It Happened One Night

Description

It Happened One Night . . . and nothing was ever the same again! Once upon a time, four superstar storytellers-New York Times bestselling authors Stephanie Laurens and Mary Balogh, along with Jacquie D'Alessandro and Candice Hern-came up with a delicious idea. What if they each wrote a story about a proper young lady stranded at a remote inn away from society's constraints What would happen And how long would it take for her to give in to desire In these four amazing tales, four heroines will come face-to-face with the men who got away . . . only to discover that, instead of anger, there is still a passionate connection that cannot be denied. And while each of their lives is quite different, and their pasts utterly unique, they will all make a common discovery-that one night can change everything . . . forever.

No.1 New York Times bestselling author Stephanie Laurens originally began writing as an escape from the dry world of professional science. Her hobby quickly became a career; she has been writing historical romance novels for more than 20 years. Currently living outside Melbourne, Australia with her husband and two cats, she spends most of her days writing new stories in her signature "Errol Flynn meets Jane Austen" style. Candice Hern is the award-winning author of historical romances set during the English Regency, a period she knows well through years of collecting antiques and fashion prints of the era. She travels to England regularly, always in search of more historical and local color to help bring her books to life. Growing up on Long Island, New York, Jacquie D'Alessandro fell in love with romance at an early age. She dreamed of being swept away by a dashing rogue riding a spirited stallion. When her hero finally showed up, he was dressed in jeans and drove a Volkswagen, but she recognized him anyway. They married after both graduating from Hofstra University and are now living their happily-ever-afters in Atlanta, Georgia. They have one grown son, who is a dashing rogue in the making. The author of more than thirty historical and contemporary romances, Jacquie loves to hear from readers and can be contacted through her website. Mary Balogh grew up in post-war Wales as Mary Jenkins. It was in many ways an idyllic childhood even though Swansea, her home town, had been heavily bombed during the war. She had a very good education thanks to parents who emphasised the importance of school and career at a time when many people were still saying that education was wasted on girls. Mary was fortunate to be young at a time when there was employment in almost any field. She wanted to teach and travel, and moved to Kipling, Saskatchewan, Canada, on a two-year teaching contract. At the end of the first year she had a blind date with a man named Robert Balogh, a tall, sharply dressed, blue-eyed Adonis she found standing in her landlady's kitchen. They were married a little over a year later. Wanting to be an author was a dream and Mary knew that if she ever wrote, it was that romantic world of Regency England that she most wanted to recreate. And so A Masked Deception was written in longhand at the kitchen table while home and family functioned around her after the supper dishes were done. Finally, at the end of 1983, three months after she had started it, the manuscript was ready to be submitted. But where? And how? Mary knew nothing about the publishing world and nothing about any writers' organisations. She picked out the publisher she thought did the best job of Regencies, found a Canadian address inside the cover of one of the books, and sent her manuscript there with a brief covering letter. The address turned out to be a distribution centre! But incredibly someone there read the manuscript, liked, it, wrote to Mary and sent it on to New York. Two weeks later she received a call, offering a two-book contract. And so the dream became reality. A Masked Deception was published in 1985 and Mary won the Romantic Times Award for best new Regency writer that year. Finally, in 1988, she was able to retire from teaching after twenty years in order to devote time to her dream career. And as the children grew up and left home and empty bedrooms behind them, Mary was able to set up a study and surround herself with all of her books and finest treasures. Please visit Mary at her website above.