How about telling us a little about some of her exploits. I enjoyed the excerpt.

One of the hardest parts in writing about lords and ladies in that period is being sure to understand the “rules.” First names were rarely used in speech. “The” was only used for peers and their families and it’s complicated about who gets the reference and who doesn’t. There were strict rules about using “Miss,” “Mr.” and “Mrs.”

Titles were used in so many different ways. For instance Duke. For formal announcement or on correspondence, His Grace the Duke of Ashcroft. The salutation on formal correspondence, My Lord Duke. Salutation of social correspondence, Dear Duke of Ashcroft. Addressed in speech as Your Grace (by inferiors) or Duke (by social equals). His signature on social correspondence, Ashcroft.

As a writer, you try to follow most of the rules. But there are times when a character or characters break the rules for their own reasons or personality characteristic.

I like reading about different historical periods, even though history was not one of my strengths in school. I find the thinking in various time periods to be interesting and have enjoyed non-fiction social history as well as historical romance for a long time. One of my favorite social history authors is the late Studs Turkel. He interviewed people and wrote about their feelings about such things as working, World War II, and Race in America. I think with historical romance you get some social history because there is nowhere that the thoughts, feelings, and beliefs of a time period will be more present than within the close personal relationships that people of the time period have. In writing we create people, and places, and we climb inside the people we create to see what makes them tick, what influences their lives, and so on.

In a sense the blurb for this book captures the importance of social position when Blaine addresses Ashlynn:

[He nodded. “We are soon to be married. How you behave in public is important to me, personally, and in respect of my position in society. It is important to us, as a couple who respects one another, and to you. Your being an American–even as wrong as it is–is merely tolerated by my peers because I demand it.” ]

Anyway, I love those little bits of social aspects of history woven into the fabric of historical romances. I understand those parts even if I have a hard time remembering which general was on which side in which battle.

You said writing about Lords and Ladies is tricky, Starla. What do you find the most tricky thing about writing about them?