Lady Sarah Hartford is beautiful, wealthy, widowed, and bored. After agreeing to a scandalous dare to seduce a stranger into her bedchamber, she meets the devilishly handsome doctor, William Gordon. Though both keep their true identities hidden, an intense romance blooms between them, and Sarah finally feels like she could be happy again.
After a three-day affair ends when they arrive in London, William promises to reunite with Sarah after dealing with his ailing father, the reason to which he was summoned to London. But three months pass, and Sarah begins to lose hope of ever seeing her lover again.
Until one day, when he arrives on her doorstep, married, a duke, and with a pregnant duchess in tow. As the pair try to untangle truth from lies while keeping their history a secret from everyone around them, they realize they may never be together.
Screw the World; Do What Makes You Happy
by Erica Taylor
When I set out to write my epic family series, the Macalisters, I knew I wanted to write a variety of books. One would be the pirate brother, another a spy. There is a dreamer, a scientist, and a boxer, but when it came to the family’s matriarch, Sarah, the widowed Marchioness of Radcliff, I knew she needed a gentler approach.
Sarah is a mother, through and through, but was not able to have children with her deceased husband. This was always a storyline that hit me close to home. I have two beautiful (and stubborn) children and am grateful I never had to deal with infertility, but I had to watch my best friend struggle with it for over a decade. There was nothing I could ever say that would make it better, nothing that could erase the pain and longing of wanting a child of your own and yet, month after month, year after year, it never came to pass. My friend found her happy ending through adoption, and Sarah will find hers too, in a way. I wrote this book as sort of an “I see you” to my friend, a nod to her struggle and her happily ever after.
I knew of Sarah’s infertility before I had even begun writing her story, but what surprised me along the way is who she became by the end. An Improper Encounter is the story of someone who has dealt with incredible loss and immeasurable responsibility, and the expectation of perfection has nearly destroyed her. Through meeting William, Sarah sees glimpses of herself and remembers who she once was and desires to be again. She learns to be comfortable in her own skin and to live her life as she sees fit, not as someone else deems she should.
This idea to “screw the world, do what makes you happy,” I think is something everyone dallies with throughout their life and embraces at different times. For me, it was while writing this story, in my early thirties. For years, likely since the dreaded middle school years, I’d been terrified of people rejecting my slightly stranger side, so I stopped showing people that side of me. I didn’t mention how I wrote stories and poetry in high school or fan fiction under a pseudonym in college. I didn’t share my love of Star Wars or Anne Rice or history. My husband was one of the first people who I “showed” myself to. I don’t remember doing so, but he claims I told him I wanted to be an author on our first date. It's no wonder I married him. Little by little, I stopped caring about what people thought about me and found myself along the way. Writing Sarah’s journey was like writing a part of my own; a bit of myself lives in her a little more than my other characters. Now I will gladly talk Harry Potter or Doctor Who, and while I don’t show all my crazy at once, I try and take a page from Sarah’s story and not shy away from who I am either.
An Improper Encounter is the third book in the Macalisters series. The Perfect Duchess and A Suitable Affair precede it, and there are more Macalister books coming next year!
About the Author:
A self-confessed geek, Erica loves anything Harry Potter, Doctor Who, or Star Wars, can spend hours in Target with a Starbucks, and truly believes a cat makes a home. Currently living in North Carolina, Erica can often be found writing during softball practice or piano lessons and is not afraid to let dinner burn if it means getting the story out of her head.
GIVEAWAY!
Thanks for this captivating and lovely novel. The feature and giveaway is special. I enjoyed learning about the author. What a fascinating and talented young woman to write with such understanding and beauty.
ReplyDeleteSounds good
ReplyDeleteLovely story. Like the cover too.
ReplyDelete