A NECESSARY DECEPTION - Laurie Alice Eakes - Free Book - Lady in the Mist

Welcome back to my blog, Laurie Alice. I love your new head shot. God has really been moving in your writing life. What do you see on the horizon?

If I’ve learned one important factor in this career, it’s not to look to the horizon, but to what is before me. As for my work, I have two books and two novellas in collections coming out next year, more books to write, and a few graduate credits to upgrade my MA in writing to an MFA in writing so I can teach.

Tell us a little about your family.

“Little” isn’t a word I can associate with my family. For the immediate group, it is, so far, just my husband and me. I also have several brothers and sisters, all of whom have children and a couple of those have children. We’re a bit scattered around the country from Virginia, to Michigan, to California. It’s a family with a lot of readers in it, especially my parents, so me being a writer is quite natural to everyone.

Has your writing changed your reading habits? If so, how?

Yes, I find myself rewriting books in my head, rephrasing things differently, and guessing what the next line will be. Because of that, I tend to stay away from books in my genre when I’m writing intensely so I don’t pick up another author’s voice by accident. Mostly I read an opposite genre like contemporary women’s fiction or a thriller. I also read more cozy mysteries than I used to.

What are you working on right now?

I have just finished a novella set in colonial America, and am researching my third midwife book, while editing my second Regency for Revell.

What outside interests do you have?

When I’m on deadline, I forget an outside exist. J Seriously, I love hiking and reading all kinds of stuff, visiting historic sites and watching movies, listening to music, especially live, and talking, especially with my husband.

How do you choose your settings for each book?

With a few exceptions, I choose the setting that fits the story rather than the other way around. The exception is my New Jersey books, since I needed to be state specific with those. But I came up with the concepts for my Regencies before I decided where the books would be set—in England, of course, but not all in the same place.

If you could spend an evening with one historical person, who would it be and why?

This question forever stumps me. I think and think and can never figure out who it might be. Probably a writer, but not Jane Austen. I think Miss Austen and I would not get along. Probably one of the Victorian poets. Despite preferring earlier history, I love the Victorian poets like Alfred Lord Tennyson and Matthew Arnold.

What is the one thing you wish you had known before you started writing novels?

I wish I’d understood about writing for the market. I took “Write what you know” and “Write from the heart” too seriously, then wondered why people said my writing was great and then turned me down. Duh. No one wanted what my heart knows; they want what makes their hearts sing. Once I figured that out, I started selling.

What new lessons is the Lord teaching you right now?

Faith and taking one day at a time. That’s the easy answer. I could write a year of blog posts on everything going on in my life and trying to figure out what God is telling me through it all. So far I’ve worked out that my faith is stronger than I thought.

What are the three best things you can tell other authors to do to be successful?

A: Pay attention to what readers say. Seek their input or join fan lists or read Amazon reviews by readers, not writers. As I told a friend recently, just because that is technically historically accurate doesn’t mean modern readers can accept it. We need to compromise a bit so as not to freak them out or turn them off.

B: Have a teachable heart.

C: Stay humble. This is about the Lord’s work, not yours.

Very good advice. Tell us about the featured book.

Here is the book jacket information. In addition, I want to share that this book represents the fulfillment of a dream. I wanted to write Regencies for the CBA, but got the response that the CBA wouldn’t buy one. I sold one in the ABA and won an award for it, but wasn’t satisfied

With the launch of this series as my eighth book and second book for Baker/Revell, I have to say that perseverance and being obedient to God’s calling holds numerous rewards. This is one of them.

A Necessary Deception

When young widow Lydia Gale helps a French prisoner obtain parole, she never dreams she will see him again. But just as the London Season gets under way, the man presents himself in her parlor. While she should be focused on getting her headstrong younger sister prepared for her entrée into Society, Lady Gale finds herself preoccupied with the mysterious Frenchman. Is he a spy or a suitor? Can she trust him? Or is she putting herself and her family in danger?

Discover a world of elegance and intrigue, balls and masquerades as Laurie Alice Eakes whisks you into the drawing rooms of London Society on this exciting quest to let the past stay in the past—and let love guide the future.

Please give us the first page of the book.

Dartmoor Prison

Devonshire, England

March 1812

Entrée into the prison proved easy for Lady Lydia Gale. As the stranger at her cottage door had assured her when he arrived at dawn to inform her of a certain Frenchman’s presence as an enemy “guest” of England, a few shillings exchanging hands had placed her in the guard house. She held a handkerchief sprinkled with the honey-citrus aroma of linden blossom oil beneath her nose against the prison stench, awaiting the arrival of Chef de Batallon Christophe Arnaud.

Her cousin and companion, Barbara Bainbridge, stood beside her, her lips set, her hands twisting in the folds of a cloak soaked with the rain that had begun the moment they reached the walls of Dartmoor Prison. “We’re going to contract a chill or worse.”

“We’ll be in Plymouth with hot tea and fires sooner than you think.” Lydia raised her other hand to finger the pearl and ruby bracelet that had scarcely left her wrist in the three years since Monsieur Arnaud’s messenger had appeared on her doorstep at dawn, carrying her husband’s last letter and gift that were somehow smuggled out of French-occupied Spain. Even with it resting between the edge of her kid glove and the sleeve of her pelisse, the bracelet’s coldness of metal and stones chilled her skin. “Since he’s a major in the French Army, helping him is simple.”

And her chance to be a good wife, even if she was now a widow.

“If it will cost us money, you know you don’t have any to spare.”

“I’ll manage something, if he needs money.”

That too she had worked out on the journey from her cottage in Tavistock to Dartmoor Prison. Barbara would object, but Lydia thought no price too high if it helped her to accomplish something, to succeed at fulfilling a promise—at last.

How can readers find you on the Internet?

You can find me at my Web Site www.lauriealiceeakes.com

Or my blog: www.lauriealiceeakes.blogspot.com

Or on Facebook. I’m the only Laurie Alice Eakes on FB.

Thank you, Laurie Alice, for the fun interview.

Readers, here's a link to the book. By using it when you order, you help support this blog.

Necessary Deception, A: A Novel (The Daughters of Bainbridge House)

Laurie Alice is giving away a free copy of Lady in the Mist on this interview, not the featured book.



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