For erotic Regency Romance Lovers - a Free Read

By Beverley Oakley

A year ago to the day, my first erotic Regency Historical Romance was published under my pseudonym, Beverley Oakley. Called Rake's Honour, it has been extremely well reviewed, and to mark its first anniversary, I recently put up a Free Read on the Total-e-Bound Website.

Here is the premise of Taking the Reins, featuring some of the lush cast of characters from Rake's Honour.

Miss Fanny Brightwell knows what she wants—and she likes to be the one in charge. Feisty, clever and beautiful, she needs all her wits to salvage the family’s good name and make an advantageous marriage before the end of the season—or else she and her sister will have to become governesses.

You can read Fanny’s full story in Rake’s Honour but here is an alternative scenario, though Fanny must still battle scorned suitors and a peagoose of a sister to achieve her own happy ending.

And, here are a couple of reviews from Rake's Honour...

 Rake's Honour

Reviewed by Barbara McCormick from Just Erotic Romance Reviews

...The characters in Rake’s Honour, a Regency romance, leap off the page and into the reader’s heart. Fanny is well aware of her obligations to her family, yet yearns to find a husband she can love. Fenton has outgrown his childish excesses and is ready to settle down with a wife. The heat between these two practically sets fire to the pages, a mean trick for an e-book! Ms. Oakley brings the setting and time period to life without lengthy descriptions of society’s strict rules. The sex, oh my goodness, the sex is hot and in unusual settings as Fenton and Fanny must hide what they are up to from the eyes of judgmental society. Supporting characters like Fanny’s younger sister and her friend and confidante, Lord Quamby, bring added life to a lush story. The pacing is just perfect, keeping you in your chair reading right through to the end. The “mamas” are ever present, placing demands on their children to marry well for family’s sake. In the end, Rake’s Honour is about satisfying society’s demands while still finding ways to remain true to oneself and one’s heart. For these reasons, Rake’s Honour earns an honored spot on my re-read stack.

 Rake's Honour by Beverley Oakley

Reviewed by Dolce Amore from Booked Up Reviews

I usually don’t like to read too many historical books because I find them boring, unreal, or full of errors. But this one was wonderful!

Miss Fanny Brightwell has to marry a rich man because her father lost everything before he died. When Alverley, the man Miss Fanny hoped to marry tells her that he wants her just as his mistress, she is devastated; that means that she'll have to marry the pestilential Lord Slyther, but that night she meets Viscount Fenton.

At first, Lord Fenton wants to marry her... however, after some lies by a jealous man and some misunderstandings he believes that Miss Fanny was a consummate lover and he offers carte blanche instead.

What a splendid book! I loved every moment of it. Ms. Beverley Oakley created an original and amazing plot. She keeps our attention through the whole book. And the characters… what can I say? Outstanding! I loved Miss Fanny and adore Lord Fenton. I enjoyed their misunderstanding and I was delighted by their torrid and passionate meetings. And the end… made me burst out laughing. It rocks!

5 stars for her and I can hardly wait to read her new release... Ms. Beverley Oakley, I’m not above begging for more! I expect I won’t have to wait too much longer for it, you are now one of my favorite writers.

Taking the Reins: Free BUY link 

Rake's Honour Buy Link

Website

Twitter: @Beverley Oakley

Facebook: Author Beverley Oakley

Lady Lovett's Little Dilemma

by Beverley Oakley

This has been a busy year with three erotic Regency or Historical releases.

Two weeks ago my English Civil War erotic romance - The Cavalier - was published by Total-e-Bound. This was almost immediately following the release of my erotic Regency romance Lady Lovett's Little Dilemma, which features quite a different kind of hero and heroine from my usual.

My January release, Rake's Honour, featured a fiery, feisty heroine but this time, in Lady Lovett's Little Dilemma, it was fun to write about a sweet, passive, happily married heroine. As was normal 200 years ago, Cressida is not equipped with the vocabulary or knowledge to explain that while she wants to continue her loving relationship with her husband she can't bear to be intimate when she knows the consequences may well be another pregnancy.

Prompted by her jealous, bullying cousin to discover the truth, Cressida stumbles upon the means to please both her husband and herself, as well as a 20-year-old mystery. It's now that she uses her sweet nature - and hidden determination - to secure someone else's happy ending as well as her own, showing surprising depths of courage, daring and spontaneity along the way.

Here is a little about it:

The eight—year marriage of the once mutually-adoring couple,Lord and Lady Lovett, is rejuvenated through the anonymous counsel of Lord Lovett’s former mistress.

Eight years of marriage has not dimmed Cressida, Lady Lovett’s, love for her husband, but the birth of five children has cooled her ardour.

Now rumours are circulating that the kind, dashing and seemingly ever—patient Justin, Lord Lovett, has returned to the arms of his former mistress and Cressida believes her choices are stark—welcome her husband back to the marital bed and risk a sixth pregnancy she fears will kill her, or lose him forever.

With the astonishing discovery that methods exist to enable the innocent Cressida to transform herself into the vixen of her husband’s dreams without expanding her nursery, she seeks to repay the woman responsible for her empowerment...only to discover her unlikely benefactress was, and perhaps still is, her husband’s mistress.

Excerpt

Wind whipped the branches of the tree against her bedchamber window. A storm was brewing, said Tom, the footman. He should know, for he was a farmer’s son.

But Cressida was a parson’s daughter and she knew nothing about anything except what was required of her to be a good wife.

She drew the counterpane up to her chin and shivered, wishing it were with anticipation at the same time that she wished Justin were cuddled warmly against her. But that was not to be, not tonight.

At first, the limpid look in Justin’s eye when he’d held her hand in that tawdry sitting room at Mrs Plumb’s had sliced away at her soul. She’d seen the hunter in him size up his quarry. At eighteen she’d been easy prey, falling into his arms during their first waltz. There’d been no chase on Justin’s part, for their hearts and minds had been as one from the start.

He’d quickly realised it was Cressida, though, in that shabby little sitting room in that wicked house. She knew Justin too well. His sudden stillness and the change in his tone had alerted her to the fact that he knew exactly who she was.

Without missing a beat he’d continued the charade while her brain had been in a whirl as to whether to admit her identity. Yet when Justin so willingly endorsed their play-acting, the exciting possibilities had quickly taken on a life of their own.

He’d agreed to an assignation a week hence. Her body pulsed at the thought before fear intruded that he’d come to her too soon. How could she hold him at bay? In a week she’d have all the tools and knowledge she needed to be everything Justin could desire.

She didn’t have them now. She was as ignorant of the practicalities as she’d ever been, but she knew now that precautions were possible.

Of course, her kindly friend at Mrs Plumb’s would advise her to explain everything to Justin. But how could Cressida tell him everything? Panic banished reason. All she wanted was one more week—then she’d be all-powerful in her knowledge. Miss Mariah could help her with the words she needed. Cressida had not the vocabulary, much less the knowledge, to say what she needed to.

A familiar step sounded just outside her room. With a start of horror she jerked upright, drawing the counterpane up to her neck as the door opened slowly, faint light spilling in from the corridor.

Her breath caught, the words she might have used—should have used—dying in her throat.

Beverley writes erotic historicals as Beverley Oakley and Regency Romances with lashings of intrigue as Beverley Eikli. She loves hearing from readers and you can visit her at:

website:  www.beverleyoakley.com

Blog: http://beverleyeikli.blogspot.com

Facebook: www.facebook/AuthorBeverleyOakley

Twitter: @BeverleyOakley

You can also get the book here:

          

Rake's Honour (including a fairly steamy excerpt)

The Story behind the Story

By Beverley Oakley

I loved William Thackeray’s famous Vanity Fair anti-heroine, the feisty, ambitious Becky Sharp much more than his heroine, the passive, naïve Amelia Sedley. I therefore thought it would be fun to write a book set in the Regency period with a heroine who had all the characteristics essential for survival but which were the antithesis of the womanly virtues upheld by the era.

This book became Rake's Honour and here is the premise: Fanny Brightwell has just two weeks to find a husband who will fulfill her mama's marital criteria or she'll be forced to marry the loathsome libertine, Lord Slyther.

That means two weeks to convince dashing Viscount Fenton she's his perfect bride.

Battling spurned suitors, jealous debutantes and a peagoose of a sister on the verge of destroying the Brightwell reputation, Fanny has little time to make her handsome lover her slave in passion...

So he’ll make her his wife. 

And here is an excerpt:

This scene takes place when Fanny meets the man to whom her mother has betrothed her.

Lord Slyther gave a grunt of satisfaction. “I’m glad his name immediately came to mind, for I’d like to think there were no others competing for the role of rejected suitor. Ah, but, Miss Brightwell, your misfortune is that you have miscalculated, and my fortune is that it gives me all the bargaining power in the world.”

Her already great horror was compounded as she felt his hand upon her neck, gently caressing her skin. Frozen, unable to move as she accepted the truth of his assessment, she trembled as she tried to assimilate his words. Until last night, she had conducted herself with all the decorum required by a chaste innocent, hopeful of contracting a suitable marriage. True, she wasn’t decorous by nature, but only the gleam in her eye when a handsome gentleman showed interest would give her away, surely? Not her actions. Her mother had spent her lifetime trying to subdue that reckless, adventurous streak Fanny had inherited from her ill-fated father and, until last night, Fanny could not have been accused of anything that would compromise her reputation.

“It is true, my lord, that I accompanied Lord Alverley to Vauxhall, alone, in masquerade,” she whispered, “but my virtue is unblemished.”

“Surely the boy tried to kiss you.” In the firelight she saw Lord Slyther’s stained teeth bared with prurient interest before he burst out laughing. “You didn’t enjoy it, eh? Well, that’s good, because as your future husband it’s my job to show you how to kiss. Now stand up, Miss Brightwell, if you please, and face me.”

Fanny rose, silent while her mind whirled at this new and dreadful situation. Her mother was in the next room with Antoinette. When Fanny emerged with Lord Slyther to announce the news of their engagement, Lady Brightwell would clasp Fanny tenderly to her bosom in perhaps the only gesture of genuine pleasure she’d ever extend towards her eldest daughter—the daughter upon whom she was pinning all her hopes. All the family’s hopes, Fanny amended silently. Either she or Antoinette was required to make a decent marriage if the Brightwell family was not to slide into worse than simply genteel poverty. If Fanny was not prepared to sacrifice herself to this horror, there would be no more rubbing shoulders with the haut ton. No, she’d be rubbing the chilblains of some crotchety old woman to whom she’d be paid companion, while Antoinette worked as a governess and their mother lived out her days beholden to her detested cousin, having never forgiven Fanny for failing in her duty .

“Show me your ankles.”

Fanny swallowed down her surprised outrage, only raising the skirts of her cerulean blue lutestring gown when he repeated the command, his voice now cajoling.

He relaxed deeper into his chair with a sigh. “Such prettily turned little ankles, Miss Brightwell.” He patted his heart. “Indeed, you are going to bring me much pleasure in my dotage. Now let me feel your ankle, if you please. That’s right—raise your leg upon the footstool so I may bend forward and caress your pretty little limb.”

At this, Fanny objected while trying not to cry. Never had she been so demeaned in all her life. “With all due respect, my Lord, I committed no sin greater than conversing alone with Lord Alverley.”

“And kissing him.”
“One kiss—”


“Your reputation is besmirched, Miss Brightwell, and only I will be prepared to overlook it once it becomes public knowledge. Now, if you please, my dear, raise your little ankle over the arm of my chair so I may stroke it for you while we discuss the terms of this marriage you’re in no position to refuse.”

*

Obviously Fanny is rather more feisty than her fellow debutantes which puts her risk-taking into a higher heat level than the first three Regency Historical Romances I published under my Beverley Eikli name, in hardcover with UK publisher Robert Hale.

I therefore adopted Beverley Oakley as a pseudonym because, while the plot twists and intrigue are the same, Fanny’s sexual exploits were too adventurous for a traditional Regency Historical. I still write both erotic and traditional Regencies, depending on the situation in which my heroine finds herself.

My last Regency Historical for Robert Hale (UK) was recently nominated by ARRA (Australian Romance Readers’ Association) for Favourite Historical Romance in 2011.

You can find out more about my books here or visit my blog here. 

And you can buy Rake's Honour here.