Tag Archives: Historical Romance

WHEN THE VISCOUNT WANTED ME: Release Day Blog Post Featuring Author Lydia Lloyd!

January 16, 2024 · Posted by Tule Publishing

Hello everyone! 

I am Lydia Lloyd and today is release day for my book, WHEN THE VISCOUNT WANTED ME. The second in my Rake Chronicles series, this book is an ultra-steamy, older brother’s best friend/brother’s best friend, age gap romance—it is a total romp, with a good amount of humor, a splash of angst, and a lot of spice. 

What is it about? Henrietta Breminster is the belle-of-the-ton, but she has just made a mistake that could jeopardize everything. Tired of watching everyone else have fun while she is constrained by the rules for Regency debutantes, Henrietta decided to take her friend, Justin, the Earl of Hartley, up on his offer of a night of no-strings-attached pleasure. Unfortunately for her, after their tryst, Hartley reveals that he is actually in love with Henrietta and tries to pressure her into marriage—and Henrietta does not feel AT ALL the same way and is running out of ways to put him off. Enter her brother’s best friend, Hugh Aldershot, the Viscount of Tremberley, aka Trem. Trem hears Hartley talking about his night with Henrietta in their gentlemen’s club. He assumes that the earl is lying about his liaison with Henrietta and steps in to shut him up. When Trem confronts Henrietta about his claims, she finds herself confessing her sins to the handsome viscount, for whom she has always nursed a wicked crush. Once Trem vows to help her out of this delicate situation, they are drawn closer together than ever before. Henrietta and Trem soon realize that they might be perfect for each other…but, to make their relationship a reality, they must contend with a world (including her brother!) that does not want to see them together. 

I am so excited to introduce this book to readers—it was so fun to write and is very much the daring, bold historical romance that I myself want to read. To give you a better sense of the book and celebrate its release, I present my five favorite moments from WHEN THE VISCOUNT WANTED ME below: the steamy, the sweet, and everything in between! 

#1) When Trem DRAGS a passed-out Hartley to Breminster House 

This moment is right at the beginning of the book and it really sets the tone for the wild fun to follow. Trem wants to punish Hartley for drunkenly blabbing about Henrietta in the premier gentleman’s club in London—but then the man stone-cold passes out from drinking. So Trem, along with the help of a friend of Hartley’s who he intimidates into submission, loads the inebriated earl up into his carriage and takes him to Breminster House to be dealt with by him and John, Henrietta’s brother. Of course, when he arrives there, he realizes that John is out and only Henrietta is at home. 

#2) Henrietta’s response to Trem’s hypocrisy 

When Trem finds out about Henrietta’s tryst with Hartley, he expresses his dismay at her actions—and asks how she could do something so irresponsible. Henrietta, however, does not waste any time clapping back and turns the tables on Trem. She asks him how he could do any of the irresponsible and reckless things that he has done over the years (he is a rake, after all!) and if he is really going to be that hypocritical. To Trem’s credit, he quickly sees her point and apologizes. 

#3) The Drawing Room scene 

Once they are thrust together by circumstance, it is not long before Trem starts to realize that his feelings for Henrietta have (even before this incident) begun to take on a distinctly non-brotherly cast. With Hartley still trying to court Henrietta despite her disinterest, Trem becomes increasingly infuriated by the young earl. When he comes across Hartley in Henrietta’s drawing room, he intimidates him into leaving—and then a very steamy scene between Henrietta and Trem ensues. 

#4) Trem’s marriage proposal to Henrietta 

The next day, Trem and Henrietta dance at a ball—and then sneak off onto the balcony. Trem wants to propose marriage to Henrietta because he can’t stand the idea of having anyone else as his wife or her marrying any other man (and she has a lot of suitors!), especially now that they’ve been intimate. Henrietta knows that he wants to propose, but she thinks it is only out of a sense of honor and because he wants to do the decent thing, particularly because she is his best friend’s sister. I won’t give away what exactly happens on the balcony, but I can guarantee it is very spicy and they come back to the ballroom engaged! 

#5) Mr. Foxcroft 

When Henrietta goes back to Trem’s estate towards the end of the book for their wedding, she meets his steward, Mr. Foxcroft, who is like a father to him. Trem has been an orphan since his parents died in a carriage accident when he was two years old and Henrietta knows that Trem tends to be very unsentimental about his parents’ deaths. However, when she meets Mr. Foxcroft, he reveals to her that, when Trem was a child, he made him recount the same story about what his parents were like over and over to him. Both Trem and Mr. Foxcroft remember every word of it even now—and they recite it to her. 

Okay, so, as I wrote this list, I realized that I could have easily picked another five scenes and called them my favorites—such is my love for this book. 

If you want to learn more about this book, the whole Rake Chronicles series, or just like talking historical romance, I encourage you to come over to my Instagram. I hope you love reading this book—and come back for the third in the series, WHEN THE EARL DESIRED ME, out May 14!  

xoxo,
Lydia 

About the Author.

Lydia Lloyd writes high-heat historical romance set during the Regency period. She enjoys creating love stories between roguish heroes and complex heroines that are driven by authentic conflict and steamy encounters. Lydia holds a PhD in nineteenth-century British literature and, when she isn’t writing historical romance, works as a teacher and scholar.

WHEN THE DUKE LOVED ME – Release Day Blog Post Featuring Author Lydia Lloyd!

August 28, 2023 · Posted by Tule Publishing

Woman in purple dress kisses shirtless man

Hello everyone! 

I am Lydia Lloyd and today is release day for my debut historical romance, WHEN THE DUKE LOVED ME. It is a steamy, tropetastic, enemies-to-lovers road trip romance and, hopefully, a whole lot of fun to read. My hero, John Breminster, and my heroine, Catherine Forster, first meet at a ball and soon find themselves in the gardens sharing a kiss…but soon discover that, due to a mix-up with their identities, they have stumbled into an embrace with the enemy. As it turns out, their families hate one another due to a scandal that disgraced both the Breminsters and the Forsters years before. John and Catherine are only drawn back together when John realizes that he has a big problem that only Catherine can help him solve. In need of cash, Catherine agrees to help him for a price. They set off across the English countryside together—with only their enmity and a whole lot of sexual tension between them. 

Along the way, there a LOT of steamy moments between John and Catherine; this is a Regency romance with spice! If you’re interested in hearing about some of those scenes, head over to my Instagram @LydiaLloydRomance, where I’ve been highlighting the extra sultry interchanges between John and Catherine. For this blog post, though, I wanted to do another kind of list—while this book IS steamy, it also has a lot of sweet moments (and some of those steamy moments are super sweet!!). That said, I thought I would use this opportunity to describe my five favorite sweet moments in WHEN THE DUKE LOVED ME. So, here it goes…

#1) The letters between John and Ariel
When Catherine first agrees to work with John, her chosen family isn’t sure what to think. Catherine’s parents died years ago and she has lived since the age of eleven with her father’s friend, Lady Wethersby, and her son, Ariel. When the book opens, Ariel is ten years old and only starting to understand the world around him. When Catherine explains that she will be traveling with John, Ariel is very suspicious. He is super protective of Catherine, who he sees as kind of a combination between a sister and an aunt. So, Ariel sends John a letter threatening to duel him if he does anything to insult or harm Catherine. His letter is hilarious—it is shown on page with all of the misspellings that a ten-year-old would make—and it not quite as scary as Ariel intends. But it does show John how beloved Catherine is to Lady Wethersby and Ariel. And then, when John shows his letter back to Ariel to Catherine and she sees how kindly he responds to his concerns, it totally melts her heart. 

#2) When John cleans Catherine’s fingers
Catherine is a scholar and so she is always taking notes, drafting, and editing. Because this book takes place in the Regency period, that means that she frequently has ink on her fingers…and it totally drives John wild. Seriously, he has a total fetish for her ink-stained fingers! When he is trying to resist his attraction to her and they are stuck in a small carriage together, they have a quick luncheon of bread and cheese…and John can’t stand the sight of Catherine’s ink-stained fingers any longer. He also can’t believe that she would eat with such dirty hands. He brusquely commands her to give him her hands and he cleans each of her fingers with the whiskey from a flask in his pocket. It is the first time that they have touched since their kiss in the gardens seven years before!  

#3) Catherine and John in the apple orchard
When Catherine and John travel back to his estate, they are both forced to encounter the ghosts of their pasts. Catherine grew up on the estate that borders John’s, but it has long since been sold. After they have fallen for each other, Catherine and John walk in the apple orchard that marks the boundary between his estate and her old one. As they share an early-season apple, they trade stories about their childhoods and recall glimpsing each other at rare intervals when they were kids. Catherine tells John that she once saw him and his father walking together and remembers a snippet of conversation that she overheard. Her memory is super meaningful for John because his father has recently died and he remembers their walks in the orchards together, but he can’t recall what he and his father actually said to each other. Catherine gives him back a piece of his childhood in this scene and it really shows how they complete each other on so many levels. 

#4) The Extra £500
When John and Catherine are traveling for hours in the carriage, they, of course, end up talking quite a bit. As John fails at containing his feelings for Catherine, he begins to ask her quite a few probing questions about her past, including whether she has ever had ~carnal relations~ with anyone. Of course, she refuses to dignify this question with a response…that is, until he offers to pay her £500 for the answer. With so much money on the table, she does answer (and you’ll have to read the book to hear her response!!). Much later in the book, when so much has happened since this moment and Catherine thinks that she and John can’t be together, he sends her the payment he promised her at the beginning of the book. She notices, however, that he has paid her an extra £500 and, at first, she is confused. Then, she remembers their conversation in the carriage and has to laugh—he has remembered his absurd promise to pay her a truly ungodly sum to answer his invasive question. It gives her a little bit of hope that they’ll find their way back to one another. 

#5) John’s Grand Gesture
Okay, I am going to leave this moment a little bit of a mystery because I don’t want to spoil it. But I can say that this grand—and it’s quite grand!!—gesture happens in the epilogue. Let’s just say real estate purchases might be one of John’s love languages. 

Well, that concludes my list. Thank you so much for reading. If you want to learn more about WHEN THE DUKE LOVED ME, the whole Rake Chronicles series, or just want to talk historical romance, I encourage you to come over to my Instagram. I hope you enjoy this book—and come back for the second in the series, WHEN THE VISCOUNT WANTED ME, in January! 

xoxo,
Lydia 

About the Author

Lydia Lloyd writes high-heat historical romance set during the Regency period. She enjoys creating love stories between roguish heroes and complex heroines that are driven by authentic conflict and steamy encounters. Lydia holds a PhD in nineteenth-century British literature and, when she isn’t writing historical romance, works as a teacher and scholar.