Time to Celebrate! The Final Release! The Rake and the Recluse: Redux by Jenn LeBlanc

A year ago the world had no idea who I was. Today, the same is still mostly true, except for a smallish group of dedicated readers who managed, mostly through word of mouth, to find my little book.

The past year has been the wackiest roller coaster of my life. I went from photojournalist to author, winning a first place award for my work on the Gulf Oil Spill the next week hosting my book release party, both of those at the Denver Press Club. It was absolutely surreal.

Last summer I befriended a bunch of ladies on twitter; writers, readers, bloggers, and crossovers. I begged, nagged, prodded and bribed and finally convinced three of them, the Pervy Trinity, to come to RomCon in Denver with me and hang out so I wasn’t alone at this big con, all by my unknown self.

We caused quite a stir, impromptu photo shoots on the two storey waterfall in the lobby, attacking Walmart, Chipotle, Cherry Creek, and downtown Denver. We all met some of our favorite authors, some of us climbed them, some of us screamed at them in parking lots. It was overwhelming, and I miss the crazy Trinity.

We are all still around. Doing our things, causing a ruckus coast to coast, but I will never forget how important the readers and bloggers were to me last year. I would be NOWHERE without them.

Now I pass this dream of a book on to all of you. It is out of my hands. It is yours. Take are of my guys please, let them flourish in your thoughts and dreams, care for them, love them and share them with others. It’s up to you to keep them alive.

I miss them already and like a complete geek, I spent the day before my release half in tears wondering if my men would be loved as much as they have been by me.

But now I’m rambling. So I want to share just a few of my favorite images from the books. There are so many, but I’ve chosen a few I think you’ll...appreciate.







Sorry, you want the full image this one is only available in the book.

Thank you. Thank you thank you thank you. To everyone who read the original, and everyone who will read REDUX. Thank you.


I am humbled.
Jenn

Now Available: ALL 6 PARTS OF THE ILLUSTRATED SERIAL NOVEL

THE RAKE AND THE RECLUSE

Sealed With a Kiss: Winners + Wrap Up

We have lots of winners to announce but first I wanted to take the time to say a SUPER BIG THANK YOU to all of the authors that participated and donated books for the Sealed With a Kiss Event. This event was a blast and you better believe that it will become a yearly fixture at the blogs. Thank you to everyone that stopped by everyday and commented and showed all the authors love. I hope you all enjoyed yourselves as much as Dani and I did. 

Sealed With a Kiss: Jenn LeBlanc + Giveaway

Jenn LeBlanc

Jenn is a novelist and photographer born, raised and living in the lee of the great Rocky Mountains. Her illustrated Novel THE RAKE AND THE RECLUSE was originally released in February of 2011 to rave reviews and snarky comments. She recently revised the entire novel, turning it into a six-part serial with all new material and the never before released story of Perry, The Rake.

Find Jenn Online: Site | Blog | Facebook | Twitter

HAPPY VALENTINES DAY!! I’m not sure what to say but what I already said because I’m not sure you’ll start here or there!! ;) So here we go again...feel free to skip my maundering and get to the love if you like. 

I have to say my holidays have changed over the years, of course as a kid it was Christmas, and then when I first had my girls it was Easter because it’s spring and the egg hunt and pretty dresses and the rest. 

But these days my favorite holiday is Valentine’s Day because I just love LOVE. And it isn’t just a couples day, it’s a day to celebrate everyone you love, we’re taught that in elementary school when we make little fancy bags and boxes and are told by our teachers to bring Valentines for everyone in the class, even the boys that pull your pigtails on the playground. 

Well, the tables are turned as you grow up and while nobody is pulling my pigtails, I do still love sharing Valentines with everyone. So here is my Valentine for all of you. A very special one, from Perry to his lady love. I can’t tell you her name, it has been a closely guarded secret, but TODAY that secret is out in SUBMISSION : The Rake And The Recluse : Part Five!!! 

I’m very excited because this has been a long road to SUBMISSION. I won’t talk about it too much, but my novel THE RAKE AND THE RECLUSE came out last February, and now it has been completely re-edited, with all new content and images (it is illustrated) and the final chapters including Perry’s Story. 

You will find links and fun stuff...later, let’s get to the letter!!

The Love Letter:

My Lord Perry,

Sealed With a Kiss:Caroline Linden + Giveaway

Caroline Linden

Caroline Linden knew from an early age she was a reader, but not a writer. Despite an addiction to Trixie Belden and Nancy Drew, she studied physics and dreamed of being an astronaut. She earned a math degree from Harvard College and then wrote software for a financial services firm, all the while reading everything in sight, but especially romance. Only after she had children, and found herself with only picture books to read, did she begin to make up a story of her own. To her immense surprise, it turned out to be an entire novel--and it was much more fun than writing computer code. Seven years, eight books, two Red Sox championships, and on dog later, she has never been happier with her decision. She lives with her family in New England.

Find Caroline Online: Website | Facebook | Goodreads

The Love Letter:

Beloved Francesca,

Sealed With a Kiss: Shana Galen + Giveaway

Shana Galen

Shana Galen is the author of numerous fast-paced adventurous Regency historical romances, including the Rita-nominated Blackthorne’s Bride. Her books have been sold worldwide, including Japan, Brazil, Russia, Spain, Turkey, and the Netherlands, and have been featured in the Rhapsody and Doubleday Book Clubs. A former English teacher in Houston’s inner city, Shana now writes full time. She’s a wife, a mother, and an expert multi-tasker. She loves to hear from readers: visit her website atwww.shanagalen.com or see what she’s up to daily on Facebook and Twitter.

Find Shana Online:  Website | The Jaunty Quills | Facebook | Twitter

Happy Valentine’s Day! I hope you’ve made your plans and are looking forward to the big day. But if you are not, if you hate Valentine’s Day, know you are not alone. The heroine from my new book, The Rogue Pirate’s Bride, is not a fan of Valentine’s Day either. In fact, Raeven isn’t much of a fan of Bastien, my hero. She’s an admiral’s daughter and hates pirates, Bastien in particular. She’d rather kill him than kiss him, and she has good reason. Bastien wouldn’t mind kissing Raeven, and he has been known to take a liberty or two. But what do you expect from a rogue pirate? I managed to turn up some scraps of “love” letters between these two. I hope you enjoy!

The Love Letter:


Adapted from Gammer Gurton's Garland, a 1784 collection of English nursery rhymes

Sealed With a Kiss: Maya Rodale + Giveaway

Maya Rodale

Maya Rodale began reading romance novels in college at her mother’s insistence and it wasn’t long before she was writing her own. Maya is now the author of multiple Regency historical romances. She lives in New York City with her darling dog and a rogue of her own.

Find Maya Online: Website | Facebook | Twitter

The Love Letter:

From the file of love letters that were never sent:
The Duke of Wycliff to Miss Eliza Fielding
From the assorted papers found behind that locked door in Wycliff House...


Eliza,

Sealed With a Kiss: Theresa Romain + Giveaway

Theresa Romain

Theresa Romain holds degrees in psychology, English literature, and history, an impractical education that allowed her to read everything she could get her hands on. Her historical romance debut, SEASON FOR TEMPTATION, was published in October 2011. The sequel, SEASON FOR SURRENDER, will be published in October 2012. Theresa lives with her family in the Midwest.

Find Theresa Online: Website | Blog | Facebook | Twitter

In my historical romance debut, SEASON FOR TEMPTATION, a viscount seeks a marriage of convenience to help his family overcome a recent scandal. What he never expected to find was a most inconvenient love. 

These letters are exchanged by the hero and heroine, James and Julia, two months after their marriage at the end of SEASON FOR TEMPTATION. 

Letter from Julia, Viscountess Matheson, to James, Viscount Matheson, written the day after his missive to her. Folded inside a blank paper and left on the desk in his private study.

The Love Letter:

Dearest James,

Sealed With a Kiss: Jenna Petersen + Giveaway

Jenna Petersen

Jenna Petersen loves history and happily-ever-after, so writing sensual historical romances seems to be the perfect fit! She has also written erotic romance as Jess Michaels and runs a popular resource for romance writers called The Passionate Pen. She lives in the Midwest with her loving husband and two mischievous cats, Harley and Quinn.

Find Jenna Online:  Website | Blog | Facebook | Twitter

My 2008 release, LESSONS FROM A COURTESAN was one of my very favorite books to write, so revisiting the main characters after several years of marriage and the birth of a baby they both longed for was a lot of fun. I pictured them beind separated by a poorly timed storm and each writing a letter on the same day, like ships passing in the night. I hope you enjoy this revisit of Victoria and Justin as much as I did. 

The Love Letter:

February 14, 1819
London 


Dearest Victoria,

Sealed With a Kiss: Heather Snow + Giveaway

Heather Snow

Heather Snow is a historical romance writer with a degree in Chemistry who found she much preferred creating chemistry on the page, rather than in the lab! She is forever trying to wrangle her left and right brain to work together (some days with more success than others!), but if her two sides had to duke it out, left would win every time--which can be a creative challenge. Luckily, she loves challenges...she just goes about solving them analytically.

She lives with her husband and two sons in the Midwest and truly hopes you find her stories have just the right chemistry...

Find Heather Online:  Website | Blog | Facebook | Twitter

Written by Liliana Wentworth, née Claremont, Countess of Stratford, to her husband—upon the birth of their daughter, some seven and one half months after the Epilogue…

The Love Letter:

Dearest Geoffrey,

Sealed With a Kiss: Maggie Robinson + Giveaway

Maggie Robinson

Maggie Robinson is a former teacher, library clerk and mother of four who woke up in the middle of the night, absolutely compelled to create the perfect man and use as many adverbs as possible doing so. A transplanted New Yorker, she lives with her not-quite perfect husband in Maine, where the cold winters are ideal for staying inside and writing hot historical romances.

Maggie Robinson also writes under the name Margaret Rowe. Margaret is an RT Reviewers Choice nominee in the best erotic fiction category for Any Wicked Thing and will be going to the RT convention in Chicago in April.

Maggie's Master of Sin comes out March 27, 2012 and hope's to be signing both books. Margaret has a short story in Agony/Ecstasy that releases this month.

Find Maggie/Margret Online:  Website |  Blogging @ Vauxhall Vixens |
Facebook | Twitter |

Love letters have definitely gone out of fashion. Somehow love emails just don’t have the same zing. In Regency times, people spent hours writing letters. Several of my couples communicated by letter with each other in my books, but I decided to pick a couple that didn’t write to each other. Couldn’t. For the hero Desmond Ryland, Marquess of Conover was married to someone else and wandering the globe to escape from his miserable marriage. His true love Laurette was attempting to live a virtuous life without him. Here’s what they might have written when their hearts were full of longing.

The Love Letter:

Dearest Laurie,

Sealed With a Kiss: Vicky Dreiling + Giveaway

Vicky Dreiling

Vicky Dreiling is a confirmed historical romance junkie and Anglophile. Frequent business trips to the UK allowed her to indulge her passion for all things Regency England. Bath, Stonehenge, and Spencer House are among her favorite places. She is, however, truly sorry for accidentally setting off a security alarm in Windsor Castle. That unfortunate incident led her British colleagues to nickname her “Trouble.” When she’s not writing, Vicky enjoys reading, films, concerts, and most of all, long lunches with friends. A native Texan, she holds degrees in English literature and marketing.

Find Vicky Online: Website | Blog | Facebook | Twitter

The Love Letter:

Dear Mr. Darcett,

Sealed With a Kiss:Elise Rome + Giveaway

Elise Rome

Elise Rome has never forgiven Margaret Mitchell for making her fall in love with Scarlett and Rhett in Gone with the Wind and then not giving them a happy ending. She likes to think that she makes up for the injustice done to them with each romance novel she writes. When she isn't telling stories about sexy, headstrong heroes and intelligent, independent heroines, Elise stays busy chasing after her two young daughters, semi-attempting to do housework, and hiking in the beautiful foothills of Colorado.

Find Elise Online:  Website | The Jaunty Quills | Facebook | Twitter

Happy early Valentine’s Day! I’m so thrilled to have been invited to be a part of the Sealed with a Kiss event (thank you, Dani and Rita!), and am also excited to share with you the love letters from the hero and heroine of my upcoming novella, THE SINNING HOUR (which will, incidentally, first be published on Valentine’s Day).

Although the story of THE SINNING HOUR novella takes place after the heroine leaves the hero’s employ, the following love letters—or lust letters, as the case may be—were written during the time she served him as maid.

Simon Astley and Miranda Post are from two different worlds, although they both live in 1851 London. Distantly related to the aristocracy, Simon has made a name and career for himself as not merely a portraitist, but a nude portraitist. In an era when the comparative moral freedom of the Regency has waned, Simon’s work is highly esteemed among some; most, however, view him with the sober, disdainful eye of the overly righteous. Simon, of course, does as he pleases and, as long as he is being paid for his work, cares not what anyone else thinks. Until, that is, Miranda Post comes along…

Though born of the middle class, Miranda is forced by circumstances to find work as a maid in Simon’s small household. She knows her role and duties well and, unlike Simon, safeguards her reputation carefully. He is her employer, she is his maid. She knows there can never be anything between them. And yet…

The Love Letter:

Unread, burned
Two weeks before he fires her

Dear Miss Post,

Sealed With a Kiss: Manda Collins + Giveaway

Manda Collins

Manda Collins spent her teen years wishing she’d been born a couple of centuries earlier, preferably in the English countryside. Time travel being what it is, she resigned herself to life with electricity and indoor plumbing, and read lots of books. An affinity for books led to a graduate degree in English, followed by another in Librarianship. By day, she works as an academic librarian at a small liberal arts college, where she teaches college students how to navigate the tangled world of academic research. A native of coastal Alabama, Manda lives in the house her mother grew up in with three cats, sometimes a dog, sometimes her sister, and more books than strictly necessary.

How to Dance with a Duke, the first in a trilogy starring three wallflower cousins, is Manda’s debut and has been called “a fast-paced, adventurous love story that will enthrall readers” by RT Book Reviews and “a romance to remember by bestselling author Julie Anne Long.

Find Manda Online: Website | Blog | Facebook | Twitter

The Love Letter:

Dear Lucas,

Sealed With a Kiss: Kate Noble + Giveaway

Kate Noble

Kate Noble love books. Romances especially. But, being born into a family of doctors, scientists, and mathematicians, she didn’t discover she was adept at writing until, oh, about junior year of high school. Which came as something of a relief, as she was hopeless at memorizing the Latin names for all the bones in the human body. The Heisenberg Uncertainty Principle eludes her to this day.

Find Kate Online: Site | Blog | Facebook | Twitter

If I Fall- is one of my favorite romances I’ve written. It has everything I adore – swashbuckling, secret identities, a mystery, a murder, and true love saving the day. But the trip my characters take to get there – well, it’s bit crooked.

Sarah Forrester was friends with Jack as children. But as they grew up, he went to sea, and became Lieutenant Jackson Fletcher of His Majesty’s Navy, and Sarah, after suffering an emotional blow in the form of a broken engagement to a Duke, transforms herself into the Golden Lady – the sensation of the Ton. When Jack comes back from the sea, he takes one look at Sarah and knows that she’s hiding behind the Golden Lady façade. 

Thwarted at every turn in trying to get her to open herself back up to becoming the sweet, happy person she used to be, Jack is at his wit’s end when he writes this letter.
And as he says, it’s not a letter he ever intends to have read.

The Love Letter:

Dear Sarah –

Sealed With a Kiss: Beverley Kendall + Giveaway

Beverley Kendall

Beverley discovered her love of books while growing up in, the then, small city of Barrie, Ontario Canada. With her love of books and romance, she always wished that everyone would find their happily ever after. Add in her love of London, England set in a period when ladies strived to be genteel and dresses could barely fit through doors, and it was obvious she could write nothing but historical romances.

As the mother of one too bright and mischievous young boy, she pulls full-time duty on all fronts. When she's not working full-time, mothering, writing or reading, she's probably sleeping and dreaming of a time when she'll have time for her favorite hobbies: knitting, crocheting and sewing.

Beverley has lived on two continents, in three countries, two provinces, and four states. She stopped her nomadic existence and settled in the southeast. All things artistic feed her creative passion, but none more than writing. Readers can visit her at: www.beverleykendall.com.

Find Beverley Online: Website | The Season Blog | Facebook | Twitter

The Love Letter:

My Darling Alex,

Sealed With a Kiss: Lila DiPasqua + Giveaway

Lila DiPasqua

Lila DiPasqua writes wicked & witty historical romance for Penguin/Berkley. She lives with her real-life hero husband and three children and is a firm believer in the happily-ever-after. She loves history and enjoys traveling. She has been to four continents so far. To learn more about Lila and her books, visit www.LilaDiPasqua.com

Find Lila Online: Website | Blog | Facebook | Twitter


A MIDNIGHT DANCE—a Cinderella story that is as steamy and exciting as it is romantic. (FIERY TALES SERIES, Berkley Sensation, Historical Romance)