What The Parrot Saw

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This week saw the release (aka #BookBirthday) of What the Parrot Saw (High Seas #4), my eighth historical romance (available in ebook and print from all booksellers).

Parrot is the tale of a grown-up Mathilde St. Armand, aka "Marauding Mattie". Mattie started as a "plot moppet", a secondary character in The Pirate's Secret Baby (High Seas #3), the child Robert St. Armand never knew he'd fathered. Secret Baby was Robert and Lydia's book, but even as I was writing it I knew I'd have to tell Mattie's story some day. She was the illegitimate, mixed-race child of a pirate and a prostitute, and she wasn't going to fit in well in Victorian England, no matter how much Robert and Lydia loved her.

Mattie's tale, as more than one beta reader and reviewer pointed out, is darker than my other novels. Yes, there's still humor, but much of the book concerns enslaved people in Florida Territory. That is not a topic to be treated lightly and slavery's legacy is a part of Mattie's life. But I did my best to balance the story, even as I delved deep into aspects of Florida history not covered in the classrooms I learned in.

I hope my readers will find Oliver and Mattie's tale as exciting to read as I found when I was researching and writing it. As always, I appreciate honest ratings and reviews. I've said it often, but it bears repeating: You help your fellow readers, and authors too--Read, Rate, Review, Repeat! Thanks!




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