Book Description
Release Date: November 1, 2012
Bronte Talbott follows
all of the exploits of the British royals. After all, they're the
world's most preeminent dysfunctional family. And who is she to judge?
Bronte's own search for love isn't going all that well, especially after
her smooth-talking Texan boyfriend abruptly leaves her in the dust.
Bronte
keeps a lookout for a rebound to help mend her broken heart, and when
she meets Max Heyworth, she's certain he's the perfect transition man.
But when she discovers he's a duke, she has to decide if she wants to
stay with him for the long haul and deal with the opportunities-- and
challenges-- of becoming a royal.
About the Author
Megan Mulry has spent most of her life researching, traveling, and experiencing
everything to do with the American/British cultural love affair. She studied
nineteenth-century British fiction at university, lived in London for nearly
four years, and has now written her first novel, A Royal Pain (November 2012),
in which Mulry brings an American perspective and a fresh, witty voice to our
never-ending fascination with British royalty.
A Royal Pain is the first
in a new women’s fiction series imagining what it might be like for an average
modern American woman who falls unwittingly in love with British royalty and is
drawn into a glamorous and complicated world that a rare few get to
experience.
Megan Mulry graduated from
Northwestern University and then worked in publishing, including positions at
the New Yorker and Boston Magazine. After moving to London, she worked in
finance and attended London Business School. She has traveled extensively in
Asia, India, Europe, and Africa and now lives with her husband and children in
Florida.
PLEASE WELCOME MEGAN TO BOOKHOUNDS!
Thank you for inviting me to your blog! Books, gardens, and
dogs, eh? I love all three, but I can only manage two…barely. Books and dogs.
And really just the one…books. Here's why.
After years of swearing I would never have a dog (too much
trouble! too much commitment! the walking! the picking-up-the-poop!), exactly
one year ago today I drove about twenty minutes north to the Peggy Adams Animal
Rescue League (http://www.hspb.org). With my two children in tow, I adopted
Daphne the Parsons Russell Terrier/Schnauzer mix. My five-year-old son dubbed
this fabulous newly formed breed a Trouser Mix. We got Daphne the day after my
father's funeral. It was probably rash or part of my grief or something
psychological that I will skate away from for now. But the thing about rash
decisions is they are sometimes the ones that break us out of long-held beliefs
about ourselves that may or may not be true.
I didn't think I could "handle" a dog. I cut
myself off from all this infectious joy and curiosity and companionship out of
fear. Now Daphne is nigh on my best friend. She follows me around like a
devoted fan. If I get up, she gets up. If I go to the kitchen for a drink, she
goes to the kitchen for a drink. If I am writing (like now) she finds a cozy spot
on the floor or the daybed in my office and settles in for a nap. If she needs
to go for a walk, it probably means I have been sitting at my desk for too
long, and I need a walk, too.
It's hard for me to remember what I did before Daphne.
So it is with the book writing. When I finally worked up the
courage to actually start writing fiction, it had the same rash quality.
"Oh, well. This is probably the stupidest life decision I'll ever make,
but here goes," I thought. And now I can't stop. This idea for what I
originally thought of as Contemporary Regencies just nagged at me until I had
to deal with it. I wanted all the social hierarchy and ball gowns and sexual
tension—and, let's face it, the actual sex—of the Regency romance genre, but I
want it now. (I confess I've always
felt an embarrassing affinity for Veruca Salt.) I wanted my characters to have
fast cars and private jets and sexual freedom and modern problems and all sorts
of things that weren't readily available to The Ton. So I wrote it.
That's how A Royal
Pain came to be. On the one hand, it was sort of a lark. On the other, it
had probably been bubbling there below the surface for years and years.
As for gardening, I am appalling. I forget to water. I cut
back too far. We recently sold the-house-with-the-yard and moved into a
townhome. Cue: choir of angels. The sound of the weekly gardening crew on
Friday afternoons is elysian. I love to look at gardens and stroll through
gardens; a visit to Sissinghurst was one of my favorite weekends of all time. Maybe
one day I will even be able to create and maintain my own garden. Until then,
I'll be grateful for my relative competence with the books and the dog. Two out
of three ain't bad.
Thanks again for having me!
Megan Mulry is the author of A Royal Pain, out November 1, 2012.
