Tomorrow my seventh offering in the Brides of Bath, Once Upon a Time in Bath, will be published. I never expected the series to go to seven books—and counting.
I conceived a Brides of Bath trilogy a little over 20 years ago. In 2001 Kensington Books, which publishes Zebra Historicals, bought the trilogy, and it was published only in mass market paperback the following year. (No eBooks back then.)
The series’ performance must have pleased my publisher because my editor came back the next year and asked me to publish a fourth Brides of Bath book.
I was in a bit of a quandary. The trilogy was about the Pembroke siblings which consisted of the Viscount Sedgewick, his widowed sister Felicity, and their flight younger sister Glee. Other than Felicity’s friend Carlotta, I didn’t think my cast offered further candidates for heroes or heroines, so I did the unthinkable.
I killed off a character from a subplot in Book One, The Bride Wore Blue. (I will never again do that. Readers loved that beloved character.)
Publisher Picked All My Titles
So the fourth book was published in 2004, again only in paperback. My publisher titled it An Improper Proposal. I was mortified. There was no improper proposal in the entire book. When I got back my rights to that book seven years later I renamed this marriage-of-convenience story ToTake This Lord.
All of the first four Brides of Bath books’ titles were created by Kensington. They did well with the first, naming it The Bride Wore Blue (though my original story did not have a blue wedding dress!).
I also liked the second book’s title: With His Ring. It fit and had a good sound.
In the third book, Kensington selected A Fallen Woman over my cheesy title Beleaguered Bride. At first I really liked the A Fallen Woman. However, though readers loved that deeply emotional read, sales were abysmal. After I thought about it, I realized that I probably wouldn’t purchase a book about a fallen woman. When I got back my rights to that book, I titled it The Bride’sSecret.
Twelve years after the original trilogy was published I added Book 5, Love in the Library, and later that year I offered a novella titled Christmas in Bath, where all the characters from the previous books (except the “fallen woman”) play a part, along with a fresh romance. In that novella, I got the opportunity to tie up some loose ends from earlier books—loose ends my Kensington editors never saw, but readers did!
And tomorrow Once Upon a Time in Bath launches. For years readers have been asking for Appleton’s story, and finally I’ve listened.
There’s one more secondary character from the original cast that readers want to get his own story. Right now he’s The Last Bachelor.
And then The Last Bachelor has sisters who just may need to find husbands . . . Cheryl Bolen is the NY Times-USA Today bestselling author of more than three dozen books set in Regency England, many of which have won Best Historical honors. She’s a former journalist, teacher, and PTA mom who’s a frequent traveler to England and an addict of diaries of dead Englishwomen.
FREE! For a limited time, the second Brides of Bath book, With His Ring, is free.
