Author Carole Mortimer is one busy writer! Not only has she published her 150^th book, but she has started writing Harlequin Historicals as well as Harlequin Presents! Read Carole’s blog below to learn more ~Amy

by Carole Mortimer, author of The Virgin Secretary’s Impossible Boss (Harlequin Presents, Sept. 2009), At the Duke’s Service (Harlequin Historical Undone, August 2009), and The Duke’s Cinderella Bride (Harlequin Historical, Sept. 2009)

2009 has been an exciting year for me, in which I have celebrated 30 years of writing for Harlequin Mills & Boon in their Presents/Modern series, and coincidentally had my 150^th book in this series published.

Excited about these achievements I had the mad idea of turning my imagination to writing a Regency Romance — I have always love reading books about this time period. My imagination had other ideas, and instead of one book, I ended up with four books, and four siblings. Three brothers and a sister. Luckily for me, my editor at Harlequin Mills & Boon loved their stories, and these four books have now metamorphosed into ‘The Notorious St Claires’. The first of these four books, The Duke’s Cinderella Bride, will appear in North American bookstores in September.

If anything, I found in writing the Regency hero that he tended to be even more the Alpha male than the men of modern times. This is partly due, I believe, because the rules of Society in Regency time dictated that women should, and usually did, behave within a certain set of rigid rules laid down for them — no doubt by men! Not that the women in Regency times were exactly a pushover or lacking in character. On the contrary, I believe they generally had great strength of character. But those strengths were often kept beneath the surface of the woman’s demeanour — at least, in public. Personally I couldn’t write about a heroine who didn’t have spirit and strength, and as you will see from reading my own Regency Historicals, my heroines are more than a match for any of my Alpha male heroes!

The second reason that Regency men perhaps appear to be more Alpha than modern men is because in most Regency romances the hero tends to have the added advantage of a title. In modern times the Alpha male’s strength often comes along with great wealth and business success of some kind, but in Regency times, wealthy or not, a title certainly added more than a little kudos to these men. Don’t you think?

Different or not, I am thoroughly enjoying writing stories set in both these time periods, and continue to have great fun with the heroine and Alpha heroes of each time.

Look for Carole’s Harlequin Historical & Harlequin Presents book The Virgin Secretary’s Impossible Boss in stores in North America now! An eBook exclusive prequel to The Notorious St. Claires, At the Duke’s Service, is on sale now from Harlequin Historical Undone.

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