Uncaged: You have a new book releasing on February 18, called The Lady is Trouble. Can you tell readers more about this book? This is the first in a series, how many books are planned for the series?
The Lady is Trouble is a book I had in my mind for YEARS! There’s a scene I don’t actually show in the book (though it is mentioned) that I can still see that was the start of the book for me. (The hero and heroine meeting as children.) The Lady is Trouble is a bit of a departure for me because so far I’ve only published historical romances set in the south. Trouble is set in England AND features magical realism (think supernatural activities that were actually very popular in the Victorian era). It tells the story of Julian Alexander, Viscount Beauchamp, and Lady Piper Scott — soulmates who find a second chance at love, mostly due to Piper’s stubborn conviction that they are destined to be together. Julian has the gift of sight and Piper is a healer. He has sworn to protect her but not love her–and the love story rolls from there. My books are fairly high heat (steamy) and aside from the mystical slant, it’s a true Victorian romance.
Trouble is the first in the League of Lords series, which will run five books (maybe one of those being a holiday novella) unless I’m loving the characters and it runs more! I’m already hard at work on the next in the series, Finn Alexander’s love story. Supposedly the most gorgeous man in England, so there is that. 😉
Uncaged: What inspired you to write in the historical romance genre?
Oh, boy. I started reading romance in college and the first I picked up was a historical. I called them the Lords & Ladies books. I just loved them and still do (I’m a huge reader of the genre — check out my Bookbub, that’s only from like the last 1.5 years!) So, when I decided to write (I was a journalism major, so writing no far off from what I wanted to do), I started a historical. But I’m southern, even though at that time I lived in New York City, so I set them there. I love the deep south settings. Small town, etc!
Uncaged: Several of your books are already in audio format. Is that a long process to turn the book into audio? Has it been well received by readers/listeners?
Yes, audiobooks are just booming! I’ve released three so far (The Garrett Brothers series) with three more coming up by March (including The Lady is Trouble). All can be found on Audible or my website www.tracy-sumner.com. I’ve worked with two narrators — and reviews are great so far. I’m just happy to reach readers in any way. It’s a love of the genre thing for me. And…it’s a new world out there for writers.
Uncaged: What are you working on next that you can tell us about?
I’m working on the second book in the League of Lords series. Still percolating about the title. He’s gorgeous, intelligent, sensitive (but alpha when he needs to be) and a mindreader. 😉 Yes, really. Of course he falls for the only person whose mind he can’t read. And…he’s the bastard of a viscount, so life is complicated. I love him already!
Read the rest of this interview in the issue below
Tracy’s story telling career began when she picked up a copy of LaVyrle Spencer’s Vows on a college beach trip. A couple of degrees (BA, Journalism-MA, Media Arts) and a thousand romance novels later, she decided to try her hand at writing a southern version of the perfect love story. With a great deal of luck and more than a bit of perseverance, she sold her first novel to Kensington Publishing.
Tracy has been awarded the National Reader’s Choice, HOLT Medallion, the Write Touch and the Beacon – with finalist nominations in the HOLT Medallion, Heart of Romance, Rising Stars and Reader’s Choice. Her books have been translated into German, Dutch, Portuguese and Spanish.
She lives in the south, but after spending a few years in NYC, considers herself a New Yorker at heart. She loves hearing from readers about why she tends to pit her hero and heroine against each other or that great novel she simply must read.
FUN FACT
Tracy wrote part of To Seduce a Rogue in a hostel in Taipei, Taiwan and Tides of Love while living in Paris, in a building George Sand occupied on Rue de Seine.
tracy-sumner.com
The Lady is Trouble
Tracy Sumner
Historical Regency
In the first in Tracy Sumner’s captivating League of Lord series, mysticism in Victorian England is the setting for a captivating love affair . . .
What’s a rebellious woman to do when the man she’s meant for doesn’t believe in love?
After three years of waiting for Julian Alexander to realize they are destined to be together, Lady Piper Scott takes matters into her own hands. Because her gift as a healer has never done anything but distance her from the most principled man in England. A meaningless diversion as a medium, all done to gain a certain wandering viscount’s attention, backfires. As most endeavors have for a woman known in the ton as Scandalous Scott.
What’s a reluctant viscount to do when the woman he can’t have becomes the woman he can’t live without?
Julian Alexander, Lord Beauchamp, battled his way from the lowliest slum to assume his title. He carries not only a turbulent past, but a mystical gift that separates him from society. Honorable to his core, he is committed to protecting a community of outcasts with abilities like his own. He has no time, no place, for love. Or repeatedly rescuing the most outrageous, beguiling woman he’s ever known. Even if she needs his protection most—and he desires her above all others.
Seduction, intrigue and desire lead to an explosive passion…
Julian vowed to shield Piper from the deadly foes seeking to possess her powerful gift. Although he needs her help in controlling his own, the mix could be deadly. Soon what was once a simple agreement to work together becomes enchantingly complex as they surrender to a timeless love…
Excerpt
There is nothing stable in the world; uproar’s your only music.
John Keats
Chapter One
London, 1865
Allowing the lady to lure him into her carriage had been a brilliant idea.
Julian Alexander stared at a spider crack in the ceiling of his Mayfair townhome and wondered when he might start to believe it. He could presume encountering a former lover outside Hatchards on an otherwise lonely evening was a fortuitous event if there weren’t the niggling—familiar—pinch of regret the moment his cock settled.
A faint sense of having erred, gone off the path and into a twilight woodland where one could be easily lost.
As lost as he’d felt stepping into her dimly lit carriage.
Julian watched Marianne wrap herself in his silk dressing gown, her chatter lulling him into a state of satiated distraction. Only the first and third word of each sentence filtering through, he found the conversation definitively complete. Earl, garden, tryst, scandal. Titles and the men who held them occupied her undivided interest. Each day spent investigating a riddle that had no solution.
Was not, in fact, worth the attention she devoted to it.
In all fairness, Julian could not judge.
His mystical gift separated him from a normal existence and made the world he’d been born into at times unrecognizable. Out of a sense of duty, he played the part of the gentleman for the solitary purpose of propping up the viscountcy, adhering to society’s rules while struggling to preserve his secrets and the secrets of those he protected. Of course, he tendered his title when it benefited himself or the League. But a barony would have profited as well and knocked him down a notch, perhaps enough to slip beneath the waves and be carried from view.
He closed his eyes and let the waves crash over him.
Then Marianne mucked it up by kicking the door to the past wide open.
He rose to his elbow, knocking the counterpane aside. Dragging his hand through his hair, he asked, “Repeat that, will you?” Alarm vibrated through his belly, like swimming in the sea and realizing a massive wave crested behind you. No, it couldn’t be. “Come again?”
Marianne’s gaze settled where the sheet hung low on his hips. “So, you were listening.” She reached to touch, a stroke on air. Licked her lips in the event he didn’t register her appreciation. “Jules, with you, I never know.”
He slid high in the bed, suppressing his annoyance. Jules. He’d asked her to refrain from calling him that. Too. Many. Memories. “Marianne, the clairvoyant?”
Her smile grew luminous, her delight underscoring the scant attention he offered. Without trying to be a disdainful cad, it seemed he was precisely that. “Oh, darling, it was the most farcical evening! Ashcroft arranged for a fortune teller to entertain, and you know him. For a duke, he pushes the boundaries of propriety while always staying within the limit.” She leaned in, clutching the lapels of his dressing gown to her bosom. “I heard there was absinthe served to the men. Why, the festivities were enough to make a stuffed bird laugh!”
Julian hummed low in his throat and rose from the bed. He didn’t know but could imagine. Hell’s teeth, he thought and reached for his clothes, which lay in a tidy pile next to the chiffonier. Taken off without haste, neatly folded.
Read the rest of the excerpt in the issue below
