Welcome to Sugarbeat’s Books – The Home of the Romance Novel
Today we are welcoming Kate Rothwell to the blog. She’s going to share some thoughts with us and we are going to have the opportunity to learn about three of her books! She is also giving away a copy of Someone to Cherish. If you are interested please fill out the form below!. Without further ado – here’s Kate:
City of Dreams
I adore Regencies and Victorian set books, and I love London–the real city and the fictional version found in the historicals.
But the city I love to write about most is Manhattan of the 1880s. It was such a huge mass of humanity then (and, of course, now—today there are 69,500 residents per square mile). The wealthiest people in the world lived only blocks from the poorest. People from all over the world inhabited that small island. They settled near their ex-patriot countrymen and each enclave had its own rules and rituals.
My family landed in New York in the early 20th century and my grandmother and great-grandmother wrote anecdotes about their lives. After reading some of their stories, I had to wonder why anyone would want to live in such a crowded, rough place. So much of the reality of New York isn’t something I’d want to display in full, miserable color in a romance novel—just like most writers leave out the raw sewage and heaps of manure in Regencies.
Yet there is something about the vitality of the time and place that I find irresistible. There’s plenty of interesting criminal activity too (although Boss Tweed’s Tammany Hall, the most egregious scandal, was done by the 1880s). And even when you remove the people–the buildings! And the bridges! The Brooklyn Bridge, still one of the world’s most amazing structures, was finished in 1883.
Manhattan is twenty-three square miles filled with designers, inventors, artists, actors, drunkards, intellectuals, aristocrats, scam artists, the desperately poor and the filthy-rich fashionables—who can resist plopping down a few stories in a place like that?
Kate Rothwell grew up in Washington, D.C. The city, dang it — not Silver Spring or Chevy Chase or Arlington or Crystal City. WASHINGTON, D.C. She went to art school in Boston, where she met her husband.
Kate has worked as a service manager/parts runner in a Saab garage, an artists’ model, a day care center child care provider, a sales clerk, a bartender in an Irish bar in Boston (green beer on St. Patrick’s day), a reporter, a feature writer, a food prep chef (3 days), a cross-stitch kit instructions writer, a publisher and editor of a newspaper for children, a substitute teacher (for about a month). She has two undergraduate degrees from two colleges.
She and her husband and three kids live in Connecticut. If you want to know more about her, you can visit her blog where she also runs contests.
Here are the details on three of Kate’s books that are available now:
Somebody Wonderful
Timona Calverson has had her fill of her perilous life of adventure, and decides she should settle down with Michael McCann, a recent Irish immigrant and New York City police officer, But first she must convince him they belong together. And she must elude would-be kidnappers intent on destroying her plans for her future.
Someone to Love
In 1883 New York City, two remarkable events took place: the Brooklyn Bridge opened, and Griffin Calverson at last met his match.
Someone to Cherish
The death of Callie Scott’s fashionable father left her with nothing—except an inquisitive mind not even her grandmother’s puritanical upbringing could quash. An adventurous spirit doesn’t get her much in New York City, however, except an abysmal position as a ladies maid.
Things are looking up when she lands a trial job in a “special” library. Her benefactor’s offer of wine before noon should have signaled something amiss—not to mention the heated text she’s asked to translate. The more she reads, the more wine she needs to cool her blush.
Detective Cutter can’t quite place the tipsy young woman he encounters in a notorious brothel, but when she plants a dizzying kiss on his lips, he’s sure she doesn’t belong there. The resulting scandal of the police raid leaves Callie on the street, and Cutter feels responsible for her welfare.
Despite the cruel knowledge that he will never be part of her world, Cutter impulsively offers her a job in his home, where she turns out to possess more than the face of an angel. She has an irresistible, innocent sensuality—and an insatiable curiosity that could bring her one step too close to a murderer.
I’d like to thank Kate for sharing with us today. Have a look at her books and see if you are interested in one or more of them!
If you are interested in winning a copy of Someone to Cherish, enter your information in the form below,
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- Guess Post: What of 1880 NYC Would You Recognize Today? by Leanna Renee Heiber (livredeamour-booksoflove.blogspot.com)