A Night of Forever

A Night of Forever, my latest Regency Romance is out later this month and is book #6 in my Disgraced Lords series. My hero, Arend Aubury, Baron Labourd, was born in France, but left when a young boy as his family fled the revolution.

As with most of the French émigré they arrived in England with very little money and they had to start all over again. Arend hated the poverty and charity that let them survive in a world that looked down on them. So when Arend reached adulthood, he was determined to make back the riches his family lost. He ended up back in Paris and through manipulation, treachery, and stupidity he ended up becoming a kept man.

Did you know that Male Prostitution is as old as the ‘oldest profession’. Around the 17^th, 18^th and 19^th centuries:

·       The tradition of soldiers selling sex to gay clients dates goes back to the early 1700s and continued well into the twentieth century. In “barracks prostitution,” hustling soldiers frequented their own bars, worked “soldiers’ promenades,” and regularly initiated new recruits into hustling.

·       Oscar Wilde referred to sex with the young working-class male prostitutes (ages 16 – 20) he favored as “feasting with panthers” because “their passion was all body and no soul.”

·       Popular in America and Europe at the turn of the nineteenth century were transvestite male hustlers known as “fairies.” Some worked in all-fairy brothels and saloons, others worked in female brothels as exotic offerings for male clients, and still others worked the streets, either on their own strolls or on strips known to have a mixed menu of hustlers on display

·       In the late 1800s, London’s Cleveland Street Affair exposed a male prostitution ring run by

young teenage messenger boys from the Royal Post Office. None were charged in the bust, as the court decided the boys were too young to know better.

Remember, there were no social services in the Regency period.  You had money or you didn’t.  If you didn’t, life was very hard. You often did what you had to do to survive.

Unfortunately nothing seems to have changed. The modern world has more sexual slavery and prostitution than ever before.

Here is the blurb for A NIGHT OF FOREVER

Distrust is no match for desire as a proper young miss and a self-professed rogue hunt down a murderer in this thrilling Disgraced Lords novel from the USA Today bestselling author of A Kiss of Lies and A Taste of Seduction.

Arend Aubury trusts no one besides his fellow Libertine Scholars. After his family escaped from France, penniless and persecuted, only the Scholars took him in. So when the stepdaughter of the villainess who has been plotting against them approaches Arend with allegations against their enemy, he suspects a double cross. Yet Isobel is a tantalizing prize, with lips as sweet as champagne and skin as creamy as Camembert. Is she a feast for the senses—or a bitter trap?

Lady Isobel Thompson dreams of marrying an honorable gentleman with a spotless reputation, a trait that Arend seems to lack completely. But Isobel believes that her stepmother is responsible for her father’s death, and only Arend has the skills to uncover the truth. As a cover, Arend suggests a fake betrothal—and soon Isobel finds herself forgetting that their courtship is a ploy. He’s so different from the man of her fantasies, and yet he’s so terribly handsome, so dangerously intoxicating—and all Isobel wants is more.

I hope you enjoy Arend and Isobel’s story of redemption and forgiveness. The world could do with a little more compassion don’t you think?