Guest Kiki Howell: Playing With The Old Rules

Linda Banche here. Today I welcome Kiki Howell and her latest book, the erotic Regency paranormal, Torn Asunder. Here she talks about those strange-to-us Regency rules of propriety.

Welcome Kiki!

When writing from the point of view of the women and men of Regency England, I find it fun to play with the rules and restrictions and systems of etiquette set by the aristocracy to set themselves apart from the masses. For example, the gentler sex, as women were referred to, could not renounce the system, live free of the social conventions of the times, but it is entertaining to let your heroine think upon it and the possible outcomes of such actions.

Propriety demanded that emotions be controlled in public, even though swooning was readily accepted among the women. But my heroines, they fight the body's inclinations to faint and rant and rave about injustices behind closed doors. I like them to fit in, obey the rules, and yet be strong and smart at the same time. Are there a lot of scenes in my books that are ‘behind closed doors’ then? Of course! In my newest novel, Torn Asunder, my heroine also has magical powers she has to hide as well. Her way of covering for her study of magic was to call herself a bluestocking, a woman who was highly educated since in the early eighteen hundreds in England women were not generally educated as much as the men.

If you think the odds are against my main gal there, well, I kept going. Arranged marriages were common with certain restrictions on the fond idea of marrying up. I set my heroine in a lower class and had her fall in love with a man whose family had already established who he was to marry. She had a lot working against her as she tried to live within the bounds of the old rules of the upper ten thousand. And, I enjoyed immensely playing with each situation. To me, it is half the fun of setting your story during those times. It builds suspense, complicates the romance and leads to interesting situations in a time in history that seems magical to me even before I add paranormal elements to it.

What is the other half of the fun you may ask? Well, frolicking within the homes, planning the meals, making the social calls, dressing up in the garments and establishing the businesses of the time. Of course, that is not even to mention visiting the pleasure haunts of Regency England like Vauxhall Gardens and such.

So, I hope you will enjoy my newest novel as much as I did writing it. Fraught with scenes of explicit intimacy, romantic spells and mystical shapeshifting, Torn Asunder is a unique blending of the age of manners with sexual magic.

Torn Asunder BLURB:
Aubrey Griffen is a witch whose true reasons for coming to London soon fall to the wayside when she catches the eye of Edmund Bryant, the Marquess of Dalysbury. He seduces her into a whirlwind romance until the lies and threats of his mother force her to flee to Triaill Brimuir, a secret island of her ancestors off the coast of Ireland. Edmund goes after her only to be hit by Aubrey’s confusion and anger when she magically transforms him into an elemental beast of her own creation.

However, it is when Edmund’s lust mysteriously turns him back into a man that the couple are forced to deal with a family secret and untold of powers. Now, Edmund must learn to shift himself into the beast in order to save her in a battle of black verses white magic.

Genres: Historical (Regency), Paranormal (Witches & Shifters), Erotic Romance

Purchase at in ebook or trade paperback at Excessica Publishing or Amazon as well as many other retailers.