A Warriner to Tempt Her + Giveaway
A shy innocent wary of all men…
After a shocking incident, shy Lady Isabella Beaumont is perfectly happy to stay in the background and let her sister get all the attention from handsome suitors! However, working with Dr. Joseph Warriner to help the sick and needy pushes her closer to a man than she’s ever been before. Is this man worth trusting with her deepest of desires…?
Is your book part of a series /
standalone? It is part of The Wild Warriners series but can be read as a standalone
Are there any possible trigger
warnings that bloggers/readers need to be aware of? I don’t think so. It
tackles mental health issues in the 19th century and there is a
smallpox epidemic.
About Virginia Heath
When Virginia Heath was a little girl it took her ages to fall asleep, so she made up stories in her head to help pass the time while she was staring at the ceiling. As she got older, the stories became more complicated, sometimes taking weeks to get to the happy ending. Then one day, she decided to embrace the insomnia and start writing them down. Fortunately, the lovely people at Harlequin took pity on her and decided to publish her romances, but it still takes her forever to fall asleep.
Links:
Hi and thanks for inviting me
to Cheryl’s Book Nook!
What I love most about writing
and reading romance is watching the hero and heroine fight the obvious
attraction that exists between them. In my latest book, A Warriner to Tempt
Her, my heroine Bella fights her attraction to the handsome and brilliant Dr
Joe Warriner more than most. Thanks to a horrific incident in her past she is
terrified and wary of men- aide from the gorgeous doctor of course. Ever since
Bella first began volunteering in the infirmary at the children’s home, the
pair of them have been thrust together. Something about Joe makes the usual
panic disappear and she finds herself not only relaxing around him but enjoying
both learning from him and spending time with him. But there is another
complication which stands in the path of true love. Joe has asked to court her
sister Clarissa…
Extract:
Bella was doing her
best to look engaged, despite the fact she didn’t give two figs about the glorious society
of the capital or the opulence of the grand entertainments in comparison to
this minuscule little
affair. Clarissa’s admirers hadn’t noticed. Next to her sister Bella was
largely invisible. Always had been, but now that Joe preferred Clarissa,
blending into the wallpaper had rather lost much of its appeal.
He had yet to make an appearance. The entire Warriner
clan were in attendance, all bar the handsome doctor who had wormed his way
into her heart and then stamped on it without realising, and in a show of
public solidarity both her parents were laughing and joking amongst them. Jake
had sought her out over an hour ago and gone to great pains to reassure her
that Joe would arrive, just as soon as he had finished with a last-minute visit
to a patient. Why he had chosen to single her out, rather than Clarissa, and
quite what his reassuring undertone was meant to mean, she couldn’t say. Unless
Joe had set his brother straight about the kiss he had witnessed and now the
youngest Warriner pitied her as well. Uncharitably, Bella hoped Joe had been called
to a birth and that the babe would be reluctant to be born until the Beaumont
carriage was whisking Bella and her decidedly more beautiful sister home.
‘Stop gazing winsomely at the door,’ her sister
whispered from behind her fan, ‘He’ll arrive when he arrives and it will be
good for him to see you chatting to other men.’
‘I’m not sure what you mean.’ Although her cheeks were
probably already giving her away as Bella realised she had been
staring winsomely at the door.
‘Really? Then I suppose I’ve also imagined the sighing
and the sulking? I must be mistaken. You are clearly not waiting for a certain
dashing young physician to burst through those doors and sweep you off your
feet.’
‘I do not regard Dr Warriner in that way at all,
Clarissa! Ours is a professional relationship based on our mutual interests in
medical science…’
‘Poppycock. You have always been a shocking liar,
Bella, and a terrible actress.’
‘I am not lying!’ Bella turned her back on the dance
floor to spare displaying her blotchy and glowing blush to all and sundry and
tried to make her outraged hiss sound less hiss-like. ‘I have no romantic
designs on him or any other man. Just because I am finally returning to my old
self doesn’t mean I am ready for any of that nonsense, thank you very much. It
will be years until I’m ready to consider a beau, if at all. In fact, I’m quite
wedded to spinsterhood. A husband would only get in the way of my medical
studies, and now that Papa has finally agreed I can dedicate time to science I
am reluctant to consider anything else.’ By the end of the monologue, Bella was
reasonably proud of how convincing she had sounded. Clarissa simply regarded
her blankly.
‘I see.’
She plainly didn’t. ‘Dr Warriner is a friend. A
colleague. That is the full extent of our relationship.’
‘Then you won’t care that he has just arrived and is
currently striding in your direction.’
Pride made Bella stiffen her shoulders. If he was
striding anywhere, then it was in the direction of her sister, the Beaumont
whose face was not as red as a ripe summer strawberry. Perhaps she could scurry
away in a manner convincing enough to make everyone think she urgently needed
the retiring room? Because her silly body could sense him, and was heating with
awareness, while her stupid face decided to spontaneously combust, but escaping
now was out of the question. Far too obvious. Far too much like defeat.
‘Why, Dr Warriner! How lovely to see you again.’
Clarissa slid her arm around Bella’s in case she bolted and pulled her close,
forcing her to face him. ‘We had quite despaired of you ever arriving. Didn’t
we, Bella?’
‘Good evening, Dr Warriner.’
Floor, open and swallow me now.
‘I trust you are well.’
‘Yes. I am well.’ His hair was mussed. No doubt as a
result of driving his curricle too fast. ‘Good evening ladies.’ His eyes locked
with Bella’s with such intensity, it made her more nervous. She couldn’t tell
what the odd look meant. The optimistic and deluded real her inside hoped it
was something to do with the intense feelings he had miraculously developed for
her since he had asked her father to court Clarissa. The pragmatic scholar
realised it was probably doctorly concern for her unnaturally high colour
tinged with pity for her poor addled mind. Because only the most pathetic of
individuals would have to resort to begging for their first kiss in the
interests of science.
‘We are most well, although peeved that neither of us
is dancing.’ Clarissa’s voice was filled with mischief. ‘When I can clearly
hear the first bars of the waltz.’ Bella found herself shoved forward a few
inches and was mortified.
His eyes darted from hers to her sister’s, then slowly
returned again. ‘Lady Isabella—Bella—would you do me the honour of dancing with
me?’
And now he was being polite and
solicitous because Clarissa had forced his hand both saddened and enraged her
in equal measure. Bella opened her mouth to curtly decline, only to find
herself propelled further forward by her sister. ‘She would love to…
Guest
post by Virginia Heath
I’ve always loved reading a series. It
means I don’t have to say goodbye to characters I’ve become attached to because
they pop up in other books and give you a warm, fuzzy glow when you see them. I
assumed that was how I would feel when it came to writing my first series, and
to begin with that was true. My four Wild Warriner brothers first took shape in
A Warriner to Protect Her and from
the outset I adored them all.
The eldest Jack, the responsible one, sacrificing
his own happiness and working himself into the ground for the sake of his
younger siblings. The surly Jamie, fresh back from war and broken inside and
out. The studious Joe, too generously-natured for his own good and desperate to
be a doctor. The charming and frivolous Jake, a rake in training at the tender
age of twenty. Each Warriner had their own distinct character in that first
book and as I wrote the end on one, I was desperate to begin writing the first
chapter of the next.
It took a year to write all four books.
Jack and Jamie’s stories came out in the Summer of 2017, so I already knew as I
was writing this third book- A Warriner to Tempt Her- that readers loved my
dark-haired, bright-blue-eyed boys as much as I did. That made writing the third
book easier in some ways and very difficult in others. What if I had peaked too
soon and the next instalment didn’t do my heroes justice? In the end, like all
my books, the characters told me what was going to happen, and I’m delighted
with the end result.
However, after the initial flurry of
excitement at starting the final story- A
Warriner to Seduce Her which comes out in May- my writing stalled. Not
writer’s block exactly, but a reluctance to finish the book from the midway
point. The story was there in my head but I couldn’t muster the energy to type
the words into my keyboard. This was an odd and new experience for me. It took
a few weeks to work out what was wrong. It wasn’t that the story was bad or
that I’d lost my mojo, it was simply the unconscious fear of saying goodbye to
the four gorgeous men who had occupied twelve glorious months in my imagination
and taken root in my heart. I realised I was going to miss those Warriner boys
too much to let them go.
Fortunately, I came up with the perfect
solution when I resurrected two characters from another book Her Enemy at the Altar and plopped them
front and centre into my Christmas book His
Mistletoe Wager. Why say goodbye at all? They were my characters and I
could do what I wanted with them. I can recycle them whenever I want. They
could turn up as friends, guests at a ball or as distant family members! I
didn’t need to say goodbye, merely see you later.
That’s why the start of my second series-
The King’s Elite- picks up exactly where Warriner four left off, and a couple
of Warriners are there, waving in the background. I’ve decided that’s how I’ll
keep things going forward. Not goodbye, but goodbye for now. Until we meet
again…
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