Blog Tour: Lost in a Royal Kiss by Vanessa Kelly (Exclusive Excerpt + Giveaway)

Love Saves the World welcomes Vanessa Kelly and her novella, Lost in a Royal Kiss, which introduces her The Renegade Royals series.

For this blog tour, Vanessa Kelly is giving away one ARC of Secrets For Seducing a Royal Bodyguard, Book one of The Renegade Royals series, per the total number of stops. (US/Ca only) To visit Vanessa's other stops, click here.

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About the book:

Genre: Georgian-set historical romance
Tone: witty, sexy, emotional
Heat Level: hot
Elements/Tags: historical romance, royalty, Georgian era
Publisher: Kensington Zebra
Publishing Date: Nov. 26, 2013
Series: .5 The Renegade Royals
Format: digital
Words: 25,000 (novella length)




From the back cover:

All It Takes is One Kiss ...

In this thrilling introduction to her Renegade Royals series, Vanessa Kelly transports readers to the court of King George III -- where a London street urchin unwittingly plays Cupid, ushering in a new era -- and ultimately a new kind of royal ...

With her widowed mother working long hours as governess to the royal children, Linnet St. Clare must look after her siblings and run the household. Now she must add to her worries the fate of Dominic, a poor orphan who has inspired the wrath of the king himself. Clearly Linnet has no time to consider her own desires -- much less notice the attentions of a certain handsome, powerful magistrate ...

Sir Anthony Tait is at a loss for how to capture Linnet’s interest. If only she would be still long enough for courting. Outright seduction seems the only answer. But will his kisses be enough to persuade her -- or might Anthony have something to learn from young Dominic about matters of the heart? And in saving the boy’s future, might Anthony and Linnet at last create their own? ...

Excerpt:

Linnet’s thudding heart raced blood through her veins, sending a flush of embarrassing heat to her face. She had been avoiding him, but she could never tell him why. It took all her discipline not to quail under Sir Anthony’s penetrating gaze.

Blast the man. She’d lost count of the times he’d made her feel like a blushing maiden. Strictly speaking, she was still a maiden, but she’d given up blushing years ago—along with simpering, flirting, and so many other talents deemed useful to unmarried women.

Except, of course, in Sir Anthony’s august presence.

Not that he was ever overbearing, or put on haughty airs. But at age thirty-seven, he carried himself with cool gravity and a sense of authority far greater than most men his age. Not everyone liked Sir Anthony, but everyone respected him. As his trusted liaison to the Home Office, the king invested a great deal of confidence in him, all of it well-placed as far as
Linnet could determine. Sir Anthony came by his air of command honestly, and Linnet supposed it wasn’t surprising that he possessed such a knack for intimidating her.

It didn’t help that he was so handsome, either, with broad shoulders and a long, lean body that topped most of the men at Court by several inches. He had a high brow and thick, unpowdered brown hair that swept back from a widow’s peak. But his best feature—or worst, depending on one’s point of view -- was his eyes. They were an intriguing, tawny shade, with green flecks that caught the light in the most startling way. They seemed to glow, attracting her with a fascination that bordered on the obsessive. Whenever Sir Anthony fastened his gaze on her, Linnet fancied he saw right into her heart, stripping her emotions down to their most vulnerable state.

It was a ridiculous fancy, sprung from the fact that she’d nursed a tendre for him these last two years. Most days, her weakness didn’t inconvenience her in the slightest, since she usually managed to avoid him. And even when she couldn’t, Sir Anthony tended to regard her with something like amusement.

That was a good thing, since he was the last man she should ever fall in love with.

For one thing, he didn’t need her -- not like Mamma and her brother and sister needed her. For another, he was too controlled and calculating for her taste. Linnet had little doubt he was the kind of man who would place his wife in a neat little box and expect her to be nothing more than a dutiful and meek spouse. Dutiful she could manage, but meek? Never.

Linnet had almost convinced herself that she wanted nothing to do with him. Besides, Sir Anthony would wish to marry a woman of means and influence, not an aging, penniless spinster. Nor had he displayed any interest in her physical attractions.

Well, except for that one time at the Queen’s Drawing Room last summer, when they’d ended up crammed into a corner together, pressed on all sides by the usual ridiculous crowds. But Linnet had finally decided he’d probably been in his cups when he’d called her by her given name, and stroked a gentle hand --

“Miss St. Clare, I asked you a question.”

For more information on the novella, visit Goodreads.

Buy Links for the novella:
Amazon: http://amzn.to/1iESxNf
Barnes & Noble: http://bit.ly/1iESzVp
iBooks: http://bit.ly/183ucMj

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Meet Vanessa Kelly:

Vanessa Kelly is an award-winning author who was named by Booklist, the review journal of the American Library Association, as one of the "New Stars of Historical Romance." Her sensual, Regency-set historical romances have been nominated for awards in a number of contests, and her second book, Sex and The Single Earl, won the prestigious Maggie Medallion for Best Historical Romance. Vanessa's next series, The Renegade Royals, is due to hit the shelves in November with an introductory novella, Lost in a Royal Kiss. Book One in the series, Secrets For Seducing a Royal Bodyguard, will release in January, 2014, and Confessions of a Royal Bridegroom will be out in April, 2014.

When not dreaming of plots for her next Regency historical novel, Vanessa also writes USA Today Bestselling contemporary romance with her husband under the pen name of V.K. Sykes.  She's also a member of Rock*It Reads, a group of bestselling traditional authors who are self-publishing, and of The Jaunty Quills.

 

Find Vanessa here:
website:  http://www.vanessakellyauthor.com
blog: http: //www.vanessakellyauthor.com/vanessa-blog/
facebook: https://www.facebook.com/vanessakellyauthor
Twitter:  https://twitter.com/VanessaKellyAut
goodreads:  https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/2728107.Vanessa_Kelly

Pinterest: http://www.pinterest.com/vanessakellyaut/
Jaunty Quills:  http://jauntyquills.com/

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Vanessa Kelly is giving away one ARC of Secrets For Seducing a Royal Bodyguard, Book one of The Renegade Royals series, per the total number of stops. (US/Ca only) To visit Vanessa's other stops, click here.

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