Irresistible by Darcy Burke 💕 Behind the Scenes, Book Tour, Freebie Offer and $50 Gift Card Giveaway 💕(Historical Regency Romance)

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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.

How I Create a Book!

I am often asked how I come up with ideas or whether I’m a plotter or a pantser, so I thought I’d share my process. This is what I generally follow but is of course not absolute. Sometimes things don’t go as planned or sometimes I change my mind!

When I’m noodling a series, I’ll create a Word document that I use to brainstorm. In it, I write down possible series names, book titles, character names, tropes I want to write about, and character ideas. By character ideas, I mean, what’s their deal? That can include backstory, what motivates them, or what they are hoping to accomplish or achieve.

As soon as I nail down those specifics, I create a series bible, which I do in Excel. In that document, I track main characters, secondary characters, places, and events. This has been soooo helpful as I write long series – The Untouchables had twelve books, plus two trilogies which are extensions of the main series! I did not do this for my first series, which is how I learned that it was necessary, lol.

For each book, I write an outline that includes turning points. This gives me the basic framework of the story, which I really like to have before I start writing. On the rare occasions that I haven’t done that, the book typically takes longer to write. And that’s because I probably shouldn’t have started writing yet! The outline also includes a lot of character information such as their backstory, their arc, and their connections to other characters. I will also jot down any specific scene ideas that I may want to incorporate. I often find, however, that what sounded cool in the brainstorming stage doesn’t fit with what I actually end up writing. The outline takes more shape when I begin mapping out the scenes to each turning point. I start with scene one and write whose point of view it is along with Day 1—that way I can track the passage of time. My copyeditor is frighteningly good at continuity and will catch it if I slip up! Occasionally, I include the actual date in history if I’m working around real-life events that occurred, such as the death of Queen Charlotte, which figured into one of my books. I write out that scene and then the next one, stopping when I either run out of story in my brain at the moment or, ideally, at the next turning point.

When I have a novel-length structure with turning points mapped out and scenes plotted to the first turning point (the first 10%), I am ready to start writing! I create a Word document and format it the way I like. This means Times New Roman 12 point font and exactly 25 lines per page. The 25 lines thing was what someone told me to do 15+ years ago for submitting manuscripts, and I’ve just always kept doing it. I then take the scene one notes from the outline and drop it into the draft. That’s my guidepost and I start writing!

I typically edit as I go, more often in the first half as the second half tends to write faster for me. I try to make myself stop around the 75-100 page mark and go back to read/edit. I find that makes for an easier time going forward. But then just when I think I have a solid process, a book says, “No, you don’t! Try again!” My latest book did just that, and it felt like the draft took forever, when in fact, it was about average.

That’s how I make the sauce!

“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.

When Tobias Powell, the Viscount Deane, loses the young lady who’s stolen his heart to a pompous heir to a dukedom, all of Society is abuzz with his failure. When a scandal further blackens his reputation, he decides to become the rogue everyone believes him to be.

When courtesan Mirabelle Renault’s older sister marries her protector and is given the cut direct by the very Society who demands respectability, Mirabelle loses hope for her own future. Knowing she can no longer serve as a man’s paramour, she is determined to forge a new path—until she realizes that most doors are closed to her.

Carefree bachelor Lord Lucien Westbrook has lost his mistress and gained his autocratic father’s scrutiny now that his older brother is about to wed. Challenged to do something worthwhile, he launches an exclusive club, where Lucien helps those in need, no matter who they are or where they come from. One never knows who they will meet at the Phoenix Club…

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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.