Hi Annie. Thanks for inviting me to sit in your chair and discuss my novel.
Welcome, Renée. The title of your book, To Charm a Bluestocking, speaks strongly to Regency Romance, but it isn’t set there. Why that title?
When I told my husband the title, he said “A what? No-one will know what a bluestocking is.” I said “Only every historical romance reader. Ever.”

Although we in romance associate bluestockings with unusual, clever women, who usually aren’t perfectly beautiful; the term has more interesting origins. It became popular in England in 1750 when Elizabeth Montagu started a society for clever women to discuss literature and other elegant notions. As with anything that benefits women, it quickly became seen as dangerous. Society (and by that, I mean wealthy male peers) painted them as frumpy harridans who no graces. Romance has reclaimed it to denote clever women.
To Charm a Bluestocking is the first in a series of three about three women who graduate from medical school in Amsterdam. Josephine, the main character in To Charm a Bluestocking, is loosely based on my great-grandmother who achieved this difficult task herself. In doing the research about my great-grandmother, I discovered that there had been only 20 female doctors graduate in Holland between 1875 and 1910. Of which, my relative was one. I started thinking about what problems she would have faced, and which of those problems would resonate with readers today. This book is set in 1887; and includes many of the fun features of the Victorian era, such as train travel.
From there, To Charm a Bluestocking was built. Her two friends, Marie and Claire, make strong appearances in this book. Their stories are coming soon. You can keep in touch with me at my facebook page, or on my website.

W: http://www.reneedahlia.com/
F: https://www.facebook.com/reneedahliawriter/
 
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​She wants to be one of the world’s first female doctors; romance is not in her plans.
 
1887: Too tall, too shy and too bookish for England, Lady Josephine moves to Holland to become one of the world’s first female doctors. With only one semester left, she has all but completed her studies when a power-hungry professor, intent on marrying her for her political connections, threatens to prevent her graduation. Together with the other Bluestockings, female comrades-in-study, she comes up with a daring, if somewhat unorthodox plan: acquire a fake fiancé to provide the protection and serenity she needs to pass her final exams.
 
But when her father sends her Lord Nicholas St. George, he is too much of everything: too handsome, too charming, too tall and too broad and too distracting for Josephine’s peace of mind. She needed someone to keep her professor at bay, not keep her from her work with temptations of long walks, laughing, and languorous kisses.
 
Just as it seems that Josephine might be able to have it all: a career as a pioneering female doctor and a true love match, everything falls apart and Josephine will find herself in danger of becoming a casualty in the battle between ambition and love.

Sometimes you meet people through your writing that change the way you look at life. Incy Black, who I had the pleasure of meeting in London in 2014, and again last year, is one of those people! I offered her a blog post to promote her new book, but no... she doesn't believe in blatant buy my book promo posts.  Her post is so beautiful, I hope you will see her wonderful voice, and the sort of writer she is, and go and and click to buy!
Incy is the one in the pink dress in the photo! This is how she describes herself:

It took a swan dive from a roof to convince Incy (aged 5) she wasn’t an avenging fairy and that no, she most certainly couldn’t fly. Bruised but undefeated she retreated deeper into her make-believe world populated with the brave and the poisonous. 
When not fighting injustice and righting wrongs on ‘Planet Incy’, she works as a Marketing Director. (Unfortunately, her law degree languishes unused, the distinction between good and evil proving too worrisome in real life.)
Her five children are well versed in what scares her (most things) and delight in pushing her neurotic buttons—at their peril.

Incy taught me not to take myself so seriously, and to love being an author, and to focus on the love of what we do, and not let the little publishing hiccups we meet on the way, take us from our journey. Her post below is one I will cherish.
                                                                           *********
​
Australians are a little crazy—but we love them.
 
Annie Seaton is laid back. She reminds me of an elegant glider noiselessly catching life’s updrafts, no fuss, no bother. If she does have feathers to ruffle, I’ve never found them. So with that in mind, rather than discuss my new release Hard to Protect or my writing process, I prefer to share why my in-person encounter with Annie was a blast—and will forever remain indelibly imprinted on my psyche.
 
Picture four Australian women—statuesque, gorgeous, proud—travelling the globe. I’m not saying they wrecked havoc, but they came pretty damn close. And that was just in London. The refined folk of Bloomsbury might recover—one day, but they will never forget.
 
Annie, Savannah, Diane and Kristen ‘pulled’ in a rooftop beer garden, brazenly swapping names and business cards with some young builders.  Such was their enthusiasm for the second pub, I’m fairly certain they offered to partnership up with the owner. They wandered off—and got lost—in Trafalgar Square. I won’t mention they did the same on the Underground. None of this was bad, it was curiously endearing to a Brit.
 
But, Oh. My. God. They kept getting bitten—by a wild and wanton impulse.
 
Seemed like every ten minutes, up would go their arms, back would go their heads, out would come their war cry, “Ozzie, Ozzie, Ozzie, Oi, Oi, Oi,” loud enough to fell all buildings within a three mile radius! It was shameless. It was hilarious. It was terrifying, mortifying, too. And as an experience it ranks right up there with the top ten in my life. It will also, along with the personalities involved, one day find its way into one of my books.
 
Go Aussie women, go—never change!
 
 
BLURB:
 
Some Black Op missions are too dark—even for him.
Volcanic hot and ambitious Special Agent Will Berwick doesn’t give a damn what his orders are, he’s not taking the enemy—the lovely, but arctic Dr. Angel Treherne—to bed. Nor will she die on his watch, most certainly not by his hand. Oh, he’ll root out her secrets. But his own way—teaching her a much-deserved lesson while he’s at it: that no one messes with his career plan just because they’re a little peeved with him.
Caught up in a tangled web of deceit and betrayal, psychotherapist Angel trusts no one—certainly not alpha-cocky, cunning Will Berwick. First he’s hostile, then he’s charming, now he wants to protect her? Why? What’s he hiding? With her life—and heart—on the line, she needs to know.
With the risks high and personal, can Will and Angel agree the dangerous choices they must make?

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