The Countdown for THE PURLOINED PORTRAIT is on!

Book Five in the Hapgoods of Bramleigh series drops Friday, March 18, 2022, a day when I will be distracting myself by going on a little road trip with my mom down to pick up my son for his spring break! If you would like to pre-order your Kindle copy, please click here. Paper copies will be up around the same date, but there isn't any pre-order option for paper, unfortunately.

The Purloined Portrait tells the story of Edith Hapgood's journey to becoming an artist, with the devoted support of her family, including her cousin Lionel. Like the course of true love, the course of becoming an artist doesn't run smoothly either, but that makes for all the fun.

Speaking of art, take a moment to admire my cover designer Kathy Campbell's work. She has taken up portrait painting(!) and offered to do some hand-painting on Lionel's coat here, because the original painting was rather flat. I am so, so amazed by and grateful for her work.

I am drawing near the end of this series I've loved writing. I know I've lived with these characters in my head for the past several years, but a couple readers mentioned wishing there were a family tree or character list in the last book Matchless Margaret. Readers, I have listened! In The Purloined Portrait I've included a couple family trees. This one of the squire's family, for example:

There will be one more book in the series, cousin Hetty's story (of which I'm currently on Chapter 4), and then I'm already kicking around ideas for the next.

In researching Edith's story, I plunged into her contemporary art scene and would love to do a little art viewing as a book launch. Stay tuned. In the meantime, here is one very famous portrait of Napoleon that gets mentioned in the book as a resemblance to one of the main characters:

David's Napoleon Crossing the Alps (1801)

Who knew marauding conquerors with dreams of empire could sometimes be dishy? (The ones we have today don't have the option of controlling and projecting their desired image with the help of talented artists like Jacques-Louis David.) 

Laurel Ann Nattress of Austenprose encouraged me to make more efforts to market and reach readers, so I've been experimenting with Amazon ads and such. All marketers seem to agree email lists are key, so I can tell readers about launches and giveaways and promotions and such. Message received! If you'd like to join my email list, sign up with this QR code. My first book promotion is coming end of March!