A bit of the history behind Tempted by the Viscount by Sofie Darling – Guest Blog and Giveaway

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When I set out to write my newest release, Tempted by the Viscount, I knew a few facts about the hero: he’s the newly minted Right Honorable Lord Jakob Radclyffe, Fifth Viscount St. Alban, who has spent his career as a ship captain trading in the Far East, specifically Japan, where key events in his past play a pivotal role in the present-day.

However, there was a problem with this scenario: the English had no trade with Japan until after 1854 when US Navy Commodore Perry forced it open. For the preceding two centuries, Japan was closed to all Westerners except for the Dutch. The solution to my story problem was for my hero to have a Dutch mother who descended from a family of traders.

How did Japan control trade so tightly? They built the small, fan-shaped artificial island of Dejima in the Bay of Nagasaki in 1634. At first, it was to accommodate trade with the Portuguese. When those relations soured, they moved the Dutch from their trading post on Hirado to Dejima and decreed that the Dutch were the only Westerners with whom they would trade and only in this one place. This arrangement flourished for the next two hundred years to the Western world’s envy.

What goods did the Japanese and Dutch trade? The Dutch brought in non-religious books and scientific instruments from Europe; silk, cotton, and material medica from China and India; and even deer pelts and shark skin from Taiwan. In return, the Japanese sold copper, silver, camphor, porcelain, lacquer ware, and rice to the Dutch.

In historical romance, we have a long and lasting love of honorable ship captains and their disreputable counterparts, pirates. So it’s vital to keep that history accurate, even in fiction, as those partnerships were as shifting as the seas beneath their ships.

Lord Nicholas Asquith needs his wife. Too bad he broke her heart ten years ago.

Can he resist a second chance at the love he lost?

When Mariana catches the eye of the man at the center of an assassination plot, Nick puts aside their painful past and enlists her to obtain information by any means necessary, even if it means seducing the enemy agent.

Even if the thought makes his blood boil.

Only by keeping his distance from Mariana these last ten years was he able to pretend indifference to her. With every moment spent with her, he feels his tightly held control slipping…

Can she trust the spy who broke her heart?

Mariana spent the last decade forgetting Nick. Now she has the chance to best him at his own game, an opportunity she can’t resist, even as her view of him begins to shift. Increasingly, she wants nothing more than to seduce her own husband . . .

It’s only a matter of time before mad passion ignites, a passion never convincingly extinguished. A passion that insists on surrendering to the yearning of the flesh and, quite possibly, of the heart.

London, April 1825

Lord Jakob Radclyffe left his past behind in the Far East. Or so he thinks until a ruthless thief surfaces in London, threatening to ruin his daughter’s reputation. With the clock ticking, Jake needs the scandalous Lady Olivia Montfort’s connections in the art world to protect his daughter’s future.

Olivia, too, has a past she’d like to escape. By purchasing her very own Mayfair townhouse, she’ll be able to start a new life independent from all men. There’s one problem: she needs a powerful man’s name to do so. The Viscount St. Alban is the perfect name.

A bargain is struck.

What Olivia doesn’t anticipate is the temptation of the viscount. The undeniable spark of awareness that races between them subverts her vow to leave love behind. Soon, she has no choice but to rid her system of Jake by surrendering to her craving for a single scorching encounter.

But is once enough? Sometimes once only stokes the flame of desire higher and hotter. And sometimes once is all the heart needs to risk all and follow a mad passion wherever it may lead.

Enjoy an Excerpt from Three Lessons in Seduction

“Unbutton your dress?” Nick repeated. It wasn’t possible he’d heard those words in that order.

“Have you spent a single minute of your life bound within layers of corset, shift, and tightly buttoned dress? Has this ever been required for one of your spy missions?”

He couldn’t miss the scorn in her voice. “Never.”

“Then you’ll have to trust me when I suggest that it’s a bloody fantastic idea for you to unbutton me. You’ve done it before, in case you’ve forgotten.”

“I haven’t,” he said, his voice incapable of more than a low, gravelly rumble.

She blinked, and a moment passed.

Reason bade Nick exit the room and abandon the entire proposition. Under no circumstance should he close the distance between them and place his hands on Mariana’s body. Paper thin layers of chartreuse silk and muslin between his fingers and her skin wouldn’t be enough.

A few quick steps could carry him to her.

A few quick steps could undo him.

About the Author:Sofie spent much of her twenties raising two boys and reading every book she could get her hands on. Once she realized that she was no longer satisfied with simply reading the books she loved, that she must write them, too, she decided to finish her degree and embark on a writing career. Mr. Darling and the boys gave her their wholehearted blessing.

When she’s not writing heroes who make her swoon, she runs a marathon in a different state every year, visits crumbling medieval castles whenever she gets a chance, and enjoys a slightly codependent relationship with her beagle, Bosco.

Buy Three Lessons in Seduction from Amazon.

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