HH Advent Calendar:Elizabeth Beacon

Welcome and Happy Christmas from Elizabeth Beacon, a writer of Regency Romances!

I was delighted to be invited to host my day of the HARLEQUIN® HISTORICAL Authors’ Advent Calendar Competition on the HARLEQUIN® Historical Authors’ Blog today. I’m new here, but have just finished my twelfth novel for HARLEQUIN® HISTORICAL and have been writing Regency novels for HARLEQUIN® for five years now. My next book, The Scarred Earl, is due out in May 2013 and is the second of the Seaborne Trilogy that began with The Duchess Hunt. My own website is being developed and should be online any day now, but this was a lovely opportunity to say hello to so many HARLEQUIN® HISTORICAL readers and wish you all joy and laughter and hope for the Christmas season and for 2013. I would like to say a very big thank you to my fellow Harlequin® Historical authors for their invitation to join them and host my day of the Advent competition here.

It’s a huge privilege for me to be the last author to pose individual questions for this year before the final grand draw on December 24^th, when some lucky person will be drawn from all the calendar entries to win THE MAIN PRIZE, a Kindle Fire HD.

The prize I’m offering today is a signed copy (although that’s only signed by me) of my Christmas book, Governess Under the Mistletoe, which is the second book in Candlelit Christmas Kisses duo (
yes, there are two books in this one, the second is by lovely Anne Herries, so if you don’t like mine then hers is sure to delight and entertain you); a signed copy of The Duchess Hunt, which was published by HARLEQUIN® HISTORICAL in June 2012; and a delicious Lettuce scarf printed with strawberries that I couldn’t resist, because sending out real ones could be a bit tricky! All that adds up to nearly £30 GBP, so I hope you will think it worth your while to enter and, don’t forget that every entry counts towards the main prize drawn on Christmas Eve, so the more times you enter, the more chance you have of winning that Kindle Fire HD.

So my advice is to read the extract from my latest book, Governess Under the Mistletoe, before you answer this question!

What does Sophie use to pull Peter out of the snow?

‘No, I’m sure I saw someone,’ the Sophie voice insisted and Peter almost believed she was real, and shuddered at the monstrous idea of meeting her now he was all but spent and at his most vulnerable. ‘Over there, I tell you. There really is a rider heading straight into the ha-ha, Cordage.’

Halting Hannibal, lest she was real and right, Peter wondered at himself for believing in the impossible at such a time. He hesitated between jumping down and risking floundering, or staying up here and hazarding Hannibal’s knees. Deciding on the lesser of two evils, he heaved himself out of the saddle and sank up to his hips in drifting snow as he fought to push his horse back from the ditch. All the poor animal wanted now was to take the quickest route to shelter and the stable he seemed almost able to scent on the howling wind.

Very well, Peter told himself with determined logic, since the ha-ha clearly exists, the voice that says it’s there must be real as well.

Even if that voice sounded perilously close to that of a female he never wanted to set eyes on again so long as he lived, he had to believe his senses or risk being on the edge of madness. There was nothing for it but to believe the siren voice would find a way to rescue him before he and his horse expired from sheer cold and exhaustion, and Edwina, Aunt Hes and Merryweather had to kill Cedric for being possibly the most annoying man in England – or make a bonfire out of the coach in order to keep themselves warm and try to attract attention to their plight.

‘Over here!’ he bellowed, as loudly as he could over the howling wind.

Lights flared through the murky darkness, sometimes blotted out by driving snow, sometimes clear as will-o’-the-wisps in the sudden breaks in the curtain of white as it swirled another way.

‘Rouse the grooms and stable boys, Miss Imogen,’ the man roared over his shoulder. ‘We’ll need help to carry him inside if he’s been out in this for very long.’

‘Imogen, do as Cordage says and then go inside and do me the courtesy of staying where I asked you to in the first place,’ the Sophie-like female ordered some poor soul beyond Peter’s faltering vision. He sympathised with the poor girl, whoever she might be, since she clearly lived under the cat’s paw.

‘And you should get inside in the warm as well, miss,’ the man called Cordage argued rather desperately.

‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ the shrew ordered her companion impatiently.

At the sound of her voice growing louder in his ears, Peter decided he ought to be grateful she was nigh as ungovernable as the woman he remembered so reluctantly as the most indomitable female he had ever met, since this one had evidently seen him from the window yonder and set out to rescue him.

‘Catch this!’ the woman ordered him, and he put out a hand without even thinking about it and caught the end of the leather belt she threw him more by chance than any skill on his part. ‘Now, pull yourself back onto the road with it,’ she went on, as if in charge of at least a battalion of rather stupid men lost in the snow. She prepared to lean back against his anticipated weight on the end of it.

‘With one hand?’ he demanded crossly, and thought he heard her gasp at the first sound of his suddenly hoarse voice – as if he reminded her of someone she didn’t want to recall as well.

‘Let your horse go and he will surely follow us. There seems little doubt he has more sense than you do,’ she said brusquely, and a dreadful suspicion began to dawn on him that this wasn’t a female who sounded like opinionated, sneaky, lying, felonious Sophie Bonet, but the real thing.

 

Text Copyright ©2012 by Elizabeth Beacon. Cover Art Copyright © 2012 by Harlequin Enterprises Limited.

Permission to reproduce text granted by Harlequin Books S.A. Cover art used by arrangement with Harlequin Enterprises Limited. All rights reserved.

® and ™ are trademarks owned by Harlequin Enterprises Limited or its affiliated companies, used under license.

 

So, if you have your answer at the ready folks, here’s what you need to do:

There is a problem  with Rafflecopter so  email the answer with Elizabeth Beacon giveaway in subject line  to contest@michellestyles.co.uk

 

Good luck, I will choose a winner at random from the correct answers then pass all of them to the main competition.  

Have a lovely Christmas and thank you for playing the game.