A RIGHT TO LOVE
Today I have Liza O’Connor’s character Alice Collins from A Right to Love.
Jenna: Welcome, Alice. I understand you are a friend of Victor Hamilton from the Adventures of Xavier & Vic series.
Alice: I am. We were best of friends for many years. Then as we matured and my step-father kept demanding I marry the various odious young men he forced me to entertain, I realized Vic was far superior in all ways and unlike these cretins, he would never steal my fortune or take over my estate farms and run them into the ground. So I tried my hardest to make him fall in love with me, which unfortunately had the reverse effect than I’d hoped for. Instead of drawing him in, my every effort scared him away. When in desperation, I went to Claire, asking for her assistance.
Instead of help, she picked up a picture from her shelf and laid it on the bed between us. Then she advised me to look elsewhere, for her brother would never marry. All the while she tapped on the picture frame.
At first I thought she meant he preferred other young men, but her constant tapping caused me to take note of the picture. It was of her aunt and two young girls. The younger girl was Claire, but the older girl confused me, for she had Vic’s facial features. I cannot tell you how stunned to the core I was when I realized what it meant. I had known Vic for years and never once had I suspected he was anything but a boy.
Claire then made me swear to never tell anyone. I, of course, promised her I wouldn’t.
Jenna: But you just shared it with the entire world.
Alice: Your world, not mine. And in your world, Liza O’Connor has already told everyone that my childhood best friend was a young girl who decided life would be better if she became a boy. And he is the finest young man I’ve ever met. And now to all his other attributes, he determined where my vicious step-father had hidden my mother and with the help of Jacko B. Goodnow, saved her from being murdered and enabled me to meet and fall in love with a fabulous man. Without Victor, I would have lost my mother, gone to prison for killing my step-farther and never meet Jacko.
Jenna: It sounds as if you still love Victor.
Alice: Without question, I do. Only it is a love of deep friendship. To be honest, once I discovered Vic’s secret, I gave up on men. I intended to remain single for my entire life. But when Jacko rescued and brought my mother home, I fell in love with him at first sight. I had not thought such a thing possible. But he was everything I wanted in a man: kind, loving, caring, honest, brave…
Jenna: I believe he’s also a gypsy, pirate, and thief. By his own admission, he has also murdered people
Alice: He was never a pirate by choice, but, yes, he is a gypsy by birth.
Jenna: That won’t go over well in society.
Alice: We are telling people in my time he is a wealthy Spaniard and his name is Jacon Bienora. As to his love of stealing, he only takes something for good reasons, such as stealing my mother from Bedlam, and to the deaths attributed to him: he has only done so for the good of his country or when forced to defend himself, neither of which, do I consider murder.
Jenna: He sounds most intriguing, let’s find out more.
Jacko, a gypsy with a great love for stealing, rescues a suffragette from Bedlam. Upon returning the elderly woman to safety, he meets her blue-stocking daughter. Alice has decided she prefers managing her estate farms over London society. She is resigned to never marry until the handsome and surprisingly wealthy man with a dark past and several identities steals her heart.
Rob shook his head and smiled. “I apologize if I have embarrassed you. It is only that your people are worried about their futures. They fear you will marry a gentleman from town and return to London, or you will not marry at all, and leave us with no future. So they sent me to speak to you.”
“About?”
“About marrying the right type of fellow. I know you are a fine lady, but it seems to me you don’t particularly care for the ‘fine’ gentlemen, at least not the one you nearly drowned two years ago.”
Alice laughed in outrage. “I did not drown him. I simply turned over the boat to see whom he would save, himself or me. When he clung to the boat and left me to sink or swim, I swam to shore‒end of story.”
“He remained out there for several hours, bleating like a frightened lamb.”
Alice realized Rob’s house was on the other side of the lake. “I apologize if he upset your sheep.”
“You laugh, but my sheep were unsettled for a week from all that noise.” Rob sobered. “If you don’t care for the gents, might you consider someone a bit humbler in birth, but stronger in character? I think character is what you find missing among the gentry. You deserve a man who thinks of you first, who steps forward when danger approaches and would face death to keep you safe.”
His words shocked her, as did her heart’s reaction to them. Dear God, he voiced exactly what she wanted.
A Right to Love
Available on Amazon
Free with Amazon Kindle Unlimited
A Right to Love is a spin off
of the Adventures of Xavier & Vic’s
Humorous, Late Victorian, Romantic Sleuth series
Book 1
The Troublesome Apprentice
Book 2
The Missing Partner
Book 3
The Mesmerist
All Xavier books Free with Amazon Unlimited
Liza O’Connor was raised badly by feral cats, left the South/Midwest and wandered off to find nicer people on the east coast. There she worked for the meanest man on Wall Street, while her psychotic husband tried to kill her three times. (So much for finding nicer people.) Then one day she declared enough, got a better job, divorced her husband, and fell in love with her new life where people behaved normally. But all those bad behaviors has given her lots of fodder for her humorous romances. Please buy these books, because otherwise, she’ll become grumpy and write troubled novels instead. They will likely traumatize you.
You have been warned.
Mostly humorous books by Liza:
Saving Casey – Old woman reincarnates into troubled teen’s body. (Half funny/half traumatizing)
Ghost Lover—Two British brothers fall in love with the same young woman. Ancestral ghost is called in to fix the situation. And there’s a ghost cat that roams about the book as well. (Humorous Contemporary Romance)
A Long Road to Love Series: (Humorous Contemporary odd Romance)
Worst Week Ever — Laugh out loud week of disasters of Epic proportions.
Oh Stupid Heart — The heart wants what it wants, even if it’s impossible.
Coming to Reason — There is a breaking point when even a saint comes to reason.
Climbing out of Hell — The reconstruction of a terrible man into a great one.
The Troublesome Apprentice — The greatest sleuth in Victorian England hires a young man who turns out to be a young woman.
The Missing Partner — Opps! The greatest sleuth in Victorian England goes missing, leaving Vic to rescue him, a suffragette, and about 100 servants. Not to mention an eviscerating cat. Yes, let’s not mention the cat.
The Mesmerist — The Mesmerist can control people from afar and make them murder for her. Worse yet, Xavier Thorn has fallen under her spell.
FOR MORE INFORMATION ABOUT
Investigate these sites:
Liza’s Blog and Website Facebook Twitter
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Jenna Jaxon Romance--because passion is timeless. 