A Kiss at Midnight
Coming in August 2010!

My next novel is a fractured fairy tale, a skewed, funny version of Cinderella with a sulky prince and a snappy Cinderella named Kate. It's so much fun! I'll put up more information every month — the cover should be coming in a couple of months, and it's just as delicious as that for A Duke of Her Own. So do check back! Of course, excerpts will be on their way as well.

Some books roll off the pen – and others are the bane of the author's (and editor's) existence. A Kiss at Midnight took a long time to write. I absolutely adore it now; like most things in life, it sparkled more and more as I worked at it. Along the way, I shed a great deal of text. I thought it would be fun to share this tidbit, cut from the early chapters. Last month I gave you a bit from my prince’s point-of-view. This month it’s something quite different – a peek at the household in which Cinderella (aka Kate) is living before she has a chance to go to the ball. You know the elements of the Cinderella story, don’t you? The pumpkin, the rats, the ball, the dress… Here’s a fun little snippet, with the backdrop of Kate’s wicked stepmother, and a mention or two of…the Rats!

“I spoke of the rats to Herself last night,” the butler, Cherryderry, announced.

"You didn’t!” Mrs. Swallow had turned back to counting the linens, but she paused to throw him a speculative look.

“I live to please,” Cherryderry said, rather obscurely. What he meant was that he lived to please himself, and it pleased him to provoke his mistress. What’s more, he felt he had the right to do it, as Herself had the temper of a sailor and the balls to match.

“Yes, but –“

“I merely informed Herself that given as there were animals on the dining room table, I would instruct the footmen to keep salvers on the sideboard. You know how she likes this new-fangled business of putting platters on the table.”

"And?”

But they were interrupted by a violent ring of the call bells followed by a shrill voice echoing down the polished wood stairs. “Cherryderrrrry.”

Cherryderry didn’t move. “Must have woken from her nap.”

“Go, do,” Mrs. Swallow said. “She’ll take after Miss Kate if you don’t leap to it.”

The voice was louder now and angrier. “Cherryderry!”

“She’s coming down the stairs,” Mrs. Swallow observed.

Cherryderry adjusted his coat over his rather majestic stomach. “Herself does nothing more than prove her origins when she’s carousing about the house like the fishwife she really is.”

“Hush and go on with you,” Mrs. Swallow said, waving him out of her sitting room. “I’ve to finish these linens, and I can’t have her coming in her all ruffled up. It’s like to drive me out of my mind.”