copy.

The Chaperon will also have Cecilia making a match that doesn’t quite fit, but the story is quite different from Book 1. The characters wouldn’t have it any other way. In this case, we’ll see Everett and Audra take minor roles, with the new hero and heroine in the foreground. Cassie and Reeve are both so sweet and kind because they’re channelling Jane and Bingley! And Lexie, the match,—well, she’s something else!

You don’t have to have read Book 1, An Accomplished Woman, to enjoy Book 2, The Chaperon, though it wouldn’t hurt to get to know some of the characters ahead of time. Besides, Book 1 is excellent according to readers: a little nod to Jane Austen, with a pinch of Georgette Heyer in this Suzan Lauder original. I expect you’ll find Book 2 no different in terms of reading quality.

The new cover and a generous glimpse of the story will be revealed in about a month’s time when Meryton Press offers a set of long excerpts prior to the release of The Chaperon. Watch the Meryton Press newsletter (sign up at the bottom of the page in the link) and blog for more information.

In the meantime, delight in reading my seven other books, which have garnered accolades of their own!

2023 September 9: A quick update: Due to another book with the title “The Chaperon,” Book 2 is now called “The Reluctant Chaperon.” The cadence is much better!

Foodie on a Mini-Vacation

When you live for half the year in a place where most from the rest of the world comes for a vacation, it’s fun to go elsewhere for a mini-vacation within that time. This year, we went to Oaxaca (pronounced wah-HA-ka), the food and arts and crafts capital of Mexico. We chose to fly, since it would be about 20 hours by ground transportation. That meant we were in our hotel on the Zocalo (town square) within the UNESCO World Heritage Site within a few hours via Mexico City airport.

Loud, fun music was playing on a stage outside our room, so we quickly got changed to a quieter room on the other side of the hotel, which was a hacienda-style historic building. The location on the Zocalo in the middle of Centro couldn’t be beat.

We found the mercado and freshly roasted Oaxacan coffee quickly, and also a new treat to us: chocolate covered churros (long donuts)! They were still crunchy inside. We spent most of our trip wandering the 300-year-old streets of the heritage part of town, where the buildings are made of volcanic rock, so some have a greenish tinge to the stone. Glorious huge churches stood every few blocks, or so it seemed. We stepped inside each when they were open. (You can click on the thumbnails for larger images.)

We were treated to fantastic food every step of the way. I happened to choose about half vegetarian meals—not that I’m vegetarian, just that the selection was good. It helped me to gain no weight on the trip. I wore my Jennyvi (Jane Austen Couture) dress out to dinner since it packed well and was the right weight for the weather, which is quite warm in the day and quite cool at night.

Some of the specialties of Oaxaca include the sauce called mole that’s served over meat or vegetables (with at least two dozen ingredients, the best mole has chocolate in it!), a sort of hard tortilla pizza called tlayudas, tamales (filled corn dough inside a banana leaf), memelas (a simple fresh open-faced thick corn tortilla with beans and cheese), and toasted, seasoned grasshoppers called chapulines. The latter was the only thing we didn’t try. They’re supposed to be quite tasty, but I had to give them a miss. Also, Oaxacan chocolate is quite different: grainy and dark.

Eggplant appetizer

Tlayuda

Ancho stuffed with huitlacoche

Custard cone

Two of the days we visited Oaxaca were for side trips out of town. One day, we went to small towns south of the city and looked at an historical village and another town known for its black pottery. We took the bus. There are also towns with weaving (we already have two Oaxacan rugs), Alibrije art (little animals that are supposed to come out of dreams), Amate art (made from tree bark), embroidery art, and other kinds of pottery. Often, when you’re in big Mexican tourist towns, the best art you see isn’t from that city, it’s from Oaxaca state, a testament to the hundreds of indigenous tribes and their traditional crafts.

For the second day-trip, we hired a driver to head east and take us to see the “frozen waterfall” and a thousand-year-old tree. We chose not to go to the pyramids since we’d seen Teotihuacán and Chichen Itza, and they’re now not much more than tourist traps, and besides, ruins are not our thing. We saw many of Monte Alban’s artifacts at the Cultural Museum.

Our trip back home from Oaxaca was an adventure in itself. Three airplane delays in Oaxaca plus two delays and finally a cancellation in Mexico City meant we could have gotten home faster with the bus. We literally spent 14 hours in airports that day. Even though we were masked and used sanitizer, we both got Covid. We weren’t too sick, but it’s not something I’d wish on anyone.

We brought back lots of coffee and chocolate, plus a nice black pottery vase and lots of cool memories. I suggest you all put Oaxaca on your bucket list.

Coming up: I have a new release planned. I mentioned on this blog that I’d been working on the Cecilia’s Mismatches series, and the first book is due out the end of March 2023. An Accomplished Woman is a shorter novel, set in Bath, with a bit of a nod to Northanger Abbey. But it’s not an Austenesque book. The characters are all new. Janet B. Taylor, Meryton Press’s cover designer, has gone all swoony over Everett Tremaine. I hope you will, too. Spread the word! And watch for the cover reveal coming up soon!

New Release and Audiobook Fun

I didn’t expect to be releasing a book so soon, but Janet Taylor, the marketing director at Meryton Press, had an idea. “Let’s create an anthology of longer short stories,” she said one day last winter. She had already approached a couple of other authors who were keen, and we were to share our stories of under 30,000 words.

At the time, I was just finishing book one of my Regency romance trilogy Cecilia’s Mismatches. Since I wanted the three to be released close together, it would be a good year until I had a new book release. The short story would be a good way to keep my name in readers’ minds. But I had nothing good to share in my old stories, so would have to write something new. What to write about? I considered several ideas until I latched onto one about Darcy being melancholy after the Hunsford proposal and his family staging an intervention.

A few months later, while I was still writing my story, Janet came back and said, “Michele and I learned that anthologies are passé, and we really should do a series of short novels.” Michele is the managing editor at Meryton Press. Janet asked more authors if they had a novella up their sleeve, and there was a lot of excitement about the series called Skirmish and Scandal. I figured my bit of light romance could just fit sideways into that theme. Completing a novella would be easy because my short story was coming in at just over 30k words. Since I had time before the series was scheduled to be released, my trusty betas ldb531 and Anji went over the book and reminded me that I’m human: lots of red pencil, so to speak!

I was fortunate to have the inimitable Ellen Pickels as overall editor and formatter since I had worked with her as a copy editor, proofreader, and formatter for four novels already and knew her style. We got through the book quickly, and she helped me find a better name than the original The Fitzwilliams Intervene. The title became Schemes of Felicity, much better in many ways. Janet Taylor gave me a fantastic cover with artwork by Frédéric Soulacroix and a Skirmish and Scandal theme. With some bumps in the road–two novels expected to come out before our series were delayed (COVID 19 was a real issue for several lead players at MP)–Skirmish and Scandal was finally unveiled, and I was the lucky author whose book came out first!

Shortly after Schemes of Felicity came out, the audiobook for A Most Handsome Gentleman was released. The narrator, Ofelia Oliver, sounds like my perfect Elizabeth Bennet. Since this story is in first person (I blogged about this in an earlier post), her suitability is more important than in most audiobooks. I do hope you get a chance to listen to this excellent recording. In addition, you can check for The Mist of her Memory with Neil Roy McFarlane, whose voice is swoon-worthy.

And in the future, while I’m busy writing book two of Cecilia’s Mismatches, you can watch for more audiobooks from me, beginning with Schemes of Felicity and followed by Letter from Ramsgate and Alias Thomas Bennet. So, if you’re a person who prefers to listen to books, your chance to enjoy all five of my books will be coming soon.

Here’s what they’re saying about Schemes of Felicity:

Fun with 5 stars: “This book is a delight!” “Thumbs up.” “I could not put it down.” “a very pleasant reading experience.” “Authentic and clever writing style.” “I enjoyed the story immensely.” “well-written and proofread” “This story was so good.” “I loved it.” “I recommend this to all Jane Austen fans!”

More fun with 4 stars: “I do love the way Ms. Lauder writes!” “I highly recommend this story.” “cute and adorable.” “beautifully penned” “The ending was so swoon-worthy.” “an enjoyable storyline.”

I’m certain you hope you can read it soon!