Heather Snow and her debut novel, Sweet Enemy

 Sweet Enemy…

A Veiled Seduction Novel ~ Book One

Geoffrey Wentworth, a war hero and rising political star, never wanted to be the Earl, but when his brother dies, he knows his duty—take up the responsibility for his family’s estates.  His mother’s definition of duty differs from his, however, and can be summed up in one word—heirs.  When Geoffrey rushes home to answer her urgent summons, he finds himself host to a house full of women, all vying to become the next Countess of Stratford.  But his love is Parliament, where he wields his influence and reputation to better the lives of ex-soldiers, until a tempting houseguest and a secret from his past threaten his freedom…and his heart.

Liliana Claremont, a brilliant chemist, doesn’t want to be any man’s wife, much less a countess.  If she had tuppence for every time she’d been told her place was filling the nursery, not experimenting in the laboratory, she could buy the Tower Bridge.  However, when she receives a coveted invitation to the Earl’s house party, she trades in her beakers for ball gowns and gladly takes on the guise of husband hunter—for the chance to uncover what the Earl had to do with the murder of her father.

Liliana believes the best way to get the answers she needs is to keep her enemy close, though romance is not part of her formula.  But it only takes one kiss to start a reaction she can’t control…If you’d like to read the Prologue and first Chapter of Sweet Enemy, you can find it here.

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“Historical intrigue and heart-pounding passion make Sweet Enemy a great read.  Romance fans will love it.” ~#1NYT Bestselling Author JULIE GARWOOD

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Thanks so much to Fatin and Novel Thoughts for inviting me to stop by today!  It’s hard to believe that I am finally…finally less than 24 hours from seeing my debut novel, Sweet Enemy, hit the bookstore shelves!

Naturally, I’m very excited!  I mean, one only gets to make her debut once, right?   I’m also on tenterhooks, wondering if readers are going to love Liliana and Geoffrey’s story as much as I do.  You see, Sweet Enemy, in many ways, is the book of my heart.  We hear that phrase tossed around a lot in writing circles and I’ve heard it described many ways.  Sometimes it means a book that has special meaning to an author in ways that other books she writes never will.  Sometimes it means the book that an author feels compelled to write—pouring her heart and soul into it—regardless of whether she thinks a publisher will take a chance on it and buy it.  My favorite explanation, I heard from USA Today and NYT Bestselling author, Julie Leto: rather than the ‘book of your heart’, she calls it writing the ‘book of your voice’—the uniquely personal way that you, and only you, can tell a certain story.

For me, Sweet Enemy embodies all three explanations.  You see, Sweet Enemy is not only my first published novel, but my very first completed manuscript, and therefore will always have a special place in my heart. When I sat down to write about a Regency-era lady chemist, I had no idea whether agents, editors or readers would be open to a historical romance heroine who was different from your typical London Miss.  And yet, as an author with a degree in chemistry, she was a character I understood—her curiosity, her doggedness and her drive for discovery and experimentation (which gets her in plenty of trouble, not to mention a bit of fun!).  Liliana was a character I thought I could lend my own voice to, even though she lived two-hundred years before me.  She was also a character who interested me, one I wanted to read about—and hey, I’m a romance reader, too!  If she interested me, surely she would others.  So I decided to write her story, even if no one would love her but me.  Luckily, I found that people did, and Sweet Enemy found a home at Penguin/NAL.  I’m hoping that tomorrow, readers will love her, too!

And her hero, of course!  While Liliana’s being a chemist shapes her as a character, the real chemistry in Sweet Enemy is the very best kind—love.  It wouldn’t be a romance without a hero worthy of our heroine, and to my surprise, creating Geoffrey was just as fun for me as an author.  Geoffrey is the one man who is so completely wrong and yet so entirely right for Liliana.  Yes, he may be the son of the man she suspects murdered her father, and yes, the needs and goals of their lives may be very different on the surface, but underneath, they complement each other perfectly—if they can overcome all that stands between them.  I found I loved Geoffrey as much, if not more, than Liliana by the time they found their happily-ever-after, even though I thought I was writing her story.

As a reader, do you find you identify more with the heroine, the hero, or pretty much equally both as the love story progresses?

I’d be happy to give away the last early signed copy of Sweet Enemy to one random commenter.

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Heather Snow is a historical romance author with a degree in Chemistry who discovered 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.

Heather lives in the Midwest with her husband, two rambunctious boys and one very put upon cat.  She sincerely hopes you find her stories have just the right chemistry…

Please visit her at www.HeatherSnowBooks.com, on Facebook www.facebook.com/authorheathersnow or on Twitter www.twitter.com/HeatherSnowRW

Sweet Enemy is available for Pre-Order right now wherever books are sold and will available widely on February 7, 2012.

Pre-order Sweet Enemy today!
Rainy Day Books (Heather’s local Indie)

Amazon (Kindle Edition)

Amazon (Paperback Edition)

Books-A-Million
     Barnes and Noble
Indiebound

*Giveaway sponsored by the author

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