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This Duchess of Mine
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Avon |
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This Duchess of Mine I'm the kind of writer who can't seem to think in terms of one book: I invariably design a world that takes up three or four books. This leads to a virtual web of connections between my books. So what I offer below is something of a family tree, a way of chasing the characters whom you particularly like through several books, or of figuring out why a character's name sounds so very familiar to you. Warning! In describing relations between characters, I may wreck a book for you by making it clear who someone marries, or the outcome of a book. Please do not read about The Inside Take if you're wary of knowing who is paired with whom!
» This is the fifth book in the Desperate Duchess series. So, although it stands alone, some characters, such as the Duke of Villiers, appeared first in earlier books. Villiers’s story, A Duke of My Own, will be next in the series, publishing in August, 2009. » Every book in the Desperate Duchess series opens with the party that closed the previous book. Here’s the party circuit, so far: Desperate Duchesses closed with Jemma’s party to celebrate her brother’s dueling victory; Affair Before Christmas opened at that same party and ended with Jemma’s Twelfth Night masquerade; Duchess by Night opened with the masquerade and ended at Lord Strange’s endless house party; When the Duke Returns began at that house party and ended on the King’s yacht, the Peregrine. This Duchess of Mine opens on the yacht, and ends on at a benefit ball given by Jemma. And the opening of A Duke of My Own? As my son would say, that’s a no-brainer. » In the first four novels of the Desperate Duchess series, I left one tiny question unanswered. To catch each question, check the Inside Take for the various books. In books five and six, I am answering all of them. The mystery solved here? The question of that very odd chess set, the one that first appeared when Jemma bought the White Queen in Affair Before Christmas, and cropped up again in Duchess by Night… While I won’t tell you for sure if the chess set had magical properties, I think that it’s demise casts an interesting light on the curse it supposedly carries. » I wish I could tell you that the hulks were my invention or, for that matter, that little boys weren’t being employed as mudlarks. Alas, both abominations existed. Elijah’s house for glassblowers came from my imagination – but again, the terrible physical effects of glassblowing did not. » This Duchess of Mine opens with Elijah’s terrific race through the streets of a rioting London to reach Jemma. I made up the barricades in Bramble Street, but I was inspired by the marvelous scenes in Terry Pratchett’s NightWatch. The summer I wrote this novel I read through all of Pratchett’s novels, one after another, in total delight. I highly recommend them! If you haven’t tried them, start with Men at Arms; there’s a wonderful little romance between a werewolf and a cop. » Chess lies at the heart of the plot of this novel. Not only does it detail the last chess game in Jemma and Elijah’s match (blindfolded and in bed!), but I thought of the tangled affections of Jemma, Elijah, and Villiers as a chess game, as he himself points out. Jemma and Elijah are the White royalty; Villiers is the Black King who sacrifies himself, taking the Black Queen off the board. And so, finally, Jemma and Elijah play their final chess game. You probably won’t be thinking too much about chess while you read that particular scene. But as I saw it, it had to be a real game. So Professor Lenny Cassuto came to my rescue, as he has in earlier books in the series. If you’d like to follow the chess game he created for Jemma and Elijah, here you go! <make that a link to a separate page, content below:> ~~~~ I’m using chess nomenclature here, so P-K4 means that White, which always moves first, takes a pawn to King’s Four. Elijah plays White in this particular game. 1. P-K4 P-K4 And there the game breaks off. In Dr. Cassuto’s analysis: Black (Jemma) is considerably ahead in this position. 1. She has good bishops, and is threatening to break up White's kingside
pawns; The moves to get to this place have been plausible--not best play, it's true, but plausible, especially for blindfold play. |
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It's a three-author extravaganza... and it's FREE! Brand new and available only on Eloisa's website and the websites of Julia Quinn and Elizabeth Boyle, here is the free poster of four bookmarks. Click to download, cut them out and share them, or leave the pdf whole as a collectors' item. Tell your friends! |
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We have an amazing Special Feature for This Duchess of Mine: an extra chapter, a chapter that doesn't appear in the printed book, and never will. No, we won't tell you what it's about -- just that readers begged Eloisa for it. The new chapter can be found in the Readers' Pages. It's a gift from Eloisa to her readers. (note: the extra chapters are available to registered readers only) | |
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- Romantic Times, 4 ½ stars (posted May 2009)
- Jane Bowers, Romance Reviews Today (posted May 2009)
- Dottie, Romance Junkies (posted May 2009) |
"James' desperate duchesses have captured readers' hearts and imaginations, perhaps none so much as Jemma, the Duchess of Beaumont. It's a joy to see this master chess player caught in a high-stakes game of love, where one false move means you lose your heart. James is clever and witty and writes with style and grace; she also touches readers on many levels, making them believe in the power of love to overcome any obstacle and make the world a better place."
