Guest Grace Burrowes: The Windham Family

Linda Banche here. Today I welcome back New York Times best-selling author Grace Burrowes, author of the Regency historicals The Heir and The Soldier, with more to come. Her series tells the story of the Windham family, and, I admit, I'm somewhat confused about the relationships between the family members. In this post, Grace has kindly explained a little about all the delicious characters she has created.

Leave a comment with your email address for a chance to win a signed copy of either The Heir or The Soldier (I'm drooling, but I'm not eligible), or one of two signed ARCs of The Virtuoso, which Grace has generously provided. That's THREE chances to win! So comment away! Check back here to see who won.

Grace will also sign your e-copies using Kindlegraph, for those who already have The Heir and/or The Soldier in eformat. Any eformat will work.

The winners Grace selected are: Karen H and Toni for The Virtuoso, Phyllis C for The Heir, and Bonnie for The Soldier. Thanks to all for coming over.

Welcome back, Grace!

Grace Burrowes:

Which Windham?

I’m happily at work on the seventh book in an eight-book sibling series featuring the offspring of Percival Windham, the Duke of Moreland, but I must confess I never foresaw starting my career as a published author with such an ambitious project. Like many aspiring writers, I entered a lot of contests in an effort to get professional feedback on my manuscripts, and when it came time to pitch, of the twenty or so completed manuscripts I had, I chose the contest winners to send in to an editor.

There’s a problem with this approach: My contest champ was “The Heir,” which in addition to being about a third son, was also my fifth completed MS in a related series. Hmm. My editor at Sourcebooks figured out that I’d completed books about two of the hero’s brothers, and a trilogy was born. When the first book did fairly well, we decided to write stories for the five Windham sisters, and the rest, one hopes, will be bestseller history.

This has taxed the patience of many of my readers, and what follows is an attempt to fill in some blanks regarding the Windham family.

The oldest child is Maggie, a by-blow of the duke’s conceived prior to his marriage. The duke and duchess have adopted her, but she maintains her own establishment, being well past marriageable age… or so she thinks. Her story is slated for publication in May 2012 as “Lady Maggie’s Secret Scandal.”

Next comes Devlin St. Just, another by-blow who joined the ducal household at the age of five. His story is “The Soldier” which came out in June 2011.

The oldest legitimate son is Bartholomew, or Lord Bart. Friction between His Grace and Bart go so bad that when Bart asked to join Wellington’s cavalry, his parents permitted it. Alas, Lord Bart came to grief in Portugal when he mistook a decent woman for a soiled dove and her menfolk took lethal exception.

Next in line we have Gayle, the Earl of Westhaven (Bart had used the courtesy title Marquis of Pembroke). As a spare Gayle envisioned himself going into the legal profession, but we saw a happier fate befall him in “The Heir,” which was published in December 2010.

And this is where it gets a trifle tricky, because we have another Windham brother resting in peace as a result of consumption, Lord Victor, though Victor left a daughter behind. The story of little Rose and her mother’s involvement with first Victor and then Douglas, Viscount Amery, goes by the working title of “The Proper Peer.” His Grace’s matrimonial fixations create significant havoc for Guinevere and Douglas on the road to their happily ever after. I hope this book becomes available at least for e-readers in early 2012.

The youngest brother, Valentine, is familiar to readers as an accomplished musician and his story, “The Virtuoso,” comes out in November.

Which leaves us with the four remaining sisters, in order of planned publication: “Lady Sophie’s Christmas Wish” comes out in October 2011, to be followed by stories for Lady Eve, Lady Louisa, and Lady Genevieve, the last two also being planned as Christmas books.

When my website is up sometime in the next few weeks, I intend to have a family tree available to keep the Windham batting order organized for my readers. It won’t stop there, though. The Windhams have friends, neighbors, cousins and other associations, all of whom are clamoring for books. In fact, I heard a rumor the other day even Lord Bart might have left a small legacy…

Thanks so much for coming over, Grace.

Readers, don't forget to leave a comment!