Every once in a while, I get to the end of a series and am not quite done with the idea. That was the case with the initial Bride Quest (The Princess, The Damsel and The Heiress). After the three brothers had each won their respective brides, I still loved the notion of a bride quest. I also liked the idea of a woman having a second chance at love, especially if she won that chance because she was trying to ensure the happiness of her daughters. Eglantine was a woman I admired from the outset, primarily because of her devotion to her children. Since she’d known Burke, the hero of The Damsel, it made sense that she might be inspired by Brianna’s bride quest to launch one of her own.
And so, my second Bride Quest trilogy was begun. This series is sometimes called the Scottish Bride Quest, but more often, it’s simply the Bride Quest II. You don’t have to read my first Bride Quest before reading this one, although you might enjoy the few references to those characters that occur in these pages. This series marked an exciting milestone for my writing career: The Beauty (which is included in this boxed set) was my first book to land on the New York Times’ List of Bestselling Books. What a thrill!
The original Bride Quest trilogy remains available in print and digital (and in a digital boxed set) from Bantam Dell. The books in the second Bride Quest trilogy are also available individually in both digital and print format, with their lovely new covers by Eithne O’Hanlon and Kim Killion.
After completing my two Bride Quest trilogies, I next wrote three medieval Gothic romances, with mysterious heroes and intrepid heroines. That trilogy is called the Rogues of Ravensmuir, and the first book is The Rogue. They’re a little bit darker in tone, but I had a wonderful time with the old castles and intrigue. I wasn’t quite ready to leave that family behind after the third book in the trilogy was completed, so I wrote a linked series called the Jewels of Kinfairlie afterward. The Jewels of Kinfairlie books are more similar in tone to the Bride Quest, which is why I’ve included an excerpt from the first one—The Beauty Bride—in the back of this boxed set.
I’ve recently returned to medieval Scotland to continue the stories of the family at Ravensmuir and Kinfairlie. My new series is called the True Love Brides and gives a little more space to the role of the Fae in the lives of the Kinfairlie family. The first book, The Renegade’s Heart, is now available in digital and print editions. The second book in that series, The Highlander’s Curse, will be published in April 2013. This time, I intend to ensure that all eight siblings in the family are happily married off!
Until next time, I hope that you are well and have plenty of good books to read.
All my best –
Claire