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It’s RELEASE DAY for Michelle Diener’s third book in her Regency London Series,
A Dangerous Madness!
A Dangerous Madness
by Michelle Diener
Adult Historical
May 19th 2014
The Duke of Wittaker has been living a lie…
He’s been spying on the dissolute, discontented noblemen of the ton, pretending to share their views. Now he’s ready to step out of the shadows and start living a real life…but when the prime minister of England is assassinated, he’s asked to go back to being the rake-hell duke everyone believes he still is to find out more.
Miss Phoebe Hillier has been living a lie, too…
All her life she’s played by society’s rules, hiding her fierce intelligence and love of life behind a docile and decorous mask. All it’s gotten her is jilted by her betrothed, a man she thought a fool, though a harmless one. But when she discovers her former fiancé was involved in the plot against the prime minister, and that he’s been murdered, she realizes he wasn’t so harmless after all.
And now the killers have set their sights on her…
The only man who can help her is the Duke of Wittaker–a man she knows she shouldn’t trust. And she soon realizes he’s hiding behind a mask as careful as her own. As the clock ticks down to the assassin’s trial, the pair scramble to uncover the real conspiracy behind the prime minister’s death. And as the pressure and the danger mounts, Phoebe and Wittaker shed their disguises, layer by layer, to discover something more precious than either imagined–something that could last forever. Unless the conspirators desperate to hide their tracks get to them first.
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SPECIAL OFFER
It just so happens that In Defense of the Queen, one of my Tudor-set historicals, is on special offer at the moment on Amazon, down to $0.99 from $4.99. The offer ends on May 24th, so if you like historicals with twists, turns and a lot of suspense, be sure to grab a copy.
Connections
I am so excited that my historical novel, A Dangerous Madness, releases today. A Dangerous Madness is set during the Regency period in London, and the plot revolves around the assassination of the British prime minister, Spencer Perceval.
A Dangerous Madness stands alone, but it is also connected to two other of my historical novels, The Emperor’s Conspiracy and Banquet of Lies. The fun part of connecting the novels for me was to revisit characters I love from the previous two books (which are also connected to each other) but introducing those characters so that a reader of A Dangerous Madness doesn’t have to have read the other two books to understand them. The characters have to stand alone, as much as the books do. But for those readers who have read either one or both of the previous books, they’ll see those characters again, and learn a little about what has happened to them since the last book.
I’ve had so many readers contact me and comment on how much they enjoyed catching a glimpse of one or other of their favorite characters, which I really love. And quite a few people who read Banquet of Lies went back to read The Emperor’s Conspiracy, and told me they found it equally satisfying, so readers don’t have to read the books in any particular order.
In this way, connected books are more versatile than a series, because most people are hesitant to read a series out of order, and I totally understand that. I also love that so many people wrote to me after Banquet of Lies, asking if the Duke of Wittaker would get his own story. It was very satisfying to tell them I had started working on it straight after I finished Banquet of Lies. 🙂
From the beginning of Banquet of Lies, the Duke of Wittaker is mentioned by various characters again and again, although readers only ‘meet’ him near the very end. But when he did arrive on the scene, he made a real impact. I wrote and rewrote the scenes with him in them, because he really shone as a character and I wanted to do him justice. I loved that readers felt the same way, and those who read Banquet of Lies and have been waiting for their Duke of Wittaker fix, I hope they enjoy A Dangerous Madness as much as I enjoyed writing it.
Michelle Diener writes historical fiction and fantasy. Her Susanna Horenbout & John Parker series, set in the court of Henry VIII, includes In a Treacherous Court, Keeper of the King’s Secrets and In Defense of the Queen.
Michelle’s other historical novels include Daughter of the Sky, The Emperor’s Conspiracy and Banquet of Lies (loosely connected to The Emperor’s Conspiracy).
Michelle’s fantasy novels include Mistress of the Wind and The Golden Apple.
Michelle was born in London, grew up in South Africa and currently lives in Australia with her husband and two children.
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Blitz-Wide Giveaways:
Grand Prize: Print copies of The Emperor’s Conspiracy, Banquet of Lies, and A Dangerous Madness
5 Print or Kindle copies (winner’s choice) of A Dangerous Madness
Both giveaway are open internationally.
May 19th – 26th
See Rafflecopter for restrictions.
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A criticism of fairy tales is the passivity of heroines. Cinderella has to be found by the prince and saved, Snow White kissed awake while she lies passive, Sleeping Beauty, the same. But there are fairy tales were the heroine is more active. East of the Sun, West of the Moon, which I based my fantasy novel Mistress of the Wind on, is one of them, and in that, the heroine is clearly the hero and the protagonist of the story. But there was also a flash of that in The Princess on the Glass Hill, and why I became interested in the story in the first place.
At first glance, the story is like Cinderella, Snow White etc, in that the princess can do nothing but sit on top of her glass mountain and wait while the knights try to ride up the smooth, steep glass to pluck the golden apple from her lap. She will have no choice but to marry whoever manages to do it. But there was a line in the story which caught my eye. It said the princess threw down the apple to the hero as he tried to reach the top. In other words, she had sized them all up, decided who she’d prefer to have, and helped the hero to win. She seems to have no power, but in fact, she has all of it, in that moment. She has the golden apple. She can throw it to whomever she wants, or, in fact, hold on to it. No-one can reach it without her assistance.
The Silver Pear is the sequel to 
I heard over the weekend that 
About Mistress of the Wind:
