Author Guest Post with Darcy Burke, Irresistible

Jessamine Goodfellow has spent six Seasons avoiding the parson’s trap, and spinsterhood is finally within her grasp.

Welcome to one of the August 18th stops on the blog tour for Irresistible by Darcy Burke with Goddess Fish Promotions. Be sure to follow the rest of the tour for spotlights, reviews, more guest posts, and a giveaway! More on that at the end of this post.

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Author Guest Post

My Favorite Tropes and the Books that Have Them

As romance readers we all have favorite tropes. I thought I’d share mine along with some of my books that match those tropes.

Secret identity
This is my favorite trope of all time. I just love a good hidden identity and the big reveal! Superhero movies of course fit this trope and I’m sure The Scarlet Pimpernel is one reason I love it so much.

Some of my books with secret identities:
The Duke of Lies: The hero may or may not be the heroine’s long-lost husband. This book was inspired by the movie Sommersby which was in turn inspired by the true 16^th century French story of Martin Guerre, an imposter who returned from war.

Her Wicked Ways: My first book is about a hero who plays Robin Hood in order to support his orphanage during the terrible Year Without a Summer in 1816. He’s a country gentleman/orphanage owner by day and a dashing highwayman by night. When the heroine finds herself attracted to both men, she is very confused, lol.

A Secret Surrender: The heroine, a con-artist, poses as a fortune-teller and as a widow in order to help her “sister,” launch into Society. Since this is book one of The Pretenders series, the books are about people pretending to be someone else.

A Rogue to Ruin: This is book three of The Pretenders and the hero has a secret identity as a rather unscrupulous character that he’s hoping to leave behind. He first appears in A Duke Will Never Do as the rather villainous Vicar.

Forced proximity
Who doesn’t love when two people are forced into close quarters together? Bonus points for a single bed. More bonus points if they don’t like each other!

Some of my books with forced proximity:

The Duke of Ruin: This book features a road trip romance where the hero and heroine are forced to share close quarters over and over. The hero is just trying to help the heroine get to her cousin, but when they’re recognized at one of their overnight stops, they have to stop the scandal before it starts.

Indecent: The hero and heroine are forced to stay together in a small inn due to terrible weather—after the hero mistakenly kidnaps her. To say she doesn’t like him at the start is an understatement!

The Duke of Defiance: This combines the forced proximity trope with another popular character trope: the governess. The hero hires the heroine as his governess. Forced proximity shenanigans ensue!

Road trip
This trope is sort of an extension of forced proximity since the hero and heroine spend a great deal of time together, usually one on one, even if they aren’t forced to share a bed. I love action-adventure romance, so a road trip usually offers at least a bit of that.

All of Legendary Rogues: This series features four books that mash up Romancing the Stone, The DaVinci Code, and Indiana Jones, with some Arthurian legend and a secret society thrown in. Each one includes a treasure hunt across Wales and England, so it’s a necessary road trip featuring loads of togetherness.

The Duke of Ruin: I already mentioned this book, but it’s a good road trip romance as they go from southern England to Scotland and back again.

Scoundrel Ever After: The hero is (trying to be) a reformed villain, but his past (and the law) is literally chasing him (and the heroine of course) across England.

Reformed Villain/Bad Boy
I love a reformed bad boy—the worse the better. I have a couple of doozies! There’s just something so deliciously satisfying about a villain or bad boy who redeems himself, usually when he believes he’s beyond redemption.

Scoundrel Ever After: The hero of this book first appears in To Seduce a Scoundrel as the villain. And I mean, he is truly the bad guy—he kidnaps the hero and heroine and threatens to kill them! Of course there’s a great backstory, and he gets four books with which to grow and reform. His heroine is the nicest, sweetest wallflower (or is she, lol?), and they end up on a wild road trip. Is he redeemed in the end? Read it and let me know!

Captivating the Scoundrel: One of my author besties suggested I make this hero the villain of Romancing the Earl, which takes place two books earlier in the Legendary Rogues series. The hero’s first appearance is actually in my first book, Her Wicked Ways. I never imagined he’d end up in this other series or that he’d kidnap one of the heroines! (That happens in Romancing the Earl.) His dad is a pretty nasty guy, so he’s got a lot to overcome. I love his arc!

A Duke Will Never Do: This hero first appears in The Duke of Distraction, which is a story about his sister falling in love with his best friend. Something terrible happens in that book, and he feels completely responsible (he’s not blameless). He tumbles quite deep into darkness, and by the time we get to his book three books later, the heroine has quite a job helping to bring him back from the abyss.

A Rogue to Ruin: I’ve already mentioned this book, but it’s another villain redemption story. I love this book so hard because of the depth (and tragedy) of his backstory.

Let me know your favorite tropes!

About the Book

Irresistible
The Phoenix Club Book Six
by Darcy Burke

Published 19 July 2022
Zealous Quill Press

Genre: Historical Romance (Regency)
Page Count: 344
Add it to your Goodreads TBR!

Jessamine Goodfellow has spent six Seasons avoiding the parson’s trap, and spinsterhood is finally within her grasp. A brilliant scholar, she longs for adventure and new experiences, things her family frowns upon. Presented with the opportunity to use her puzzle-solving talent on a secret mission for the Foreign Office, Jess eagerly accepts. Even when it means posing as the wife of a scorchingly attractive Scotsman who she must also covertly investigate as a possible double agent.

Lord Dougal MacNair, the new Viscount Fallin, has always completed his assignments for the Foreign Office alone. Now he’s saddled with an overly enthusiastic amateur partner. She possesses a remarkable intellect, but something about her isn’t quite right, and after two failed missions, Dougal is certain someone is working against him. Battling their secret suspicions, Dougal and Jess dive deep into their cover as a married couple, which arouses temptations they find irresistible. Danger is all around them, but it’s their hearts that may be the most imperiled.

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Excerpt

“Have you ever given up on a cryptogram?”

“No.”

“And I imagine some of them weren’t easy.”

She exhaled. “No, they were not.”

“I assumed as much. I know you, Jess, and you’re tenacious.”

“We haven’t even known each other a fortnight,” she scoffed. “Not officially anyway.”

“What does that mean, ‘officially’?”

She took a generous drink of brandy. “We have met before. Four years ago. I remember it distinctly.”

“Four years ago?” Damn, now he felt terrible. “How can you be sure?”

She gave him a haughty look of certainty that quite frankly pricked his desire. “Because I am. You asked me to dance at the Edgemont Ball.”

He’d danced with her. Four years ago. And never again. Worse, he didn’t remember it. He was an absolute cad. “I should have remembered you. I can’t imagine why I didn’t.” he said softly.

Sentiment, which he preferred to indulge in small, manageable doses, threatened to send him to her chair, to take her hand and beg her forgiveness. A husband would do that. A lover. He was neither and since they were alone, there was no reason to continue the pretense. Only, he was fairly certain he was no longer pretending.

About the Author

Darcy Burke is the USA Today Bestselling Author of sexy, emotional historical and contemporary romance. Darcy wrote her first book at age 11, a happily ever after about a swan addicted to magic and the female swan who loved him, with exceedingly poor illustrations. Click here to Join her Reader Club.

A native Oregonian, Darcy lives on the edge of wine country with her guitar-strumming husband, artist daughter, and imaginative son who will almost certainly out-write her one day (that may be tomorrow).

They’re a crazy cat family with two Bengal cats, a small, fame-seeking cat named after a fruit, an older rescue Maine Coon with attitude to spare, and a collection of neighbor cats who hang out on the deck and occasionally venture inside. You can find Darcy at a winery, in her comfy writing chair, or binge-watching TV with the family.

Her happy places are Disneyland, Labor Day weekend at the Gorge, Denmark, and anywhere in the UK—so long as her family is there too.

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