New! A racy Regency read, A Most Lamentable Comedy, available from bookdepository.com (free shipping worldwide).

1822, England. Young, beautiful Lady Caroline Elmhurst is down on her luck. Twice-widowed (once is unfortunate, twice just looks like carelessness…), pursued by creditors, she needs to get back on track before the world realizes just how desperate she’s become.

But she’s optimistic about finding a new husband and when she meets handsome, mysterious Nicholas Congrevance at a houseparty in the country, she sets out to entice him. For his part, Nicholas simply sees Lady Caroline as just the sort of woman he’s used to exploiting–rich, available, and gullible. Neither realizes the other is penniless–and neither has any intention of falling in love…

The Story Behind The Story

I originally wrote a proposal for A Most Lamentable Comedy (and to my great pleasure that’s the title I chose and which Little Black Dress also liked) to show that The Rules was not a one-off book. As I wrote it I realized it was to be nothing like The Rules; yes, it was going to be funny, but I’d used up my repertoire of bad jokes, proposals in waterclosets, and people who spoke without any punctuation.

Originally I’d thought I might write about the twins from The Rules, as the happy endings for the secondary characters (Fanny Gibbons and Tom and Inigo’s mother and her Admiral) were pretty self-evident. But having written about a good girl, and a (mostly) gentlemanly gentleman, I decided I wanted to write about a hero and heroine who were somewhat lacking in moral fiber, to put it mildly. So I chose to write about Caroline Bludge, who’s caught almost in flagrante with Inigo in chapter two of The Rules. She was originally called Mary, but I found Mary was very inhibiting as a Bad Girl name. So I renamed her after the baddest of Bad Regency Girls, Lady Caroline Lamb.

And then I reread Our Mutual Friend by Dickens, which has two minor characters, Alfred and Sophronia Lammle, who marry and then find out that neither has any money.

Aha.

Brilliant concept, Mr. Dickens. Thanks. So I wrote about two villains who reform, sort of, partly by falling in love, but also by finding friendships and purpose. It’s a sequel to The Rules because many of the characters make return appearances, but otherwise stands alone. And yes, there is sex in this one, so I don’t think anyone will be calling it a “sweet” book for a number of reasons.

And the title? It’s from A Midsummer Night’s Dream by Shakespeare, and roughly the first half of the book is about an amateur production of the play. The second half is about the heroine becoming a Duke’s mistress, because it seemed that every other Regency-set historical on the shelves starred a Duke and a courtesan, so I thought I’d attempt to crack the code myself.