Five Fun Facts

1. The heroine from A Touch of Scandal, Kate, has a younger brother, Reginald. Reggie suffers from severe asthma—something I understand, having been through it as a child and now watching my own son fight it. It’s truly a painful and frightening illness. I can’t imagine what it was like for children before proper medications were available. The prescription the doctor in A Touch of Scandal orders—prussic acid—was a common remedy for asthma. But like many medicines of the time, prussic acid has since been proven to be very poisonous—even deadly. No wonder poor Reggie didn’t improve while he was taking it!

2. In the first drafts of A Touch of Scandal, there were three “villains.” I thought that was at least one too many, so I changed one character to soften her up a bit, even almost redeeming her at the end. She’s still not a very likeable character, but she’s no longer the equivalent of the Wicked Witch of the West! Can you guess who this is?

3. I’ve been to England several times, but I have not been to Kenilworth Castle. I researched it as thoroughly as I could while writing A Touch of Scandal, and it’s definitely on the itinerary for my next visit to the UK!

4. The James family seat, Calton House, is located in the Yorkshire dales. I feel especially bonded to this part of England—I think it’s because several of my ancestors immigrated to Canada from Yorkshire. I’ve driven through the county once, and I loved it. It’s a special place.

5. One of the main characters in A Touch of Scandal is Becky, the younger sister of the Duke of Calton. I have loved writing about her, because she is the one character whose growth you can really see from the beginning to the end of the series. She is immature and compulsive in A Hint of Wicked; she crashes back to reality in A Touch of Scandal; and in the third book, A Season of Seduction, she really comes into her own and finally finds the man that will lead her down the (very rocky!) road to a happily ever after.