Tuesday, June 20, 2017
Book Tour + #Giveaway: A Queen From the North by Erin McRae & Racheline Maltese @erincmcrae @racheline_m @SDSXXTours
A
Queen From the North
A
Royal Roses Book
by
Erin McRae & Racheline Maltese
Genre:
Contemporary Romance
It
may be the 21st century, but in a not-so-united kingdom the wounds of
the Wars of the Roses have never healed. The rivalry between the
Yorkish north and Lancastrian south has threatened to pull the nation
apart for over 500 years.
While
the modern world struggles with fractures born of ancient conflict,
Lady Amelia Brockett faces far more mundane problems. Known to her
family as Meels, this youngest daughter of a Northern earl is having
the Worst. Christmas. Ever. Dumped by her boyfriend and rejected from
graduate school, her parents deem her the failure of the
family.
But
when her older brother tries to cheer her with a trip to the races, a
chance meeting with Arthur, the widowed, playboy Prince of Wales,
offers Amelia the chance to change her life -- and Britain's fortunes
-- forever. Hunted by the press -- and haunted by Arthur's niece who
fancies herself the kingdom's court witch -- Amelia finds herself
adrift in a sea of paparazzi, politics, and prophecy.
With
few allies beyond her allergic-to-horses sister-in-law, her best
friend who has a giant crush on the prince, and the cute young
receptionist at Buckingham Palace that calls himself her Royalty
Customer Service Representative, Amelia must navigate a perilous and
peculiar course to secure Arthur's love and become A Queen from the
North.
Goodreads
* Amazon
Royal Tea:
When Amelia returned to
the stable yard leading Hyacinth’s horse beside her, almost an hour had passed.
She was tired, cold, and very in want of a bath. She was also increasingly
worried about the Princess, if for no other reason than a total lack of
information.
She turned the erstwhile runaway horse over to
a groom who came out to meet her, relieved to have had help with the difficult
animal. The stable yard was otherwise mostly empty, except for a man on the
other side of it brushing down a horse. With a jolt of surprise she realized it
was Arthur.
He looked over when she rode up to him and
swung down.
“You caught him,” he said, nodding to
Hyacinth’s horse.
“Yes. Eventually. He ran into the woods. It
took forever. Is Hyacinth all right?”
“For the most part. Broken wrist. Our
physician took her to A&E, much to her displeasure. She’ll be back in an
hour or so with X-rays and a cast. Could have been much worse.”
Amelia blew out a relieved breath. A broken
wrist was an annoyance, particularly for the active Hyacinth, but it was much
better than the dire scenarios she’d been spinning in her head.
“The horse is all right?” Arthur asked.
Amelia nodded. “Perfectly fine and not even
sure what all the upset was about.
Damn skittish though.”
Arthur raised an eyebrow as she removed her
own horse’s tack and saddle.
“Why do you look surprised?” she asked.
Arthur shrugged. “You’re a small girl. This
part’s a lot of work.”
“And you’re the Prince of Wales, doing it
yourself. Isn’t this what you have people for?”
Arthur ran a hand down his horse’s neck. “This
is one of the only things people leave me alone to do.”
“I bet it took you a while to train them into
that.”
“It did.”
They fell into a silence after that, both of
them focused on their horses. But whenever she glanced sideways at Arthur she
caught him staring at her.
“This weekend is a bit of a mess,” Amelia said
mildly into the silence which was beginning to grow awkward. “One of the
Princesses fell off a horse, the other hates me; your friends think I’m a child
and a fool who can’t even make it to dinner on time; and it’s only Saturday
morning. You want me to be queen, I think, but no one else here seems to know
that and they’d probably be appalled if they did.”
“I don’t really care about what other people
think. Do you? Or was this just a game until it got hard?”
“Other people are not what make any of this
hard. What makes this hard is you and your inability to be consistent or
transparent about anything. Including whether you want me around.”
“I wanted to call,” Arthur said quietly. “When
my father was ill.”
“So why didn’t you?” Amelia demanded. Maybe
now they could be done with this argument once and for all. And maybe Arthur
would finally say something that could make her understand him and his wretched
mercurialness.
“Enough awful things have happened in my life.
You’re one of the good ones. I didn’t want to drag you into a crisis.”
“If you want me to be your partner, you need
to treat me as such,” Amelia said.
“I won’t break because the world is hard to
live in sometimes. If I’m going to go through with this, I’m not doing it
alone.”
“So you are going through with this?” Arthur
asked. He turned to look intently at her.
“That was the deal.”
“Good. Will you marry me?”
Amelia blinked. “What?”
“I said, will you marry —”
“No.” She took a step back, panicked. “Not
like this. You can’t ask me like this.”
Arthur looked around, as if he had just
realized where they were. “We can go inside?”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“Then what did you mean? You’re clearly not
doing this just for your health,”
Arthur looked nervous, Amelia noticed in an
abstract way.
"Without me, your crown, or at least your
legacy, is forfeit. I'm barely more than a child who is about to be abused by
media all over the world. The least you can do is kneel." Amelia had no
idea where the words came from. She hadn’t rehearsed them, indeed had never
imagined this moment, not like this: standing in the Gatcombe stable yard in
the cold damp of an English spring.
Arthur smiled at her, almost proud. Then, he
strode the two paces to where she stood and sank to one knee before her, right
there in the dirt. His horse whickered softly as he took her hands in his.
“Go on,” Amelia said. “Both knees.” She could
hardly believe her own daring, but Arthur had always seemed to enjoy it when
she pushed. She would have so little power in their lives going forward, he
could at least give her this.
Arthur seemed to agree, because he shifted his
other knee under himself as well.
At the sight of the Prince, on both of his
knees for her and at her command, Amelia realized with a startling clarity that
she was absolutely and completely in love with him. Well then.
“Is this all right?” he asked, with an amused
tilt of his mouth.
It took Amelia a moment to find her voice.
“Yes.”
“Lady Amelia Brockett. Of Kirkham. Of York. Of
all my supposed enemies.” He looked her straight in the eye. “Will you marry
me?”
Amelia nodded.
Arthur squeezed her hands. “The least you can
do,” he said, “Is actually say yes. Aloud. Please.”
“All right then,” she replied, laughing just a
little. “Yes, Arthur, I will marry you.”
“Shit,” Arthur said.
“Excuse me?”
Without a word, he stood, grabbed Amelia by
the wrist, and strode off to the house, dragging her after him.
“Arthur!” she demanded, as he banged in
through the side door and tromped through the atrium and then the sitting room,
past a handful of people who broke off conversation to stare after them. “Where
are we going?”
“I don’t have the rings,” Arthur said as he
reached the stairs and started to climb, two at a time. Amelia had to run to
keep up.
“You forgot?”
“I wasn’t quite planning on….” Arthur trailed
off as they reached a wing Amelia hadn’t been in yet. He fumbled a door open
and pulled her inside. For a moment their bodies were pressed together, and
then the door closed again with a muffled bang of heavy oak.
Erin
McRae
is a queer writer based in New York and Washington, DC. She is a
researcher, statistician, and novelist.
She
has a bachelor’s degree in International Relations from the
University of Toronto (Toronto, Canada) and a master’s degree in
International Affairs from American University (Washington, DC).
Together
with Racheline Maltese she founded Avian30, a literary collective
dedicated to stories with magical and sexual realism. She is a hybrid
author. She and Racheline Maltese have self-published titles (A Queen
From the North, 2017; The Art of Three, 2017, and the Love in Los
Angeles series, which was originally published by Torquere Press in
2014 and is being re-released in 2017). They have also published work
with Cleis Press (Best Gay Romance, 2015), Dreamspinner (The Love’s
Labours series, 2015), Supposed Crimes (Young Love Old Hearts, 2015).
She
lives with her spouse and their two cats.
Racheline
Maltese
can fly a plane, sail a boat, and ride a horse, but has no idea how
to drive a car. With Erin McRae she writes romance about fame and
public life. She is also a producer and writer on Tremontaine, Serial
Box Publishing's adventure of manners, swordplay, and chocolate
that's a prequel to Ellen Kushner's gay lit classic, Swordspoint.
Racheline's
training includes a journalism degree from The George Washington
University, as well as acting and directing coursework at the
Atlantic Theater Company Acting School (New York City) and the
National Institute of Dramatic Art (Sydney, Australia).
Her
fiction, non-fiction and poetry has appeared in numerous outlets, and
she is a regular speaker on pop-culture topics at fan and academic
conferences. Racheline also voiced Desire and Delirium in a benefit
performance of Neil Gaiman's The Sandman for the CBLDF.
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3 comments:
Thank you for hosting! Love the excerpt! Congrats on new release
Looks Like A Fantastic Read.
Sounds like a great read!!
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