Regan Walker's Best of the Regency with Collette Cameron!

Hello all! Regan here. It's time for the Best of the Regency! My guest today is bestselling, award-winning author Collette Cameron. Collette pens Scottish and Regency historicals featuring rogues, rapscallions, rakes, and the intelligent, intrepid damsels who reform them.

Blessed with three spectacular children, fantastic fans, and a compulsive, over-active, and witty Muse who won’t stop whispering new romantic romps in her ear, she still lives in Oregon with her husband and five mini-dachshunds, though she dreams of living in Scotland part-time.

Admitting to a quirky sense of humor, Collette enjoys inspiring quotes, adores castles and anything cobalt blue, and is a self-confessed Cadbury chocoholic. You'll always find dogs, birds, occasionally naughty humor, and a dash of inspiration in her sweet-to-spicy timeless romances. 

Collette has graciously agreed to answer some questions for all you readers, so now let's hear what she has to say...

My first question is one I ask all my Regency author guests: What made you decide to write Regencies?

First, let me thank you for having me as your guest, Regan. As for your question, my obsession with historical romances started as a thirteen year old when a middle-school friend, snuck me a Barbara Cartland Regency to read. Although I adore most genres of historicals, Regency and Highlanders are still my go-to-genres. So, it made sense to write about the time period I fell in love with as a young teen.

What is the first book you remember reading?

The first romance I remember reading that stuck in my brain and I never forgot the title was The Flame and the Flower by Kathleen Woodiwiss. I read that story so many times! I named my daughter Brianna after the heroine, Heather Brianna.

Fairytale or action adventure?

Fairytale because despite the conflict and hardships, there’s usually a moral to the story and a happily-ever-after.

Is there a blooper in your story?

Well, not so much a blooper in Passion and Plunder, as a relationship that needed further explaining, because some of the characters were related in more than one way. A couple of my readers were confused, and I blame myself for not explaining the relationship better.

I actually based the scenario on a real-life familial relationship of mine. My dad’s niece is also his sister-in-law. I call her my cousin, but I refer to her husband as my uncle because that’s how I first knew them. 

What is your most interesting quirk?

I’m not sure how interesting it is, but I have a quirky sense of humor that seeps into my stories.

I also will act out motions and facial expressions while I’m writing. I just hope my neighbors aren’t watching!

What will always make you smile, even on a bad day?

My dogs. And squirrels. Can’t help but love their antics.

Collette wants to know: Why do you read historical romances?  

GIVEAWAY! For all those commenting, note: 

Collette will be giving away a print copy of Brette: Intention’s Gone Astray to one lucky person (US Only). 

But you must leave your email (so she can find you) and be sure and answer the question!

Collette also wants to let us know about her brand new release! 

THE WALLFLOWER’S WICKED WAGER

A Waltz with a Rogue Novella  #5

He loved her beyond anything and everything—precisely why he couldn’t ever marry her.

A WOUNDED HERO

Love—sentimental drivel for insipid, weak, feckless fools.

Since an explosion ravaged Captain Morgan Le Draco’s face and cost him his commission in the Royal Dragoons, he’s fortified himself behind an impenetrable rampart of cynicism and distrust. Now destitute and shunned by the very society that once lauded his heroics, he’s put aside all thoughts of marrying and having a family. Until he risks his life to save a drowning woman. At once, Morgan knows Shona’s the balm for his tortured soul, but as a wealthy, titled noblewoman, she’s too far above his humble station and can never be his.

AN INTREPID WALLFLOWER

Love—a treasured gift reserved for those beautiful of form and face.

Scorned and ridiculed most of her adult life, Shona, Lady Atterberry believes she’s utterly undesirable and is reconciled to spinsterhood. She hides her spirited temperament beneath a veneer of gauche shyness, until a strapping, scarred stranger saves her life, and she can’t deny her immediate, powerful, and sensual attraction to him. Despite how ill-suited they are and innuendos that Captain Le Draco is a fortune-hunter, she cannot escape her growing fascination.

Two damaged souls searching for love.

Others are determined to keep them apart, and Shona is goaded into placing a wicked wager. One that sets her upon a ruinous path and alienates the only man who might have ever loved her. Is true love enough to put their pasts behind them, to learn to trust, and heal their wounded hearts?

Warning: This book contains one devilish, seemingly irredeemable rogue, an on-the-shelf wallflower who dabbles in wicked wagers, an unexpected and most enticing swim in a lake, a villainess you’ll want to shove into said lake, and a cast of captivating secondary characters with their own tantalizing romantic tales.

Buy the novella on Amazon.

Read an Excerpt:

“I’m truly sorry for your suffering, Shona.”

Captain Le Draco had used her given name.

Most impudent of him. Quite beyond the pale.

And she didn’t object at all.

“It must’ve been unbearably difficult for you.” Compassion rendered his voice husky and thick, and for an instant, Shona gaped, owl-like in amazement.

Except for the Needhams, Harcourt, and Alexa, no one had ever expressed any sympathy for her situation. She swallowed against the tangled knot constricting her throat, and blinked away tears she hadn’t realized had sprung to her eyes.

She wrapped his coat a bit tighter around her shoulders. “Thank you. It was quite awful at first. But the passage of time has helped. That, and being surrounded by people I know care for me.”

Seemingly of its own accord, her finger touched his marred cheek, the merest feathering over the rigid flesh. Brazen, that. And wholly invasive, and inappropriate, particularly since she’d known him all of twenty or thirty brief minutes.

Why did she feel this compelling need to comfort Captain Le Draco? To touch him? Such a powerful, overwhelming need that she kicked aside her usual shyness and reticence?

“What about you, Captain?” Her confidence hadn’t yet grown enough to address him by his given name too. “I imagine it’s been most difficult for you as well. Does it still hurt?”

She softly pressed her pads against the contorted flesh.

He seized her hand and held it to his ravaged cheek, his eyes closed, eyelashes trembling as if he were in pain or overcome by extreme sentiment.

“Yes.”

Keep up with Collette on her Website, Facebook, blog and Twitter.