Today I am so pleased to welcome Lisa Henry and J.A. Rock to Joyfully Jay. The authors have come to talk to us about their Lords of Bucknall Club series audio release and to share an excerpt from book 1, A Husband for Hartwell. Please join me in giving them a big welcome!
Exclusive Excerpt
Hartwell was halfway through his first stack of gambling chips and his second port when he discovered Warry was no longer sitting beside him. The fellow was often as quiet as a churchyard mouse, though he had a few teeth when he was prodded well enough, so Hartwell didn’t feel too guilty. He was concerned, though, as no doubt Warry could get himself up to all sorts of trouble on his first visit to a hell. He regretfully rose from the table and scanned the crowd, hoping to catch a glimpse of Warry’s wheat-gold hair and unnaturally white face. They would have looked a pair of fools in polite society, but nobody in the Four-in-Hand paid them any mind at all. Where else but the Four-in-Hand could a minister rub elbows with a molly and neither of them be offended by the contact?
He wandered through the crowd, moving from table to table in an attempt to locate Warry, and thought of how he’d applied the white paint to Warry’s face, and how his fingertips had tingled with sensation as he’d drawn them gently across Warry’s bruises. He thought also of how Warry’s eyes had been wide, their blue-grey depths full of some indefinable emotion that made Hartwell’s stomach lurch, and how his mouth, hanging slightly open at Hartwell’s audacity, had appeared so lush and plump. In truth, he looked much like Becca, but Hartwell had never felt his blood heat from being so close to her, and neither had he felt a tingling throughout him as though his body was filled with champagne bubbles. The sudden stand in his trousers, well, Hartwell was no stranger to those, but usually they weren’t accompanied by such an array of other odd sensations like the buzzing in his skull or the tightness in his chest.
Warry was damned confounding.
And a damned magician, apparently.
Where could he have disappeared to?
He made his way toward the back of the hell, toward a small, dark alcove known as the Grand Ballroom, which was anything but. The only dancing done there was whatever fancy footwork the dealer engaged in to avoid being caught with cards up his sleeve. God help him if Warry had found his way in there.
A figure appeared suddenly in his path—a man in a green velvet coat that had seen better days, wisps of greying hair clinging to the edges of a shiny bald pate. “Ah, Hartwell! I thought that was you. My old eyes aren’t what they were.”
“Lord Grayson.” Hartwell gave a polite nod. “It has been some time.”
Grayson had served as a hunting companion to Hartwell’s father for many years, until his “old eyes” rendered him more a danger to fellow hunters than he was to game. The fellow held up his near-empty glass. “Will you join me for another?”
“I’m actually trying to find—”
“Ah, Hartwell, it is good to see you.” Grayson took his elbow, leading him toward a particularly rowdy table. “Come, come. I want to hear how you’ve been. No hard feelings between you and your father, I hope. I told him he was being too harsh. I myself didn’t marry until my eyes started to go. I still don’t know whether my wife is a whey-faced blowse or a diamond of the first water, but she keeps me from running into walls, so I suppose it matters not.”
“What’s this?” Hartwell shook free of the old man’s grasp. “What is it you told my father that he was being too harsh about?”
Grayson laughed good-naturedly. “Why, about cutting the purse strings if you don’t hurry it along and get married. ‘What’s the rush?’ I asked him. ‘Let the boy enjoy his stag days.’ Lady Rebecca Warrington is young and healthy. Whenever you two do get around to it, she’ll produce fine heirs.”
It was as though a veil had been draped over Hartwell’s surroundings. Faces blurred, and voices echoed. His throat was dry, and he had the sense of being outside his body. “My father is going to force me to marry?”
He was able to focus on Grayson enough to catch the startlement in the man’s rheumy eyes. “Not force! He certainly can’t force you.”
“Cut the purse strings, you said?”
“He hasn’t told you?”
“No. No, he has neglected to mention it.”
Grayson dropped his gaze to his shoes. “Well, far be it from me to stick my old nose where it doesn’t—”
“You’ve already stuck it. Now tell me precisely what my father said.”
Hartwell was reeling. He and his father had always got along fine. His mother said she found the pair of them pig-headed and hard to reason with, but both of his parents had always seemed proud to have a tall, strapping, sought-after son. He knew they wished him to marry, and he knew they had been a bit cross when he’d spent his first Season, and each one since, snickering in corners with Becca, dancing with other young ladies only when courtesy demanded it. But he’d never felt himself to be the sort of disappointment a father might cast away in despair.
Grayson tried to clap his back but got mostly air. “Hartwell, I’d best not—I’m sure your father will bring it up when he’s ready. I must return to my…ah…they’ll be waiting for me to deal…in.” He stumbled off toward the raucous table.
Hartwell stood very still, breathing hard.
His father was plotting to force his hand. And without a word to him! The man would lament to Grayson before he’d sit down with his own son and have a conversation.
He ran a hand through his hair. He needed to find Warry. Now. Damn it, where was the pup? He stumbled into a woman in a high-collared gown. For a moment, her eyes looked like Becca’s. He apologised and hurried on, letting out a roar of frustration that was lost in the din of the hell. When he found Warry, he’d skin him alive.
Blurb
He must marry, or risk his fortune.
The whole of London Society has long assumed Lord William Hartwell will marry his childhood best friend, Lady Rebecca Warrington. After two Seasons, Hartwell remains quite content with bachelorhood–his parents do not. When Hartwell learns they intend to cut his purse strings unless he makes a match this Season, he resigns himself to a marriage of convenience with Becca, and yet he can’t help but be drawn to her younger brother, Warry.
He must marry, or risk his sister’s ruin.
The Viscount “Warry” Warrington is used to being viewed as the tagalong little brother. Now a grown man about to enter his second Season, Warry is desperate to be seen. When Lord Balfour, a handsome older peer, takes Warry under his wing, Warry thinks his dream is finally coming true. Until Balfour reveals his true intent—to make public a letter that will destroy Becca’s reputation, unless Warry agrees to marry him.
Time is running out for both of them.
When an injury forces Warry to recover at Hartwell House, the two succumb to a secret flirtation. But Warry’s sudden announcement of his engagement to Balfour drives Hartwell near mad with jealousy—and right into Becca’s arms. With the clock ticking for Warry to save his sister, will Hartwell discover the truth of Warry’s feelings before it’s too late?
A Husband for Hartwell is the first book in the Lords of Bucknall Club series, where the Regency meets m/m romance. The Lords of Bucknall Club books can be read as standalones but are best enjoyed in order.
**This is a revised and expanded edition of the book originally published in May 2021.**
Bios
Our shared Facebook reader group – https://www.facebook.com/groups/rockhenryhoney
About JA Rock:
J.A. Rock is the author of over twenty LGBTQ romance, suspense, and horror novels, as well as an occasional contributor to HuffPo Queer Voices. J.A.’s books have received Lambda Literary, INDIEFAB, and EPIC Award nominations, and The Subs Club received the 2016 National Leather Association-International Novel Award. 24/7 was named one of the best books of 2016 by Kirkus Reviews. J.A. lives in Chicago with an extremely judgmental dog, Professor Anne Studebaker.
About Lisa:
Lisa likes to tell stories, mostly with hot guys and happily ever afters. Lisa lives in tropical North Queensland, Australia. She doesn’t know why, because she hates the heat, but she suspects she’s too lazy to move. She spends half her time slaving away as a government minion, and the other half plotting her escape. She attended university at sixteen, not because she was a child prodigy or anything, but because of a mix-up between international school systems early in life. She studied History and English, neither of them very thoroughly. She shares her house with too many cats, a dog, a green tree frog that swims in the toilet, and as many possums as can break in every night. This is not how she imagined life as a grown-up. Lisa has been published since 2012, and was a LAMBDA finalist for her quirky, awkward coming-of-age romance Adulting 101, and a Rainbow Awards finalist for 2019’s Anhaga.
To connect with Lisa on social media, you can find her here:
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Giveaway
To celebrate the Series release on Audiobook, JA & Lisa are giving away a full series set of Audible Codes of The Lords Of Bucknall Club (US or UK codes only)! Enter the Rafflecopter giveaway for your chance to win!
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