Cheryl Bolen

C h ERYL B o LE n

Since her first book (A Duke Deceived) was published to acclaim in 1998, Cheryl Bolen has written more than three dozen Regency-set historical romances. Several of her books have won Best Historical awards, and she’s a New York Times and USA Today bestseller as well as an Amazon All Star whose books have been translated into nine languages. She’s also been penning articles about Regency England and giving workshops on the era for more than twenty years.

In previous lives, she was a journalist and an English teacher. She’s married to a recently retired college professor, and they’re the parents of two grown sons, both of whom she says are brilliant and handsome! All four Bolens (and their new daughterin-law) love to travel to England, and Cheryl loves college football and basketball and adores reading letters and diaries penned by long-dead Englishwomen.

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Uncaged welcomes Cheryl Bolen

Welcome to Uncaged! Your newest book, Lady Mary’s Dangerous Encounter will release August 10, and is the first book in a series. Can you tell readers more about the book and what will tie this series together?

I am so excited about my new The Beresford Adventure series. In recent years my books have taken a turn to not only be romantic Regencies but also to be lighthearted mysteries. The Beresford family was introduced in an earlier, six-book series of mine, Brazen Brides, the first book published by Kensington in 2005, and the most recent released in 2020. The heroine of my lighthearted 2016 book, Oh, What a (Wedding) Night, is Sophia Beresford, and also in that book we met her brother, Lord Devere (hero of the second Beresford Adventures). Oh, and a lot of Americans have trouble pronouncing Beresford. It’s bare-is-ferd!

Now, the other Beresfords get their stories told in The Beresford Adventures. Impetuous Lady Mary Beresford is the heroine of the new series’ first book, Lady Mary’s Dangerous Encounter. I had so much fun writing this. It’s a Regency-era take on an Ethel Lina White book immortalized in the Hitchcock Film, The Lady VanDefying her guardian brother, Lord Devere, Mary rushes off across the Continent—alone—to meet her sister, Sophia, in Vienna. Worried, but unable to follow his sister because of a broken leg, Devere asks his friend, a diplomat who’s a duke’s son, Stephen Stanhope, who’s traveling to the Congress of Vienna, to watch out for his sister.

In the White/Hitchcock tale, the heroine is on a train. Because there were no trains in the Regency, I had my heroine get snowed in at an Alpine chalet, and this is where Stephen catches up with her.

An elderly lady who Mary had befriended during the journey has gone missing, and all her fellow travelers are in a conspiracy to deny the old woman’s existence. Mary refuses to continue traveling until the elderly woman is located. With everyone against her, Mary delights in Stephen’s arrival, as he become her champion.

Stephen thinks she’s spoiled and daft. Until there’s an attempt upon her life. To keep her safe, he proposes she stay in his room at the inn …

What are you working on next that you can tell us about?

The Beresford Adventures trilogy has consumed me this year and the latter part of 2020, so I’m a bit brain dead as to what I’m going to write next. As the author of eight series, I get a lot of fan mail asking for more stories in my most popular series. Lately, I’ve been getting a lot of requests for more Cheryl Bolen Regencies: A Mystery and Match. But I haven’t made up my mind.

Truthfully, after spending one year not leaving the house and writing thousands of pages, I may give myself a much-needed break for a bit. I’ve been publishing for 23 years.

Without hesitation I say writing sex scenes is the most difficult part of writing for me. First, I have a problem allowing an unmarried Regency heroine to sleep with a man to whom she’s not married. I want my heroine to be respected by the reader and true to what was reality among the upper classes in the Regency. Those girls did not sleep around.

Writing sex scenes wasn’t that much of a problem earlier in my career when most of my books were marriageof-convenience stories. It’s fine for married people to make love to each other!

I’ve polled my readers, and about half of them like spicy stuff in their books, and about half of them like books they can share with their daughters and granddaughters. It’s hard to please both. And it’s hard to strike a balance between writing a tender scene that sizzles without being too graphic.

What behind-the-scenes tidbit in your life would probably surprise your readers the most?

Because I’m so huge a researcher and have three college degrees, people have a difficult time picturing me at a gambling casino. But that’s my guilty secret. I love to gamble. I love poker. A lot of women in the Regency were rabid gamblers.

Which comes first, the plot or the characters in the planning stages?

Often my books are dictated by readers who want me to make a secondary character from a previous book into a hero or heroine of my next book; so, much of the time my books are dictated by character. However, in a case like Lady Mary’s Dangerous Encounter, I wanted to write my own story based on that plot idea of the vanishing lady. The last book in the Beresford Adventures, With a Little Help from My Lord, was inspired by one of my all-time favorite movies, Foul Play, in which Goldie Hawn is jeopardized in a cute plot with lots of humor. My favorite thing to do when not working on a book is traveling. We’ve been going to England for 30 years, and several times have taken a flat in London to use as a base, while traveling from one corner to the other of the country on our BritRail passes. We’ve taken our now-grown sons to England five times. They especially love London. And especially the pubs!

If you could have one all-year season, which would it be and why?

It’s tough to pick one season because I love wearing winter clothes and I love snuggling by the fire, but I also want sunny skies. Gray skies sink my mood. If I were wishing, I’d wish to live in Southern California, where the weather is mostly always lovely. In most places there, it doesn’t usually get too hot in the summer nor too cold in the winter.

How many hours a day do you write? On average, how long does it take to write a full novel?

I am usually at my desk all day, up to seven days a week. However, that’s not all writing time. Authors have a lot of duties that go along with the actual writing of books. I typically write at least two hours a day. It used to take me five months to write a book, but my books are shorter than the long books that were published back in the nineties, when I started publishing. Now some of my books can be written in about three months. It takes me a month to write a novella. I’m not a particularly fast writer.

Do you prefer ebooks, audiobooks or physical books? Are you reading anything now?

I love, love reading on an ereader. For my research books, though, I prefer print. Basically, it’s ebook for fiction, print for non-fiction. I’m currently reading a British cozy mystery in ebook and a nutrition book in print!

Readers can learn about me and my backlist on my website, www.CherylBolen.com, and they can join my reader group, Lady Cheryl’s Ladies of the Ton, at https:// www.facebook.com/groups/2586590498319473/. I’m not super active on social media, but I invite readers to visit my Cheryl Bolen Books Facebook page at http:// fbl.ink/Facebook.

Enjoy an excerpt from Lady Mary’s Dangerous Encounter

ing author Cheryl Bolen!

Lady Mary’s Dangerous Encounter Cheryl Bolen Victorian Historical Releases August 10

Lady Mary’s traveling companion has disappeared and only one man believes she ever existed.

Welcome to book 1 in the adventurous new series from USA Today Bestsell-

Lord Stephen Stanhope, a duke’s diplomat son who’s traveling to the Congress of Vienna, agrees to protect his friend’s wayward sister on Stephen’s journey to Austria. Lady Mary Beresford has impetuously set off on her own for Vienna. Vexed with the headstrong woman he’s yet to meet, Stephen despairs of ever catching up with the maddening lady. They eventually meet at an inn in the Alps, where the guests’ progress has been impeded by two matters: a blizzard— and Lady Mary’s refusal to leave until she’s found an elderly fellow traveler who has disappeared.

Mary’s infuriated that everyone at the inn is in a conspiracy to deny the woman ever existed and to

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imply Mary invented her. Just when every person at the inn is against her, the handsome Lord Stephen arrives and becomes her champion.

Stephen doesn’t tell her he’s been sent by her brother, nor does he actually believe her preposterous story. Until there’s an attempt on her life.

Excerpt

He came and put a reassuring arm around her and spoke softly. “Now, tell me what’s happened.”

“Someone . . .” She burst into a fresh round of tears that wracked her whole body.

He drew her closer, patting her shoulders. Then it occurred to him that someone must have come into her bedchamber as she slept. “Dear God, did someone enter your chamber?” He held her at arm’s length and peered at her.

Her eyes were red, and her face was slick with the tears that flowed as if from a spigot. She nodded. “He tried to kill me.”

He closed his eyes from revulsion. “I failed you. We knew they had a key to your room. I should have done something.”

“It’s not your fault.”

But he could have prevented this. She could be dead right now. He was furious with himself. He should at least have given her his locks. He was far better equipped to fend off a would-be killer than this slightly built female. But who would ever have thought someone would try to kill her? “Tell me everything that happened.” She collapsed against him and clung like heated wax until her crying eventually tapered off. “I awakened to find someone pushing a pillow into my face.” It sickened him to think that this could have happened—and right next to his chamber. She would

not have been able to see anything, nor could she even scream to summon him. Thank God she had survived. “How were you able to fight off such an attack?” “I owe my survival to Devere.” His brows lowered. “How is that possible?” “He instructed his sisters of a particular thrust he said would disable any attacker, and he proved to be right.

Smirking, Stephen nodded knowingly. His admiration for Devere increased even more. A pity he had given her brother his word that he’d not reveal their acquaintance. “I understand. Bravo to you— and to Devere. Would that you could have done to him what he wanted to do to you.”

“You mean kill him?”

Stephen was not normally so bloodthirsty, but he would have had no qualms about killing a fiend who tried to murder a sleeping woman. “He deserves it.”

“He most certainly does, the beastly, no-good, murdering spawn of Lucifer.”

Stephen sighed. It was good to have Mary back. Thanks to Devere. Would she ever know how much she owed her brother? Had it not been for Devere, she would have been completely alone in this evil place. “So when you disabled him, did you not see him well enough to identify him?” She shook her head forlornly. “It was a male, and he wore a dark hood. I tried to follow him, but it was as if he had vanished. I saw nothing, heard nothing.”

“You went right after him?” asked Stephen, his brows lowered.

“Not exactly. I started to, but then I went back and got my knife. By the time I reached the corridor, there was no evidence of him. He’d completely vanished, like Miss Willets.” “You had to have heard footsteps.”

“I would have, had I not made the mistake of going back for my knife.” “No. You did the right thing. It was not worth risking your life to identify him. Had you confronted him in the corridor, he could very well have tried to finish the job he started, only with a knife.”

She winced. “I can see why he preferred smothering me—to make it look like a natural death.”

He eased away from her. Holding her felt entirely too good. He had to keep reminding himself this was Devere’s little sister. “Especially since it’s been established you were sick when you arrived here. They all would have brushed off your demise by saying you suffered from poor health.”

She gave a mock groan. “And they would just have dumped my cold, dead body into the snow,” she said with a martyred expression.

“This is no teasing matter. Were it not for your brother, you most likely would be dead right now.”

“Too true. I couldn’t even call out with that instrument of murder smashing into my face.”

“It sickens me to think I wouldn’t have been able to help you.” The fire in his hearth was on the verge of going out, so he moved away from her and stooped to throw a pair of logs and some kindling onto it. After he succeeded in building up the fire, he beckoned for her to come sit close to it on the settle. “You must be cold in just your night shift. Shall I go to your room to fetch a shawl or something?”

She whipped around to face him, terror in her eyes. “No, please, don’t leave me!”