The American Earl Page 21
“Oh My God,” Aunt Barbara said. “Does she never stop?”
I regarded the ring of amused faces looking at me. “What?” I said.
Evan dropped a kiss on the top of my head. “Pay no mind to them, my love. I’ll always be interested in your hunting stories.”
I gave him a radiant smile. God how I love that man. He said something to Uncle Gordon and they fell into conversation. I leaned against him, happier than I had been in my entire life, and listened to the sound of his voice.
AUTHOR’S NOTE
The American Earl is my 47th novel and represents a return home to my beloved regency period. The first twelve novels I sold were all regencies, published by New American Library under the Signet imprint. My very first novel, A Counterfeit Marriage was published in February 1980 – quite a long time ago. During the next four years, I wrote eleven more regencies for NAL. And here’s an anachronism for you - I wrote them all in longhand at the local public library while a high school girl baby-sat for my children!
When the short contemporary romance a la Harlequin swept the book world, NAL asked if I would write some contemporaries for their new line called Rapture Romance. My first contemporary, Summer Storm, was published in March 1983. During the next three years, I wrote six more of these small books: Change of Heart, Beloved Stranger, Affair of the Heart, Portrait of a Love, A Fashionable Affair, and Wild Irish Rose.
After NAL closed the Rapture line I decided to try some straight historical romances. These were: The Rebel and the Rose, set during the American revolution; and Highland Sunset, set in romantic Scotland during the time of Bonnie Prince Charlie.
Once I had gotten some practice with longer books, I turned to the novel I had long wanted to write – The Road to Avalon. It’s the Mallory version of King Arthur, but set in its proper time (the fourth century). My aim was to show how this famous story might actually have happened. I loved writing the book so much that it morphed into a trilogy about Dark Ages Britain. I consider The Road to Avalon, Born of the Sun and The Edge of Light the best books I have ever written. I am so very very proud of them.
A note of interest here is that Born of the Sun is the first book I wrote on a computer. Up until 1988 I was still writing in longhand and transposing the book to a typewriter. It seems almost unreal to think of such a thing today.
After I finished the Dark Ages Trilogy my publishers approached me about writing a pre-historic book. Jean Auel was all the rage and everyone was jumping on the pre-history bandwagon. That is how I came to write my pre-history trilogy: Daughter of the Red Deer, The Horsemasters and The Reindeer Hunters. There is a strong feminist theme running through all these books, which made them very popular. Interestingly, they sold like wildfire in Europe.
After fourteen years and twenty-seven books with NAL, in 1995 I signed a contract with Warner Books. I wrote eleven books in all for Warner, the first eight of which were regency romances. They were a little different in that they were told in the first person from the heroine’s point of view. Some of the titles were: The Deception, The Arrangement and The Pretenders.
During the same time that I was writing the regencies for Warner, I also wrote two medieval mysteries for HarperCollins. No Dark Place was published in 1999 and The Poisoned Serpent in 2000. I still get letters begging me for another ‘Hugh de Leon book.’
Then it was back to the real world with three contemporary novels for Warner: Silverbridge was published in May 2002, Highmeadow and That Summer in 2003. At this point Mira Books offered me a nice contract and from 2004 to 2006, they published three Joan Wolf books: White Horses, set during the Napoleonic War; To the Castle, set in medieval times; and His Lordship’s Desire, a regency romance.
At this point some serious health problems put me on the shelf and it wasn’t until 2010 that I wrote something new. I had always loved the Old Testament Book of Esther and thought it would make a great love story. Thomas Nelson published the novel, The Reluctant Queen, which I followed up with a re-telling of the biblical story of Rahab, This Scarlet Cord.
I had long thought that the life of Mary Magdalen would make a great novel and Worthy Publishers agreed with me. Daughter of Jerusalem was published in 2013 and I am so proud of it. It’s a book that means a great deal to me; writing it was a personal spiritual journey.
And now I’m back in the regency! What goes around comes around they say, and that’s certainly true for me. I loved writing The American Earl. It felt like coming home, and I think I’m going to remain at home in the regency for my next book too.
I love to hear from my readers. You may contact me on my website, www.joanwolf.com and on facebook at www.facebook.com/authorjoanwolf.
THE AMERICAN EARL
Joan Wolf
Copyright 2014 by Joan Wolf
Table of Contents
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
Chapter Twenty-one
Chapter Twenty-two
Chapter Twenty-three
Chapter Twenty-four
Chapter Twenty-five
Chapter Twenty-six
Chapter Twenty-seven
Chapter Twenty-eight
Chapter Twenty-nine
Chapter Thirty
Chapter Thirty-one
Chapter Thirty-two
Chapter Thirty-three
Chapter Thirty-four
Chapter Thirty-five
AUTHOR’S NOTE
The American Earl