The Smuggler Returns

I read Frenchman's Creek by the legendary Daphne du Maurier many years ago and for a long time wanted to write my own story set in romantic Cornwall. So it's exciting to say that The Smuggler Returns will be out as a Linford Romance in February, and will also shortly be available as an ebook from Regency Reads.

When Daniel Locke returns to Penhaven, the Cornish village of his childhood, he is intent on revenge against the smuggling gang who betrayed him as a young lad. What he doesn't count upon is the distraction of beautiful Jane Tregarron, who has become involved with the local smugglers to save her penniless family from losing their home. Can Daniel still inflict his revenge or will his plans be muddied by love?

The Smuggler Returns at amazon
The Smuggler Returns at Barnes & Noble

A Regency with a different setting

The final cover for Krakow Waltz, my "Polish Regency", to be published next year, has arrived (left). The photograph used for the background is really Krakow - it's a detail from a picture I took when visiting the city a few years ago.

Krakow is a place close to my heart. I have visited enough times to have lost count, and my mother mother's family still live there. My grandparents met there during the Second World War. A terrible time for many in the city, but their story has a touch of romance. It was winter, bitterly cold, and my grandmother came across my grandfather selling nylons out of a suitcase in the market and thought he looked chilled and under-nourished and so took him home to feed him up.

I was interested to discover that at the Vienna Peace Settlement in 1815, Krakow was designated a "free city". (The rest of Poland was divided between Russia, Prussia and the Austrian Empire.) Along with civic and cultural "improvements", such as tearing down the old medieval walls to make a circular park ("Planty") around the old city centre, it would have been rather a melting-pot where the cause of Polish nationalism lived on. The city was a mixture of narrow medieval streets and newer boulevards. Having walked the streets of Krakow Old Town it is easy to imagine them as a setting for intrigue. While the nobility largely adopted the (French) fashions of Europe, there remained pockets of "Polishness", and in Krakow Waltz, I left the city for a time, taking the characters into the countryside where there meet wolves and wild boar, and where the banquets are in "the old Polish style".

Krakow in the second decade of the nineteenth century seemed to me to be calling out to be the setting for a Regency adventure and romance and I'm very much hoping readers will enjoy the unusual setting.

Kate

www.kateallan.com

Linford Romance Library

UK readers may be familiar with the Linford Romance Library series which are short novels, in large print type, available in public libraries. They cover contemporary romances as well as historicals including Regencies, and I'm delighted to announce they've accepted a third Regency from me - The Smuggler Returns.

When Daniel Locke returns to Penhaven, the Cornish village of his childhood, he is intent on revenge against the smuggling gang who betrayed him as a young lad. What he doesn’t count upon is the distraction of beautiful Jane Tregarron, who has become involved with the local smugglers to save her penniless family from losing their home. Can Daniel still inflict his revenge or will his plans be muddied by love?

I really love the covers I've had so far from Linford (pictured) so fingers crossed that The Smuggler Returns will get equally as great a cover. I'm not sure yet when it will be published, but hopefully before the end of this year.

If you're not a library user, or would just prefer your own copy, Linford Romances are also available to buy from amazon (including amazon.com) and book shops.

Kate Allan

The Smuggler Returns

The Smuggler Returns is published by My Weekly Pocket Novel this week. It's available in WH Smith, Tesco and Asda and if you miss it, copies can be ordered by post from DC Thomson's subscription department.

The story is set in the first decade of the 19th century in Cornwall. Jane Tregarron refuses to accept an arranged marriage that will save the family fortunes. Running out of the house in anger after an argument, she slips and falls...

‘Miss?’
Jane started. A shadow appeared over her.
‘Miss?’ the voice repeated. It was smooth, calm but with an understandable veneer of concern. But he was someone she did not recognize. Who could it be?
‘Miss? Are you all right?’ A hand touched her forearm.
Jane turned her head. A young man crouched beside her, the wind tussling his damp, ash-coloured hair. A tall man with an aquiline nose. Something in the strong line of his jaw was familiar. His high cheekbones. His nose.
There was little chance of a real stranger being here. No one came to Penhaven without reason. Had she lost her memory? Who was he?
‘I slipped,’ Jane said. ‘I’m all right, thank you.’
His eyes regarded at her closely. ‘Can I assist you?’
His boots were highly polished. New boots, she was sure.
‘You know this ground is thoroughly wet?’ he said.
‘I didn’t chose to fall over,’ Jane heard herself day before she had the wherewithal to bite her tongue. She had no reason to be piqued with him. Perhaps if she had been less hasty, she would not have fallen.
‘I think, if you can stand, I should help you up. Let us at least find somewhere dry for you to recover?’
‘I’m sorry.’ Jane swallowed. ‘I’m not feeling completely all right. When I fell, it hurt and it’s still painful.’
‘Here.’ He stood up. The swallow-tails of his dark grey coat flapped in the breeze. He gave her his arm. Rain splashed down onto the stones of the path behind him.
He gripped her under both her arms and pulled. Strong arms; muscles like rock beneath her touch, Jane suddenly felt shy about holding onto him. He was a stranger, after all.

(c) Kate Allan, 2009

Fateful Deception, the comic

As the header of this blog states, we have hardbacks, paperbacks, large print, audio books and even ebooks, but I'm still waiting for the first historical romance graphic novel. I thought I'd try out some comic software I have been looking at for a while (Comic Life) and see what my novel Fateful Deception might look like as a graphic novel.

Here is the opening page:
(c) Kate Allan, 2005-8.

"It's Raining Men" Period Montage

Apparently the weather men have given up on us having a summer here in the UK. It's been raining rather a bit recently. However, I found this video on YouTube which should cheer up even the soggiest fan of Regency romance!



Video thanks to DreamyViper

Kate Allan

Regency Romance for Valentine's!

Tuesday 12 February, Northfields Library, London 6.30pm

Kate Allan - Regency Romance

In time for Valentine's Day, romantic historical novelist Kate Allan talks about her Regency romances including Perfidy and Perfection, The Restless Heart and Fateful Deception. She also writes as "one half of " Jennifer Lindsay, author of The Lady Soldier. Free. Please contact Northfields Library to reserve your place. Tel: (020) 8567 5700

The Restless Heart

At last... the cover for the Linford Romance Library edition of The Restless Heart, published in July 2007. Only now seeing the light of day for reasons primarily to do with the author moving house this summer and other chaos.

Back to The Restless Heart. I like the cover and I notice it is bespoke as it shows the opening scene of the story which is set in York's New Walk, a fashionable strolling opportunity in Regency times, perhaps York's answer to Rotten Row. In this scene the heroine, Bella, loses her bonnet to a gust of wind so as you can see she is hatless. In the background you can just make out a small party coming into view: the handsome Mr Davenport, his scheming sister Pamela and her friend. They are about to compound her embarrasement, and so begins the story.

Kate Allan

If I have been quiet...

... it is because there has not been much going on to talk about! However, I received my author copies of the large print version of my Regency romantic comedy Perfidy and Perfection and so you can see the cover here. Like it? I do.

I've been working since before Christmas on a tale set in Cornwall at the end of the 18th century involving smugglers. I've also been revising an adventure story I hope to have ready sortly, and I'm really struggling to think of a title for, so the smugglers have been set aside for now until that is complete. In July Linford Romance will be publishing the very first complete novel I ever wrote, The Restless Heart and I'm looking forward to see what the cover is like, as their cover for Fateful Deception was wonderful.

Kate Allan
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