Jul 14 2015

Put up Your Duke by Megan Frampton – Guest Post + Giveaway

Posted by Brooke in Book Giveaway, Book Tour, Guest Post, Uncategorized / 3 Comments

Put up Your Duke by Megan Frampton
Dukes Behaving Badly #2
Released June 30, 2015 by Avon

He was once happily bedding and boxing, but in the newest DUKES BEHAVING BADLY novel, Nicholas Smithfield has inherited a title and a bride…

To keep his estate afloat, the new Duke of Gage must honor an agreement to marry Lady Isabella. Stunningly beautiful, utterly tempting, she’s also a bag of wedding night nerves, so Nicholas decides to wait to do his duty-even if it means heading to the boxing saloon every day to punch away his frustration.

Groomed her whole life to become the perfect duchess Isabella longs for independence, a dream that is gone forever. As her husband, Nicholas can do whatever he likes-but, to Isabella’s surprise the notorious rake instead begins a gentle seduction that is melting every inch of her reserve, night by night…

To his utter shock, Nicholas’s discovers that none of his previous exploits were half as pleasurable as wooing his own wife. But has the realm’s most disreputable Duke found the one woman who can bring him to his knees-and leave him there?

One of the best things about being a writer is being able to don another person’s character, to figure out what makes them tick, what makes them happy, or fearful, or what makes them fall in love with another person.

In Put Up Your Duke, I have two points of view—Nicholas and Isabella, the hero and heroine. Now it’s probably understood I have never been a man, so getting inside of Nicholas’s head was a change for me. But just as improbable, and I’m not being disingenuous on this, is that I have never been a spectacularly beautiful woman. So writing about a heroine who is so beautiful people gasp when they see her was very fun, and different.

What must it be like to be looked at all the time? To be seen but not known? That is what I dealt with when I wrote from Isabella’s viewpoint. She thought that all anyone thought she had to offer was what was on the outside, and she was sad that no-one except for her sister knew what she was like on the inside. She thinks Nicholas will be the same, and he does admire her looks—he’d be a blind idiot not to—but he comes to realize that what is on the inside is just as beautiful, but much less perfect. Isabella ends up reveling in her imperfection because she gets to be that way with Nicholas, whom she is coming to love.

As I wrote her, I imagined Isabella looking like Angelina Jolie—that same ‘are you kidding me?’ quality that I have when I see pictures of a younger Jolie. I would never want to be that beautiful, honestly, because of all the attention I’d get, but I did like visiting inside the head of someone so lovely for a while.

About the Author

Megan Frampton writes historical romance under her own name and romantic women’s fiction as Megan Caldwell. She likes the color black, gin, dark-haired British men, and huge earrings, not in that order. She lives in Brooklyn, NY, with her husband and son.