My new series is being launched tomorrow! The first book, Ravishing in Red, involves a world built around a small group of women who live together on a property outside of London, where they grow flowers and plants as a business. Ravishing in Red is the story of Audrianna, the most recent arrival to the household.

Determined to clear her dead father’s name of the scandal and accusations that drove him to his grave, she ventures to an inn to meet a man whom she believes has information that will help her. Instead she meets Lord Sebastian Summerhays, brother of the Marquess of Wittonbury, who has also seen the advertisement that drew Audrianna. He too wants the truth about that scandal, but he assumes her father was guilty, and only one of several players in the conspiracy it touches.

That fateful night begins a relationship where the two characters are at cross-purposes regarding the mystery, but thrown intimately together by accident, then scandal, then passion.

In conceiving this series, I was inspired by research done years ago when I wrote medieval historical romances. That something so unrelated found its way into a Regency book may sound unusual, but lots of things get pulled out of my head when I am writing and inspiration comes from many sources. Sometimes I just have to adapt and mold them to the current book.

In this case, I became fascinated with what were known as beguines during the late middle ages. These were communities of women, usually found in cities and towns. The women lived together communally, but they were not nuns. These women lived together as sisters, and would even go out and work in the town during the day. Some of beguines became very large, and one was even supported financially by a king of France.

How interesting, I thought. This was not something you read about in normal history books. It was one of those footnotes that really enrich our knowledge of history.

I filed this away in my head, and when I was brainstorming this series, it popped out. What if I had a group of women join together like this only not in the middle ages? And so, The Rarest Blooms was born.

In Ravishing in Red, readers will see how this is not a normal household. There is a Rule that governs them, much as monastic orders and convents have Rules (meaning a code of behavior and purpose). In the series it is called Daphne’s Rule, because Daphne is the character who owns the property and who invites the various women to live there. However, even Daphne is subject to the Rule.

One part of the Rule is that each member of the household contributes to its upkeep as she can. Audrianna has a talent with music, so she gives music lessons to young girls, and also writes popular songs sold as sheet music in London. When the scandal about her and Sebastian breaks, her publisher finds a way to exploit it to increase his sales, to her devastation.

There is another community in the series, but it is less organized. That is the looser one of old friends, and the heroes belong to it. It is far more elevated in society, and very much a “guys’ world”. I hope that you will step into both worlds, and see how they intermingle, book by book, as these characters grow and live.

Do you think you could live in a situation like The Rarest Blooms? Have you ever done so in the past? There is less “yours is yours and mine in mine” than we are used to in such a community. Do you think you would like living in one?

I will give away an Audio book of Lessons of Desire, unabridged to someone who comments.