A Duchess A Day (Awakened By A Kiss #1) - Charis Michaels Page 0,111

Kiss trilogy takes inspiration from often-overlooked sideline characters of fairy tales. In the canon of Snow White, this meant taking what very little we know about the Huntsman and finding a foothold for him in Regency England. So what do we know? An evil queen charges the Huntsman with escorting Snow White from the palace, killing her, and returning with her heart in a box. The Huntsman, being noble and just, cannot carry out this task and urges Snow White to run away instead. I jettisoned the notion of evil queens, hearts, and boxes and began poking around early nineteenth-century British history for some reason a young woman might be exiled from Windsor Castle or Kew Palace in the company of someone called the Huntsman.

The answer came in the many inappropriate affairs of King George III’s third son, William, the Duke of Clarence and St. Andrews. William was the heir apparent, after it became clear that the king’s two older sons, George IV and Frederick, would not have children. To ensure the next in line to the throne, the royal family set their sights on the marriageability (and fertility) of the king’s third son, William.

William, however, was partial to relationships with women unsuitable to be the future queen (or so believed the royal family). He fathered more than ten illegitimate children, nine of them with an actress named Dorothea Bland. His brothers, the royal dukes, toiled for years to discourage what they considered to be inappropriate relationships and engender favorable matches for their brother, who would eventually be king.

This family meddling was the inspiration for Miss Knightly Snow’s sojourn to France, escorted by our hero, Declan Shaw. In real life, King George III’s sons (surely) took no such drastic measures, but it was useful to use their anti-matchmaking as inspiration for a mercenary who becomes unwittingly embroiled in palace intrigue.

Acknowledgments

It was a delight to tease a Regency Historical out of the fairy-tale tradition of Snow White, and I was lucky that so many people wanted in on the game. Many thanks to my daughter, who thought of casting the potential duchesses with qualities of the seven dwarves. A consortium of teenagers in my house helped me invent the parlor game of “Mirror-Mirror.” My critique partner, Cheri Allan, encouraged me to play up the apples and orchard and foresaw “true love’s kiss” as a Lusk-Knightly transaction. Lenora Bell suggested Declan pose as a servant rather than simply a bodyguard. There are too many, “Oh-and-then-you-coulds” to count. Every suggestion made the book so much better. Thank you to everyone who is willing to indulge me in a brainstorm.

Collaboration is one of my favorite parts of writing, and much of this magic comes from my talented editor, Elle Keck. Her barometer for winning romance and eye for the big picture takes me out of the weeds and onto the croquet lawn.

The listening ear and encouragement of writing friends Lenora, Cheri, Christy Carlyle, and Marie Tremayne is nourishing and fortifying and invaluable.

My family’s support and enthusiasm is a gift that I reopen every day. Thank you to my husband, my children, my parents, sister, and in-laws. I love writing romance and you love me and I’m grateful we make it all work.

Announcement

The next enchanting romance from USA Today bestselling author Charis Michaels in her Awakened by a Kiss series,

WHEN YOU WISH UPON A DUKE

Arrives Summer 2021

About the Author

CHARIS MICHAELS believes a romance novel is a long, entertaining answer to the question, “So, how did you two meet?” and she loves making up new ways for fictional characters to almost not meet but live happily ever after instead. She was raised on a peach farm in Texas and gave tours at Disney World in college but now can be found raising her family and writing love stories from her screened-in porch in the mid-Atlantic.

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By Charis Michaels

Awakened by a Kiss

A Duchess A Day

The Brides of Belgravia

Any Groom Will Do

All Dressed in White

You May Kiss the Duke

The Bachelor Lords of London

The Earl Next Door

The Virgin and the Viscount

One for the Rogue

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

a duchess a day. Copyright © 2020 by Charis Michaels. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins Publishers. For information, address HarperCollins Publishers, 195 Broadway, New York, NY 10007.

Digital Edition DECEMBER 2020 ISBN: 978-0-06-298496-8

Print Edition ISBN: 978-0-06-298495-1

Cover design by Nadine Badalaty

Cover illustration by Chris Cocozza

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HarperCollins is a registered trademark of HarperCollins Publishers in the United States of America and other countries.

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