CHAPTER ONE

Mazagaon Port, Bombay, December 1850

Seth Mayhew wouldn’t call it a curse.

But a man on his 13th sail couldn’t help but wonder.

Damned if he hadn’t lived this before. From where he stood on the deck of the HMS Isabella, Bombay might have been Brazil. The same briny stink of the harbor. The stray dogs nosing the pier. The carts, the cargo, the cries of the dockmen—all agitated and out of sorts like the arrival of a fifteen-hundred-ton steamship somehow took ’em by surprise.

It was just...

CHAPTER ONE

London, March 1850

“For God’s sake, man. Make way.”

The impatient command came from close behind, startling in its proximity. Will Repton clenched his teeth against a reply and edged to the right of the pavement, his limping gait either too slow or too unsightly for the haughty Londoners passing him.

Ignoring their frowns, he tucked his chin against the cold wind coursing down Oxford Street and trudged on. At the end of the block, he slowed. There was always a body rounding the...

Writing and reading historical romance are my two modes of relaxation. Without them, I don’t relax. I do relax a little on my one vacation a year to England, but I’m thinking that’s not a great answer. Sleeping relaxes me. Can I say sleep?

There’s not a lot of time for relaxation because there’s always other demands on my time. Literally, every friend I’m thinking of at this moment would relate to that: a stay-at-home-mother of five, a social worker, an investigator for the Illinois DCFS, a...

My new historical is the story of an English explorer and a shy heroine who sail by steamship from England to Bombay, and back. Seth Mayhew and Wilhelmina Adams make the perilous journey for different reasons: Seth to find a lost sister, and Mina to wed a civil servant stationed in India. (Spoiler alert: Mina’s plans are gonna change.)

In 1851, that journey takes 99 days, with caravan travel across Egypt before getting back on a boat at Suez. In 2016, that journey takes 20 hours. There’s...

What kind of research did you do to write Discovery of Desire? What was the most interesting thing you discovered?

ORIGINALLY POSTED ON LORI'S READING CORNER, 5 September, 2016

Seth and Mina’s story begins in 1850’s Bombay (now called Mumbai) before returning to London, so I had a fascinating (and dark) history to research. In 1850, India was under British rule, a colonization made possible by the first forays into the territory by the East India Company, an organization that came into...