Jennifer Haymore – Guest Blog and Giveaway

Thanks so much for inviting me to blog with you! I’m so excited to be here talking about my latest release, PLEASURES OF A TEMPTED LADY.

 

PLEASURES is the last of a trilogy of novels about the Donovan Sisters, five sisters raised in the Caribbean and sent to London to marry proper husbands when they reach a certain age. The Donovans aren’t your average family of the London ton, so when they arrive, all kinds of juicy scandal ensues.

 

I’m especially excited about PLEASURES OF A TEMPTED LADY, because it’s about Meg, the Donovan sister who was lost at sea for eight long years. She has to go through QUITE a bit to get her happily ever after, and I hope readers enjoy her tumultuous journey. I sure had fun writing it!

DANGEROUS DESIRE

Captain William Langley knows the ocean well, but nothing could prepare him for what he discovers adrift on the cold Irish Sea. The tiny boat carries two passengers: a child–and Meg Donovan, Will’s long-lost love. Meg’s disappearance at sea eight years ago was a devastating blow. Now she’s back, as beautiful as ever, and with secrets as deep as Will’s own…

 

After years held captive by a cold-blooded pirate, Meg has finally escaped with little Jake, the boy she’s come to love as if he were her own. But the pirate wants his revenge–and Meg must do whatever it takes to shield Jake from the madman. Determined not to lose Meg again, Will vows to protect them both, yet Meg can’t risk putting the only man she’s ever loved in danger. With the threat to her safety growing, and her passion for Will burning brighter every day, surrendering herself to Will might be a pleasure too tempting to resist…

 

Here’s a short excerpt from the book, wherein our hero, Will Langley, finds his long-lost love and his own Sleeping Beauty floating in a tiny sailboat after a storm has ravaged the sea.

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Will bent over and reached down for her, managing to grasp her beneath the armpits, and with the two men’s help, he was able to maneuver her onto the deck. It wasn’t that she was heavy—she was actually a slip of a thing. But the movement of the ocean combined with her dead weight and the frothy torn clothing combined to make it a cumbersome process.

Cradling her head, Will gently lay her on the deck.

“She’s breathing,” Jasper gasped as he scrambled up the ladder. “She lives!”

Will heaved out a sigh of relief.

Holding the little boy—who looked to be about five or six years old, though Will was certainly no authority on children—Briggs stepped onto the deck. The four men hovered over the woman. Crouched near her feet, Jasper cleared his throat and tugged the filthy hem of her dress down over the torn and dirty stockings covering her legs.

Something about those legs was…familiar.

With his heart suddenly pounding hard, Will raised his hand to push away the blond mass of hair obscuring her features. Her hair was dense with wetness and salt, but he cleared it from her face, his callused fingertips scraping over the soft curve of her cheek.

“Oh, God,” Will choked, his hand frozen over her hair. “Oh, my God.”

“What is it, Captain?” The question came from somewhere above him.

Will blinked away the water threatening to stream from his eyes. Was he overtired? Was he having visions? Had the intensity of the storm and lack of proper sleep caused him to have strange, perverse dreams?

No. God no, he was awake. There was too much color—the dewy flesh of her skin, the light brown spatter of freckles on her nose, the pink and white of her dress. Beyond the rancid smell of bilge water—originating mostly from the boy, he thought—he could smell her, too. She’d always smelled sweet and pure, like the sugarcane from the plantation in Antigua where she’d been raised.

Was she a ghost?

Half fearing she’d evaporate like fog beneath his fingers, he clasped both sides of her face and turned it upward so she would have been staring at him if her eyes were open.

“You’re real,” he whispered. He crouched over her mouth and nose and closed his eyes as the soft puff of her breath washed over his cheek.

Jasper was right—she was alive.

This was impossible. She’d been lost at sea eight years ago—on the other side of the Atlantic. Had she been adrift all this time, like some sleeping beauty, waiting for him—her prince—to find her and kiss her awake?

Did he dare hope that this was a true miracle and not some cruel joke of fate?

“Meg,” he breathed. The dewy feel of her skin beneath his fingertips swept through him like the stroke of a rose petal. “Meg? Wake up,” he murmured. “Wake up, love.”

The urge overcame him, and forgetting the men staring at him—at them—he bent forward and pressed his lips to hers.

 

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Just comment on this post to be included in a drawing to win two of Jennifer’s Donovan Series Books: SECRETS OF AN ACCIDENTAL DUCHESS and PLEASURES OF A TEMPTED LADY. To read blurbs and excerpts, visit www.jenniferhaymore.com.