Today we’re chatting with Regency romance author Hazel Statham. Hazel’s latest novel, His Shadowed Heart, has just been released from Wings ePress. We’ll talk about this book, her future projects, and where you can find her books.
Q: Welcome to DivineCaroline, Hazel. Can you tell us a little about your book?
A: Can a shadowed heart be healed? Can love grow where least expected? The Earl of Waverly believes not. How wrong can he be!
After the death of his wife, the Earl of Waverly, believing his heart irreparably damaged, enters into a marriage of convenience. However, he is not prepared for the healing influence his new young bride has on his life.
Despite the couple’s newfound happiness, nefarious deeds abound and strange happenings are attributed to the ghost of his former wife. Will their love stand the test or will the perpetrator emerge the victor?
Q: Where did you find the inspiration for this story?
A: It was a story that slowly developed from a series of ‘what if…’ I had just finished writing Dominic, which in comparison is somewhat lighter, and this story came to me. It started in the middle and just grew outwards.
Q: Tell us about the two main characters in His Shadowed Heart.
A: After the death of his first wife, Richard Moreton, Earl of Waverley, vows never to remarry and once more lay his heart open to the ravages of love. So determined is he to elude the married state that he repudiates all his sister’s efforts to push him once more into the centre of society with the aim of finding a bride.
His wife had lost her life giving birth to a daughter, Julia, whom he now builds his life around and centers all his attention upon. The thought of marriage is alien to him and he refuses to even consider it until he meets gentle Caroline Northam and hope blooms. Now he finds that a heart he had thought irreparably damaged was merely wounded and love grows. Dare he share that love with his wife or will memories of the past rise to haunt him?
