When Arthur Livingston arrives out of the blue at the Bleecker Street Inquiry Agency, anxious to hire the agency to seek out a missing heiress, Eunice Holbrooke realizes her past has finally caught up with her.
Having fled from the scene of her grandfather's murder seven years before, Eunice is a lady with secrets--the most important that she is the missing heiress Arthur is seeking. She has no intention of allowing him to learn she's been disguising herself, especially when she has reason to believe Arthur could hold her responsible for her grandfather's death.
In order to avoid Arthur and conceal her real identity, Eunice takes on another case that requires her to go deep undercover. With secrets from the past--and Arthur--appearing wherever she looks, she wonders how she will ever uncover the truth behind her grandfather's murder. Will what she discovers set Eunice free or place her in peril's way?
Having fled from the scene of her grandfather's murder seven years before, Eunice is a lady with secrets--the most important that she is the missing heiress Arthur is seeking. She has no intention of allowing him to learn she's been disguising herself, especially when she has reason to believe Arthur could hold her responsible for her grandfather's death.
In order to avoid Arthur and conceal her real identity, Eunice takes on another case that requires her to go deep undercover. With secrets from the past--and Arthur--appearing wherever she looks, she wonders how she will ever uncover the truth behind her grandfather's murder. Will what she discovers set Eunice free or place her in peril's way?
ISBN-13: 9780764235337
5 Things I Never Expected About Becoming An Author
Jen Turano
1. I think the first thing I never expected when I decided to attempt to get a book published was how long it was going to take. I mean, when you write that first book, it’s almost impossible to understand the scope of the competition. I quickly realized it was going to be a rather daunting task because there are millions of writers out there. That’s when I also realized I was going to have to learn everything I could about the publishing industry. It was less than reassuring when I ran across this informative tidbit – Only 3% of authors ever receive a traditional publishing contract with a legitimate publishing house and…get this…of that 3 %, only 1 % ever experiences success in that they earn out their advances and receive additional contracts. Talk about the odds not being in your favor.
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However, I decided to continue on, and I also knew I only wanted to go the traditional route, but knew I really had to up my game with my writing craft in order to attract the attention of an agent. It took me seven manuscripts and five years before I produced a work that could be considered publishing-worthy. That book landed me an agent, but she never sold it, instead selling a book I wrote after I signed with her, that being my first published work, “A Change of Fortune.” I’ve been writing for Bethany House ever since.
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2. Odd questions/request from fans. The oddest request I ever received actually went to my agent first. A very wealthy, and need I add obviously eccentric woman, asked if she could buy the film rights to one of my early works because she’d always had a hankering to act, and she thought one of my side characters would be the perfect role for her – I think it may have been Abigail, who was an older, somewhat meddling kind of character. However, this woman wasn’t going to film the book set in the Gilded Age. Nope, she was going to make it contemporary. Well, I didn’t actually own the film rights to that particular book, so my agent sent her off to speak to my publishing house and I never heard from the lady again. It would have been interesting to see how one of my stories would do turned into a contemporary romp.
3. Strangest historical fact I’ve uncovered. - Since the Gilded Age was a time of unprecedented change in America, I’ve found a slew of interesting tidbits, but the strangest thing I’ve uncovered has to do with a lady by the name of Gladys Deacon. She was quite the beauty, and gentlemen chased her around the world. Gladys, however only had eyes for the 9th Duke of Marlborough, who was married to a lady known throughout the Gilded Age – Consuelo Vanderbilt. Well, Gladys didn’t seem to be bothered by the idea that her love interest was married, and she pursued him quite diligently and ended up marrying the man after Consuelo divorced the duke.
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And, okay, that’s not the interesting tidbit, although it was quite the story. Here’s the strangeness involved with Gladys. She eventually decided her beauty was flawed because she had a small dent at the bridge of her nose. Because of that, off she went for an experimental treatment that, unfortunately, went horribly wrong. She actually had doctors inject paraffin wax into her nose to plump out that dent – quite like Botox today, but get this – the wax, after a very short amount of time, began to melt and it slid down the inside of her face and settled in her jaw, completely distorting her features. She was eventually forced to have surgery to remove the wax, which left a permanent scar and was why she demanded all the mirrors be removed for all of her residences. As an aside, the duke eventually divorced her and she ended up in an insane asylum for the last decade of her life.
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Gladys Deacon
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4. strangers say when they discover I’m an author. – This is one of those amusing things in my life because, without fail, as soon as a stranger discovers I write romance for a living, they immediately assume I write the naughty kind of romance. Case in point, I once attended a dinner at a friend’s house and met this lovely man by the name of George. Well, I told George what I did for a living, but I didn’t expand much because it’s weird to talk about my writing at a dinner party. It’s on the same lines of getting stuck next to an accountant during tax season, so I tend to merely mention what I do and change the subject. I probably should have taken the time to expand more to George because throughout dinner, the man kept staring at me, and then whispering to his wife during the courses. He then went and spoke to the host after the meal, and my friend was dying. Why, you ask? Because George had come to the conclusion that I made my living writing porn but he didn’t think I really looked the type. It was beyond amusing, and is one of those stories that’s still told at dinners to this day.
5. How my own reading habits have changed. This was an incredibly interesting discovery for me because, yes, my reading habits have changed since I began writing. I cannot read historical romance while writing a first draft because I tend to start mimicking whatever book I’m reading, which isn’t cool at all and completely messes up my writing voice. I limit my reading while doing a first draft to non-fiction or sometimes an occasional suspense or thriller, although that doesn’t always work either because once, after reading a thriller, I included a serial killer in my work in progress, something my editor made me take right out because nothing says romantic comedy quite like a serial killer.
Jen Turano
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Named One of the Funniest Voices in Inspirational Romance by Booklist, Jen Turano is a USA Today Best-Selling Author, known for penning quirky historical romances set in the Gilded Age. Her books have earned Publisher Weekly and Booklist starred reviews, top picks from Romantic Times, and praise from Library Journal. She’s been a finalist twice for the RT Reviewers’ Choice Awards and had two of her books listed in the top 100 romances of the past decade from Booklist. When she’s not writing, she spends her time outside of Denver, CO. Readers may find her at www.jenturano.com or https://www.facebook.com/jenturanoauthor/or on Twitter at JenTurano @JenTurano.
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It's Time For A Giveaway!
Jen is generously giving away a print copy of To Disguise The Truth
(USA ONLY)
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