Secret Thunder Part 39

Author's Note.

Unlike most of my books, the story for Secret Thunder came to me fully formed, in a burst of inspiration that I couldn't ignore. I was sitting in bed reading, and something started me thinking about dark heroes. Within minutes I'd conjured up Luke de Perigueux, a bloodthirsty Norman knight with a dreadful secret.

Faithe materialized with the same kind of preternatural ease. To me, she personifies the pluck and adaptability of the English people as they survived centuries of invasion and a.s.similation of foreign peoples. Like her ancestors before her, she will do whatever it takes to preserve her home and way of life-even to the extent of giving herself in marriage to a conquering soldier with a ferocious reputation.

Secret Thunder, a story in which a woman's love redeems a man who's come to view himself as a monster, is very much a Beauty and the Beast tale. While writing it, I was truly swept away into the events of the story. I hope your reading experience was equally absorbing.

As I wrote Secret Thunder, I became increasingly intrigued by the amiable young Alex-and more than a little curious about those scars. Who was the mysterious woman who'd earned him that beating at seventeen, and what would happen if they met again? The book that resulted from these ruminations is Wild Wind, in which Alex is thrown together again with Nicolette de St. Clair, the object of his consuming adolescent pa.s.sion. Desperate for the heir he hasn't been able to father, Nicolette's dissolute husband makes a shocking request of Alex.

end.