Throughout her secluded youth, Robert was Lady Charlotte’s favorite knight in shining armor, the focus of all her adolescent daydreams. The intervening years have only served to render him more dashing. But, unbeknownst to Charlotte, Robert has an ulterior motive of his own for returning to England, a motive that has nothing to do with taking up the ducal mantle. As Charlotte returns to London to take up her post as Maid of Honor to Queen Charlotte, echoes from Robert’s past endanger not only their relationship but the very throne itself.
Reviews for The Temptation of the Night Jasmine
"An engaging historical romance, delightfully funny and sweet...a thoroughly charming costume drama...Romance’s rosy glow tints even the spy adventure that unfolds... Against the romance of Willig’s fine historical fiction, these obstacles are thrilling... readers won’t be able to resist this excellent historical romance—or, for the uninitiated, its prequels." — The Star-Ledger (New Jersey)
"Willig freshens the pot...Another well-written chapter in the series." — Library Journal
"Another sultry spy tale...The author’s conflation of historical fact, quirky observations and nicely-rendered romances results in an elegant and grandly entertaining book." — Publishers Weekly
"Honor and romance again take the lead in 19th-century England, as yet another flower-named spy continues this high-spirited and thoroughly enjoyable series." — Kirkus Reviews
"Witty, smart, carefully detailed and highly entertaining, Willig’s latest is an inventive, addictive novel." — Romantic Times
"The characters, romance, history, action and adventure, and most of all the wonderful writing, makes THE TEMPTATION OF THE NIGHT JASMINE a superior and definite page-turning reading experience. After a long reading slump, THE TEMPTATION OF THE NIGHT JASMINE brought back the magic of reading". - 4 1/2 STARS — The Romance Readers Connection
Visit Lauren Willig's web site
Read an excerpt of The Temptation of the Night Jasmine
About Lauren Willig
A native of New York City, Lauren Willig has been writing romances ever since she got her hands on her first romance novel at the age of six. Three years later, she sent her first novel off to a publishing house—all three hundred hand-written pages. They sent it back. Undaunted, Lauren has continued to generate large piles of paper and walk in front of taxis while thinking about plot ideas.
After thirteen years at an all girls school (explains the romance novels, doesn’t it?), Lauren set off for Yale and co-education, where she read lots of Shakespeare, wrote sonnet sequences when she was supposed to be doing her science requirement, and lived in a Gothic fortress complete with leaded windows and gargoyles. After college, she decided she really hadn’t had enough school yet, and headed off to that crimson place in Cambridge, Massachusetts for a degree in English history. Like her modern heroine, she spent a year doing dissertation research in London, tramping back and forth between the British Library and the Public Records Office, reading lots of British chick lit, and eating far too many Sainsbury’s frozen dinners.
By a strange quirk of fate, Lauren signed her first book contract during her first month of law school. She finished writing "Pink Carnation" during her 1L year, scribbled "Black Tulip" her 2L year, and struggled through "Emerald Ring" as a weary and jaded 3L. After three years of taking useful and practical classes like "Law in Ancient Athens" and "The Globalization of the Modern Legal Consciousness", Lauren received her J.D. magna cum laude from Harvard Law School. For a year and a half, she practiced as a litigation associate at a large New York law firm. But having attained the lofty heights of second year associate, she decided that book deadlines and doc review didn't mix and departed the law for a new adventure in full time writerdom.
Also by Lauren Willig:
View all of Lauren's books here
An Interview with Lauren Willig
By Holly Hewson for The Romance Studio
HH: Lauren, thank you for talking with us at TRS! Please tell us about your latest release, The Temptation of the Night Jasmine. LW: Thanks so much for having me here! It's such a treat for me to get to talk about Night Jasmine.
The Temptation of the Night Jasmine opens on Christmas Eve of 1803, in the midst of a holiday house party at the magnificent ducal estate of the Dovedales, where the Dowager Duchess is making a last ditch attempt to marry off her shy and bookish granddaughter, Lady Charlotte. Throughout her secluded youth, Robert, Duke of Dovedale, was Charlotte favorite knight in shining armor, the focus of all her adolescent daydreams. When Robert returns unexpectedly from years away in India, just in time for Christmas, Charlotte is convinced that happily ever after has finally arrived. Little does Charlotte realize that Robert has an ulterior motive for returning to England-to infiltrate the infamous Hellfire club to unmask the traitor who murdered his mentor at the Battle of Assaye. As Charlotte returns to London to take up her post as Maid of Honor to Queen Charlotte, echoes from Robert's past endanger not only their relationship but the very throne itself.
HH: This is part of your acclaimed Pink Carnation series. How did the series come about? LW: In 2001, I was a second year grad student pursuing a PhD in English history. That April, I staggered home from my General Exams, tripped over a pile of library books, and vowed, as the microwave was my witness, that I wasn't going to so much look at a seventeenth century manuscript until the following fall. I settled down with a big pile of Julia Quinn novels and BBC costume dramas and decided it was an excellent time to write a romance novel.
I toyed with the idea of a novel set around Luddite unrest in 1811 (since electronics break down as soon as I enter a room, I'd always felt a sneaking sympathy for the Luddites). But Fate stepped in, in the form of my DVD pile. I was watching the Anthony Andrews "Scarlet Pimpernel", an old, old favorite of mine, while eating one of those miracles of haut grad school cuisine-a microwave hot dog adorned with squirty cheese. I watched as Sir Percy dispatched yet another round of gullible French guards. There was something wrong there. Not with Anthony Andrews (how can one not love Andrews as that demmed elusive Pimpernel?), but with the whole scenario. He had it too easy. His men all followed his commands without question; his wife mostly stayed out of the way; and the evil French spies all did exactly what evil French spies were supposed to do.
Someone, I decided, needed to mix things up a bit. What if you had a super-dashing English spy bedeviled, not by the French (they're always so easy to thwart), but by a young lady set on tracking him down-so she can help him? Every spy's worst nightmare! I bolted for my computer and thus the original Pink Carnation book was born.
HH: How did The Secret History of the Pink Carnation kick off the series? LW: When I began writing Pink Carnation, I intended it as a one-off. By the time I was four chapters in, the characters had taken on a life of their own and the idea of stopping at the end of that one story seemed increasingly unthinkable, like turning off the TV right at the beginning of a movie. I knew, just knew, that the hero's sister and best friend were desperately in need of a book of their own. Anyone could see they were meant for each other! Anyone but them, that was. Even more importantly, how could I abandon the newly founded League of the Pink Carnation just as it was embarking on all sorts of dashing exploits? I had to stick it out and see what was going to happen next-and that was how the rest of the series was born. Since then, the League of the Pink Carnation has battled the dreaded Black Tulip, confounded Napoleon on two continents, thwarted rebellion in Ireland and even made it to India. And, yes, the hero's sister and best friend did get together, and I'm happy to say they're still going strong.
HH: How does The Temptation of the Night Jasmine continue it? LW: The Temptation of the Night Jasmine opens up a whole new chapter in the series. Although the Black Tulip, scourge of the last three books, is out of the picture, Charlotte and Robert manage to stumble upon a whole new ring of spies, headed by a shadowy figure known only as "the Gardener". Charlotte and Robert's investigations take them from the court of George III to the dark caverns of the Hellfire Club. Can they follow the petals to the source in time to thwart a plot that threatens the very king himself?
HH: What's next? What can lucky readers look forward to in this series and beyond? LW: For the next book, The Betrayal of the Blood Lily, the series moves all the way across the seas to India! During the course of Night Jasmine, Charlotte's best friend, Penelope, manages to get caught canoodling one time too many (Penelope has a thing about blond men and balconies). Penelope is unceremoniously packed off to India to give the scandal surrounding her hasty marriage time to die down. Little does she realize that a spy called the Marigold is also bound for Hyderabad... The Betrayal of the Blood Lily comes out this January, just a few days after Night Jasmine.
I'm also thrilled to announce The Mischief of the Mistletoe, a Christmas book set in Bath, featuring Jane Austen, a lot of Christmas puddings, and a lovable scapegrace named Turnip Fitzhugh. The Mischief of the Mistletoe debuts in October of 2010.
HH: So did you really sign your first book contract during your first month of law school? Did it change your plans? LW: Oddly enough, not really. I was in my first month of Harvard Law when my agent called to tell me that I had an offer for a two book deal. I was ecstatic. My parents, both lawyers, were appalled. Here I was, about to embark on a stable and steady career, only to be distracted by that will o'the wisp, writing fiction. Having interned at a publishing house, I knew they had a point. The odds of my books being a success were frighteningly slim. On the other hand, I had wanted to be a writer since I was six years old. Since I was twenty-six at the time of this phone call, that made twenty years of plotting, scheming and writing. Turn down the opportunity to publish not just one book, but two? Hell, no.
So I did both. Harvard Law student by day, romance novelist by night. I wrote The Masque of the Black Tulip during my 2L year and The Deception of the Emerald Ring as a weary and jaded 3L. And then, just because I am a glutton for punishment, I toddled off to a large New York law firm where I worked as a litigator. I wrote The Seduction of the Crimson Rose to the accompaniment of my blackberry's buzzing. Even though it was exhausting, I found the dual career very rewarding. Doing both at once meant I never had enough time to really panic about either. Now that I'm a full time writer, I'm not nearly so efficient!
HH: Why do you think you've found your niche in writing? LW: I was one of those annoying people who decided very early on that I was going to be A Writer. At age six, I had a very firm idea that this entailed princesses who all looked suspiciously like me. At the age of nine, I sent my first manuscript off to a publishing house (which shall remain nameless) and received my very first rejection letter a month later. After a bout of tears among my Barbies, I shrugged aside my disappointment and went back to generating large piles of paper. All this is a long way of saying that it's hard for me to imagine not writing. My brain is programmed to translate just about anything into, "How can I use that in a book?"
HH: What's a typical day like for you? LW: I haul myself off to Starbucks in the morning, along with the trusty laptop on which I have written all but one of the Pink books (six years old and still hanging in there!). I plunk myself down at my favorite table, arrange my caramel macchiatto just so, and write until the battery on my computer runs down. If it's a really good day, I find an outlet (and another latte) and keep going; otherwise, I toddle off home, work until five, and then declare an official end to the workday with a trip to the gym. I find that routine works nicely for me. Of course, when I'm in the midst of a deadline crunch or one of those fits of obsessiveness-er, inspiration where the characters jabber at me all the time, I'll work around the clock, calling it a day at three in the morning. My friends tease me about still working lawyer hours.
HH: What do you enjoy reading for yourself? LW: I am a voracious reader (as anyone can figure out by the Pile o' Books motif in which my apartment is decorated). I zigzag back and forth between a number of different genres. I grew up on historical romance and those are still my go-to books: Judith McNaught, Jo Beverly, Lisa Kleypas, Jessica Benson, and others. In historical fiction, some of my favorites include M.M. Kaye (whose India-set books were the inspiration for The Betrayal of the Blood Lily), Karleen Koen and Diana Gabaldon. I love the romantic suspense of Mary Stewart, the mystery novels of Elizabeth Peters, and the fantasy of Lois McMaster Bujold. I have a weakness for modern British chick lit and early 20th century British satirists-and pretty much everything in between. And, of course, I wouldn't be anywhere without L.M. Montgomery. I still re-read my Anne books regularly.
HH: What would you most like to accomplish this year? LW: Finding enough space for all my books? Since that isn't going to happen, I'm going to have to focus on more manageable tasks, like writing another two Pink Carnation books, actually responding to my email in a timely fashion (it's rather embarrassing what's sitting neglected in my inbox), and occasionally remembering to vacuum my apartment.
HH: Thank you!
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