Meet Lady Elinor #SPeekSunday

Before I get into this Sunday's Sneak Peek, I want to announce that the cover of Lady Elinor's Escape, designed by the very talented Lacey Savage, made the finals in the April 2013 Indie eBook Cover Awards! This month's Guest Judge Scarlett Rugers, a professional book cover designer, from Melbourne Australia, had this to say about the cover:

A historical regency romance with absolutely gorgeous golden colours – the placement of elements and colour scheme are well-balanced and harmonious.

Glad I'm not the only one who thinks the cover is absolutely stunning!

The book is a traditional Regency romance. Here's the blurb:

Lady Elinor Ashworth always longed for adventure, but when she runs away from her abusive aunt, she finds more than she bargained for. Elinor fears her aunt who is irrational and dangerous, threatening Elinor and anyone she associates with. When she encounters an inquisitive gentleman, she accepts his help, but fearing for his safety, hides her identity by pretending to be a seamstress. She resists his every attempt to draw her out, all the while fighting her attraction to him. 

There are too many women in barrister Stephen Chaplin’s life, but he has never been able to turn his back on a damsel in distress. The younger son of a baronet is a ‘rescuer’ of troubled females, an unusual vocation fueled guilt over his failure to save the woman he loved from her brutal husband. He cannot help falling in love with his secretive seamstress, but to his dismay, the truth of her background reveals Stephen as the ineligible party.

(For those not familiar with the genre, Newgate was the name of a prison in London.) Now for our Sneak Peek at the first six paragraphs of Chapter One:

She might as well be in Newgate.

Lady Elinor Ashworth stared out the window of her bedchamber at acres of farmland sprouting new growth. Spring green brightened the vista, taunting her with the promise of freedom. After three long, lonely months trapped in this cottage, her spirit cried out for something more, something she could not name.

She glanced at the sketchbook in her lap. She had intended to draw the pastoral scene outside her window, but her hand had sketched a young lady forlornly staring through the panes of a window. A truer self-portrait had never been drawn.

Until the last few months, she had been allowed to wander alone through the Wiltshire countryside, but no longer. Not since Aunt Sarah came out of her melancholy and turned into a raving madwoman.

All her life Elinor had dreamed of adventure, so what she was planning to do should not daunt her in the slightest. She had read about people braving the ocean in small boats, exploring the jungles of Africa, searching for ancient artifacts in Egypt.

In contrast, stealing out of her aunt’s house in the dark, walking to the nearest coaching inn and traveling by herself to London hardly qualified as an adventure. The merest of escapades, in fact. Or so she assured herself to calm the butterflies suddenly dancing in her stomach. Still, what other choice did she have?

Lady Elinor's Escape is now available at Amazon,  All Romance eBooks and Barnes and Noble. Coming soon to other retailers.

To celebrate the reissue of Lady Elinor's Escape, I'm giving away a $10.00 gift certificate of the winner's choice: Amazon, BN, Starbucks, etc. Winner will be notified on May 6. There are several ways to enter.

1) Leave a comment here. If you are commenting anonymously, please leave an email address so I can find you if you win!

2) Friend me at Goodreads or Shelfari. (I will friend you back)

3) Join my YahooGroups announcement list.

Click here to read more Sneak Peeks.

Linda