Thoughts from a Writer's Desk

This week I’m deep in the final slow read of The 16th Earl’s Only Love.

It has to be done because those sneaky double spaces, floating apostrophes and extra commas are crafty little devils, and some always avoid getting caught by my editor.

While I was working on this tedious task, and trying to ignore the main character from book three who is impatient for me to write about her, I considered the themes in book two: loneliness, duty, privilege, choice (or lack of) and most important of all: love, and how it works (or not) for my main character.

Anyone who has read the first book in the series will already know that Dickie has a declared aversion to love.

So, you may ask, how can he have an 'only love'?

Perhaps it is because at the very start of his journey to adulthood he recognises for the first time how it feels to be lonely. So he is vulnerable... his heart is open.

There is a lot of discussion in writing circles about inciting incidents, and often these are big plot moments. For instance, in the first book in the series, right there in chapter one, Tom's father banishes him from home. That's the main inciting incident.

But in the second book in the Aucourte Chronicles there are a series of events that lead to what I consider the most fundamental, the event that will change everything.

First a shooting, then another form of banishment for Dickie, not as ruthless as the one suffered by Tom but just as life-changing because it is then that Dickie experiences real loneliness for the first time in his life.

So you could say that the inciting incident is Dickie being sent away from Sea Castle. But I'm fairly convinced that the primary inciting incident in The 16th Earl's Only Love is when Dickie realises he is lonely and acts to correct the situation.

Of course, Dickie being Dickie, what could you expect other than his reckless actions only leading to more problems.

I feel the need to step up to defend my young hero now.

Maybe he is inclined to reckless behaviour. Possibly he's inherited his father's unstable character. Definitely he has led a privileged life of luxury with only the occasional glimpse of how 'the other half' live, but in the last six months he has lost both his parents. He's only seventeen years old and now he's the sixteenth Earl of Bryer, alone and on the run!

Returning briefly to the matter of love... it's time for me to confess. Yes, Dickie does eventually fall in love but not with a person you would expect. That is why everything so far produced has only hinted at the lady who steals his heart. You might have noticed I've been running a few social media videos of an attractive girl in Victorian clothes walking away from the viewer. That's my teaser for this book.

And that is all you will ever know about the girl concerned unless you get a copy of The 16th Earl's Only Love. Deeper, darker, and more emotionally raw, this second book in the series is still part of the wider Aucourte story, and covers the period 1892 to 1898.

As publication approaches, I'll probably share more thoughts about writing and creating this series. For now, I'll leave you with the two questions that sit at the heart of the story:

Can the earl ever win his only love and who is she? PREORDER NOW - DELIVERY 1 SEPT.

London, 1897.