Storming the Castle Sebagai putra haram sang Grand Duke, Jonas Berwick, alias Wick, dibesarkan dan dididik bersama saudara tirinya sang pangeran. Tapi ia tidak bisa berada dalam lingkaran yang sama karena status kelahirannya. Wick sudah berdamai dengan takdirnya dan menerima keadaannya sampai Miss Philippa Damson datang melamar untuk menjadi pengasuh putra sang pangeran. Wanita itu tidak berlaku seperti seorang pelayan, melainkan lebih seperti seorang lady. Wick berharap Philippa benar-benar seorang pelayan karena ia sadar jika wanita itu seorang lady maka cintanya tidak akan pernah berbalas. Keduanya pun harus menghadapi kenyataan hidup dan memutuskan seberapa banyak mereka akan membiarkan masyarakat menentukan kebahagiaan mereka. Winning the Wallflower Lucy Towerton tidak memiliki banyak harapan untuk menikah karena cinta. Karena tinggi badannya yang di atas kebanyakan pria, ia jarang sekali diminta berdansa pada pesta-pesta yang didatanginya. Dan ketika Cyrus Ravensthorpe meminangnya, ia tahu kalau pria itu hanya mengincar gelarnya. Ibu Cyrus yang seorang bangsawan terlibat skandal karena menikah dengan seorang pengacara, dan Cyrus bertekad untuk mendapatkan status keluarganya kembali. Semuanya berubah ketika Lucy menerima warisan dari bibinya. Ibunya ingin ia memutuskan pertunangannya dengan Cyrus dan menemukan seseorang yang lebih pantas. Lucy yang diam-diam tertarik kepada Cyrus dan ingin memberi pria berhati dingin itu kesempatan sekali lagi sebelum memutuskan pertunangan mereka dan menemukan cinta yang diimpikannya.
Author
New York Times bestselling author Eloisa James writes historical romances for HarperCollins Publishers. Her novels have been published to great acclaim. A reviewer from USA Today wrote of Eloisa's very first book that she "found herself devouring the book like a dieter with a Hershey bar"; later People Magazine raved that "romance writing does not get much better than this." Her novels have repeatedly received starred reviews from Publishers' Weekly and Library Journal and regularly appear on the best-seller lists. After graduating from Harvard University, Eloisa got an M.Phil. from Oxford University, a Ph.D. from Yale and eventually became a Shakespeare professor, publishing an academic book with Oxford University Press. Currently she is an associate professor and head of the Creative Writing program at Fordham University in New York City. Her "double life" is a source of fascination to the media and her readers. In her professorial guise, she's written a New York Times op-ed defending romance, as well as articles published everywhere from women's magazines such as More to writers' journals such as the Romance Writers' Report. Eloisa...on her double life: When I'm not writing novels, I'm a Shakespeare professor. It's rather like having two lives. The other day I bought a delicious pink suit to tape a television segment on romance; I'll never wear that suit to teach in, nor even to give a paper at the Shakespeare Association of America conference. It's like being Superman, with power suits for both lives. Yet the literature professor in me certainly plays into my romances. The Taming of the Duke (April 2006) has obvious Shakespearean resonances, as do many of my novels. I often weave early modern poetry into my work; the same novel might contain bits of Catullus, Shakespeare and anonymous bawdy ballads from the 16th century. When I rip off my power suit, whether it's academic or romantic, underneath is the rather tired, chocolate-stained sweatshirt of a mom. Just as I use Shakespeare in my romances, I almost always employ my experiences as a mother. When I wrote about a miscarriage in Midnight Pleasures, I used my own fears of premature birth; when the little girl in Fool For Love threw up and threw up, I described my own daughter, who had that unsavory habit for well over her first year of life. So I'm a writer, a professor, a mother - and a wife. My husband Alessandro is Italian, born in Florence. We spend the lazy summer months with his mother and sister in Italy. It always strikes me as a huge irony that as a romance writer I find myself married to a knight, a cavaliere, as you say in Italian. One more thing...I'm a friend. I have girlfriends who are writers and girlfriends who are Shakespeare professors. And I have girlfriends who are romance readers. In fact, we have something of a community going on my website. Please stop by and join the conversation on my readers' pages.
