Dear Reader,

Gulp! Only a week until launch day for The Teacher's Noble Heart, book five in my Double-Dilemma Romance series.

Book five!!!

I'm kind of gobsmacked when I think that The Dressmaker's Secret Earl, the first book in the series, was published less than a year ago. I started writing it months before that, of course, but I'm still amazed at how these romances have poured out of me, as if they were hiding in my heart and just waiting for their chance to burst forth.

Persephone Wilkins, one of the protagonists in The Teacher's Noble Heart, made her debut in book four.

When I created Persephone as a principal secondary character in The Falconer's Lost Baron, I liked her so well I almost decided she should be a protagonist. The story that developed, however, centered on the family drama of the two sisters—Antonella and Belinda—and their romances, so she had to play a supporting role.

Nonetheless, as the sisters' governess of nine years with a secret link to the family, Persephone was far from an insignificant character. That's why, for this week only and in honor of her role as heroine in The Teacher's Noble Heart, I'm offering an opportunity to meet her in The Falconer's Lost Baron—free on Kindle through Friday.​

Why Cornwall again?

I had the great pleasure of living in London for ten years, from 1976 to 1986 (how different the world was then), and I spent several memorable vacations in the West Country—Devon and Cornwall. I have such wonderful memories of walking along the cliffs and through the moors and really wanted to "go back" there again—at least in my mind.

Cornwall simply felt like the right setting for a story involving the magical art of falconry, and I had visited a beautiful National Trust estate, Cotehele, that was my model for Amblemere Court in Falconer.

Channeling my inner Poldark

I wasn't quite ready to leave Cornwall after book four, however. Naturally I'm a huge Poldark fan—both the TV series and the wonderful books by Winston Graham, with their gritty depiction of the Cornish copper mines in the late 18th century. So when I stumbled on Delabole Quarry in my research—and discovered it was only about ten miles away from where I set Amblemere Court in book four—I saw an opportunity to bring some of that hardscrabble world to the page.

However, The Teacher's Noble Heart is first and foremost a romance. I hope readers will fall in love with Persephone, Sophia, James, and Nathaniel as they go through the twists and turns of finding each other and their place in the world.

Have a great day, and happy reading and writing!

Susanne