At First Sight Saturday with Author Jude Knight

Hello and welcome back to At First Sight Saturday. Today’s guest is author, Jude Knight, who gives us a ‘first sight’ look at hero, Dom, and heroine Chloe from Jude’s novella Lord Cuckoo Comes Home. Be sure to leave a comment and let Jude know what you think.

Excerpt: He’d noticed them as soon as he took his seat. Their clothes did not look out of place, and their hair—what he could see of it under plain bonnets—was simply dressed. But only those schooled in the art since early girlhood had the carriage of a lady. They sat as if chairs never had backs and their spines consisted of an iron rod each.

At first, he’d thought them a woman and child, and had wondered at the idiocy of bringing a young girl into a potentially dangerous crowd. The girl had something in a basket. A kitten perhaps. Or a puppy.

Then she turned. He saw her chest in profile, and his mouth went dry. No child this. He ripped his gaze from lush curves and upwards to a determined chin, a pert nose, and chocolate brown eyes fringed with dark lashes. The eyes met his with open curiosity. He smiled and winked. Her eyes widened before she turned her back on him. The next speaker began.

A few minutes into the speech, the rumpus started, and Dom started working his way toward the ladies. He had to get them out of here. Both of them. Not just the little elf who so fascinated him.

He stopped in his tracks at the sight of a monkey shooting up out of the crowd, leaping from head to head and clambering up the drapes. Not a kitten or a puppy, then.

A bit of ducking and weaving, a judicious punch when necessary. At times like this, he was grateful that he was slighter in stature than any of his brothers, the other two official sons of the marquess who was married to his mother and the two legitimate sons of his actual progenitor. He could wriggle through gaps in the brawling crowd that would compel a burlier man to stop and fight.

Six years at a public school had taught him how to give a good account of himself if forced to violence. Nearly a decade at war had cemented the lesson. But the priority was to reach the ladies. Ah. There was the elf, on her own, backed into a corner, clinging to her basket.

Ten feet further down the wall was a door. Dom had no idea where it went, but out of the fight, he hoped. He shouldered past the men who were blocking her in, and stopped in front of her. “There’s a door this way, Miss.”

The elf’s curves were even more mouth-watering close up, but Dom couldn’t afford to think about them. Someone thumped into his body, and someone else tried to barge past his arm. He made himself a wall to protect the elf, who was standing on the tips of her toes and peering around at the crowd. “I have lost my monkey,” she explained. Then, as an afterthought, her brow creased, “and my friend.”

“Let me get you out to safety,” Dom begged, “And I’ll come back and look for your friends. Both of them.”

About Lord Cuckoo Comes Home: Dom Finchley only came to York as a favor to his half-brother, who asked him to attend a meeting there. After a devastating break with the Finchley family followed by ten years at war, he is keen to get the favor done and then leave to build the home he’s never had. A place to call his own.

Then he meets Chloe.

Chloe Tavistock is past the age for the marriage market, and unfashionable in her shape, her opinions, and her enthusiasms. She is not going to find a husband in York, whatever her fond brother might think.

And then she meets Dom.

Two people who have never fit-in just might be a perfect fit.

Where to find it: Lord Cuckoo Comes Home is one of nine novellas included in the Bluestocking Belles & Friends collection, Desperate Daughters, to be released on May 17, 2022.

About Desperate Daughters: Love against the Odds

The Earl of Seahaven desperately wanted a son and heir but died leaving nine daughters and a fifth wife. Cruelly turned out by the new earl, they live hand-to-mouth in a small cottage. The young dowager Countess’s one regret is that she cannot give Seahaven’s dear girls a chance at happiness. When a cousin offers the use of her townhouse in York during the season, the Countess rallies her stepdaughters. They will pool their resources so that the youngest marriageable daughters might make successful matches, thereby saving them all. So start their adventures in York, amid a whirl of balls, lectures, and al fresco picnics. Is it possible each of them might find love by the time the York horse races bring the season to a close?

Available for Pre-order: https://books2read.com/u/bMwL17 for $0.99. The price goes up after the book’s May 17, 2022, launch day.

About the Author: Jude Knight always wanted to be a novelist. She started in her teens, but life kept getting in the way. Years passed, and with them dozens of unfinished manuscripts. The fear grew. What if she tried, failed, and lost the dream forever? The years since 2014 have brought 11 novels, 13 novella, 4 volumes of short stories, 3 awards, and hundreds of positive reviews. The dream is alive.