THE DANGER OF DESIRE

Welcome Elizabeth Essex!

Brava

ISBN: 0758251580 

Captain Hugh McAlden is working on a top-secret mission to bring down enemy spies living in England. After seeing a young woman perform a brilliant bit of pick pocketing on the London streets, he impulsively decides to hire her to help him. The only name she'll give him is Meggs, and she refuses to tell him anything about her background or how she ended up on the streets. But as Hugh tries to unravel her secrets, he also finds her harder and harder to resist... 

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The door was opened wide and Meggs could see Himself striding his uneven way across the deep, quiet rug at her with the singular concentration of a silent hawk, swooping single-mindedly down on its prey. She was struck again by the eerie, almost incandescent light of his ice blue eyes. Her stomach did a nasty little flip that made the floor tilt under foot. Gave her the jim-jams bad, this one. Coming here was a mistake. 

“Well, well. It seems good things do come to those who wait. Please, come in.” He gestured toward two armchairs in front of the glowing hearth. Lord help her, but it was warm as the bottom floor of hell. “I’m impressed. Jinks clearly didn’t recognize you. I see you’ve decided to accept my offer.” 

So he’d had the Irish fairy man with him before, at the watchmakers. Stupid of her not to have seen him. This cove was too flash by half. 

“Ain’t decided nofink. Yet.” She didn’t like being inside, all caged up with nowhere to run. Though it was nice and warm. 

“I see. So you’ve come to negotiate, have you?” He seated himself behind his desk, leaned back in the leather-bound chair and steepled his fingers across his chest. All to show her he was in charge. “You’re hardly in a position to ask for a pot to piss in. I could see you in jail, or transported on the strength of my word alone. I could see you hung.” 

He meant to frighten her. Good thing she was already scared shite-less. It saved them both time.  

“You could see me do what you want, nice ‘n easy like. For the right price.”

DANGEROUS ELIZABETH ??

When not re-reading Jane Austen, sipping tea or mucking about her garden, acclaimed author Elizabeth Essex can be found with her laptop, making up wonderful stories about people who live far more interesting lives than she. 

It wasn’t always so. Elizabeth graduated from Hollins College with a BA in Classical Studies and Art History, and then earned her MA from Texas A&M University in Nautical Archaeology, also known as the archaeology of shipwrecks. While Elizabeth loved the life of a working archaeologist, after writing and reading all those dry, dusty reports on ship construction, she would daydream about how lovely it would have been if only someone had fallen in love on just one of those ships. And so now she writes stories about just that. 

Elizabeth lives in Texas with her exuberant family, in a house filled to the brim with books.

DANGER: QUESTIONS AHEAD
ANGI: How often to you get lost in a story?
LIZ: Not as often as I would like. Now that I’m writing, I have limited amounts of time to read fiction. But after I turned in my last manuscript I took a long day to read Joanna Bourne’s THE BLACK HAWK and she is such a master storyteller that I fell completely under the spell of Adrian and Justine’s tangled tale of love and betrayal. Getting lost in that story was pure bliss! 

ANGI: What’s the first book you remember reading?

LIZ: I remember all sorts of books that my mother read to me, but I truly became a reader—an avid reader—the year I was in 6th grade. I had transferred to a new school and it had a huge library you could visit ALL THE TIME! I could go there before school, between classes or during recess and there was no limit to the number of books I could check out. It was as if I had been given the keys to a magical new kingdom all my own. The first book I checked out that year was K.M. Peyton’s wonderful FLAMBARDS which was exactly what my tween-aged, horse-crazy, romantic little soul needed. I was hooked. 

ANGI: What’s your favorite “love” word?

LIZ: At the moment I would have to say ‘desire,’ not only because it’s in the title of my latest release, but also because I always want my heroes and heroines to get their heart’s desire. 

ANGI: Can you tell us about a real-life hero you’ve met?

LIZ: In this case I would have to say my real-life heroes are actually heroines. They are my wonderful girlfriends and I would choose them because they are the kind of people who, every single day, go out of their way to make someone else’s life a little better or a little easier. This past year I have found that in a time of crisis—whether it be illness, a spouse’s death, joblessness or any of the myriad trials and tribulations life throws at us on a daily basis—they are the kind of people you want by your side, quietly doing what needs to be done, no matter the task, without fanfare and without needing recognition. St. Teresa said that as humans we can do no great things, only small things with great love, and I am humbly grateful to know such everyday heroines who show such great love by taking the time to ease the burdens of our shared humanity every single day. 

There, now you’ve done it, Angi—I’m all verklempt! 

ANGI: What’s your favorite fairy tale?

LIZ: I was raised on Irish tales of fairies and the unseen world that hovers just out of sight, and my favorite story was the Tale of the Children of Lir, who were cursed by their evil step-mother—really, is there any other kind of step-mother in fairy tales?—and turned into swans. But the children, two brothers and two sisters, stuck with each other through thick and through thin, and they made friends with all the other animals, who in the end were the ones to help them break the curse and free themselves to defeat the evil step-mother.

Basically, I like the stories where nobody waits for the prince or the wizard to waltz through the door of the tower, or through the briar wall to save them. I like stories where people save themselves. :) 

ANGI: What’s your favorite cartoon character?

LIZ: Got to be Rocky the Flying Squirrel in the Bullwinkle cartoons. Not sure why, except that whole Fractured Fairy Tales portion of that cartoon was so subversive and funny I found it hilarious. Obviously I cultivated my taste for irony and sarcasm very early in life. :) 

ANGI: Fairy Tale or Action Adventure?

LIZ: Action Fairy Tale. See above for stories where people rescue themselves. Recently I loved ENTANGLED for that very reason. Wonderful, well-known story told with freshly conceived characters with great adventures. And of course, there was the ‘smolder.‘ Marvelous. 

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I absolutely LOVE ENTANGLED and think it's one of the best told fairy tales ever !!
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ANGI: What was the first story you remember writing?

LIZ: Oh goodness. I think it was an epic medieval romance full of misty moors and dank, rat-riddled dungeons, a heroine who was in flight from an arranged dynastic marriage, and a brave knight errant who was sent out to find her. I wrote it all out on yellow legal pads during my train commutes when I lived in Chicago. Seems like a hundred years ago. But I am quite sure that story will never see the light of day again, although I do still have those scribbled pages tucked away in a filing cabinet somewhere. 

ANGI: Be honest, when reading...do you put yourself in the heroine’s role?

LIZ: Absolutely! If I can’t identify with the heroine, I can’t read the book with any real degree of pleasure. I don’t always have to like or agree with her actions, but I have to understand her motivations for doing them. The same goes for my writing. I usually conceive of my books as the heroine’s story. THE DANGER OF DESIRE was a little bit different, as I originally set out to write the hero, Hugh McAlden’s story since he had been a secondary character in my two previous books, but once I figured out who my heroine was, Meggs the pickpocket quickly became the heart and soul of the story. 

ANGI: Is writing or story-telling easier for you?

LIZ: Story-telling. I start with a character who interests me, and think up her story. And then I get down to the business of writing, and re-writing. And re-writing some more.  

ANGI: What’s something you’d like to tell your fans?

LIZ: I am always interested in what readers have to say—the good, bad and indifferent. One reader wrote to tell me that she loved one of my books but thought the ending was too abrupt, so I made sure to really work on that for the next story. :) Ask and hopefully, you shall receive. I’m on Facebook almost every day, where I love to interact with readers and hear what they’re thinking. 

ANGI’S GOTTA ASK: I love reading historical Alpha males (and yours are awesome). Out of the books you’ve written, can you choose a favorite hero?

LIZ HAS GOTTA ANSWER:  Without any doubt, Hugh McAlden, the naval captain hero of THE DANGER OF DESIRE, is definitely my favorite. As I said before, he had been an interesting and arresting secondary character in both THE PURSUIT OF PLEASURE and A SENSE OF SIN, and I really felt I knew him, inside and out. He had grown and matured through those two books from the surly young sidekick, and in THE DANGER OF DESIRE I wanted to present him as a fully-realized man, experienced and accomplished, and very sure of himself in most ways. But of course, his association with the heroine, a young pickpocket he plucks from the streets, opens up previously unseen, deep chasms of vulnerability within him. 

DANGER: PRIZES AHEAD

Angi, thank you so very much for having me here at GET LOST IN A STORY today. You always have the MOST interesting questions! :) And to celebrate the release of my latest, I am giving away three copies of THE DANGER OF DESIRE to three lucky random commenters. Leave a comment or question here to enter. Good Luck to all, and thanks for stopping by today. Cheers! 

Note: Offer void where prohibited. Prizes will be mailed to North America addresses only unless specifically mentioned in the post. Odds of winning vary due to the number of entrants. Winners of drawings are responsible for checking this site in a timely manner. If prizes are not claimed in a timely manner, the author may not have a prize available. Get Lost In A Story cannot be responsible for an author's failure to mail the listed prize. GLIAS does not automatically share email addresses to guest authors unless the commenter publicly posts their email address. 

ELIZABETH WANTS TO KNOW what draws you to historical romance? Is it the dresses? The witty banter? The magical transportation to a different time? I’d love to hear your thoughts.

KEEP UP WITH ELIZABETH

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Ruby Slippered Sisterhood and PlottingPrincesses 

THE PURSUIT OF PLEASURE                       

ISBN: 0758251548      

A SENSE OF SIN

ISBN: 0758251564

PREVIOUS RELEASES EXCERPTS

UP NEXT: ALMOST A SCANDAL will be out in August 2012 and is my first release from St. Martin’s Press. The Reckless Brides Trilogy will start off with ALMOST A SCANDAL, the story of Sally Kent, who takes her brother’s place on a British Man O‘War with unpredictably romantic results, and will be followed by A BREATH OF SCANDAL and SCANDAL IN THE NIGHT in 2012 and 2013.

READERS DON’T FORGET to follow us on Facebook & Twitter (#GetLostStories) for a daily update on who’s visiting GLIAS and what they might be giving away! Are you an author wanting to find readers? Send us an email. ~Angi