Guest Blogger - Sherry Gloag

Please welcome my guest today - a fellow Astraea Author - Sherry Gloag with her latest release from Sweet Cravings Press!

Multi-published author, Sherry Gloag is a transplanted Scot now living in the beautiful coastal countryside of Norfolk, England. She considers the surrounding countryside as extension of her own garden, to which she escapes when she needs "thinking time" and solitude to work out the plots for her next novel. While out walking she enjoys talking to her characters, as long as there are no other walkers close by.

Apart from writing, Sherry enjoys gardening, walking, reading and cheerfully admits her books tend to take over most of the shelf and floor space in her workroom-cum-office. She also finds crystal craft work therapeutic.

During the regency period a bad landlord could remove tenants from their property for the slightest of provocations, leaving the families destitute without a care in the world. But what would, and did, happen when members of the ton were threatened with the same disaster?

The Regency equivalent for today’s ‘property repossession’ is ‘writ of forfeiture’, and is only ever issues in the most dire of circumstances. For most, a short spell in a debtor’s prison, until he either paid off the debt or some influential family member or friend paid it off for them was the ultimate humiliation. But for the more hardened gamblers there came a time when friends and family turned the other way, ladies, normally only too willing to help their charming lover with ’a little financial help’ soon spread the word and the culprit would find all sources of credit withdrawn.

In No Job For a Woman, widowed Deborah Stavely is unaware that her infamous neighbours have been issued with a writ of forfeiture and are about to lose everything. So when she spurns the attentions of the equally infamous brother as no more than an irritation she has no idea she has put her life is on the line.

Inspiration comes in many shapes, sounds and forms, and for No Job For a Woman, a Regency romance released by Sweet Cravings Publishings in September, one word inspired the story and the plot and the characters that evolved around that one word.

So, what was it?

Forfeiture.

As in, ‘a writ of forfeiture’.

The question then became ‘so what?’ What would happen if a writ of forfeiture was issued, and to whom, and then the ‘why’ and the ‘how’ soon followed.

And of course you can no more drop a word into a story plot, than you can drop a stone into a pond without the ripple effect.

The next series of questions then became, who received the writ? And out trotted the ‘old soldiers’, who, what, when, why and how, rapidly followed by ‘what happened next?’ What were the consequences of this writ being issued and did they extend beyond the recipient. And if so, how far, and how many other people were drawn into what can be best described as the ‘domino effect.’

No Job For a Woman took several years to complete, so living that long with the characters made them very special and No Job For a Woman a joy to write

About the book!

Blurb:

Julian Fanshaw answers a call for help from his life-long friend Lord Worth to help keep his friend’s widowed sister, Deborah, safe from her increasingly vindictive neighbours. It doesn’t take long to realise him or Freddie long to realise the Grangers aren’t using her as a long-promised act of revenge against them; but are playing a deeper and far more sinister game of their own. Deborah Stavely is determined to overcome the increasing harassment from her neighbour without calling on her brother for help. So she is not pleased when Freddie intervenes and involves his friend, Julian Fanshaw.

Circumstances demand Julian and Deborah learn to work together and Julian dares to dream that he might gain the love of the only person he’s ever given his heart to. But will Deborah live long enough to discover that by releasing everything she values, she will gain everything her heart desires?

Excerpt:

Julian Fanshaw ignored the other letters in front of him when he recognized one from his long-time friend Freddie Dalrymple, now Lord Worth. He broke the seal and scanned the single sheet with growing concern.

Julian, my friend, I am writing to implore you to put aside whatever plans you have in hand and to set out immediately to stay with us for an indeterminate period of time.

Thoroughly alarmed, Julian flipped the page in his hand to discover it had been dispatched more than a week ago.

If I bring to mind a certain student up at Oxford with us, and reveal that he and his wife are, and have been, my sister’s neighbors for several years, it will give you but an inkling of the root of my concern.

It has come to my attention, due to the arrival of his brother upon the scene, and recent events concerning my sister, Deborah, I am persuaded you need not only to know what is happening here, but be on hand to assist in circumventing any consequences of actions taken against her.

I have taken the liberty of gathering some friends together for a couple of shooting parties, thereby creating a reason for your presence.

Since his return from the Peninsular, Julian kept promising himself a trip to Worth’s Norfolk estate. Unfortunately in the last eighteen months, time and circumstances had worked against him.

Casting the letter aside, Julian strode to the door and called for his butler. “I am leaving immediately for Norfolk. Please see that my bags are packed and have my horse ready within the hour.”

“You do not intend to use your chaise, sir?”

“No. I’ll ride, with a stop to visit Mr. Sewel. Arrange for Becket and French to follow me in the chaise with everything I’ll need for a month.”

Not by so much as a flick of an eyelid did Thomas reveal he recognized the name of his master’s man of business.

“Very good, sir.”

© Sherry Gloag 2012

Available from Amazon.com and Amazon UK and B&N and all other good etailers!