The e-book of Marry in Scandal is on special for a limited time, so if you don’t have it and would like it, now is the time to grab it. It’s $1.99 in the US and, I think, slightly different in other countries, depending on the exchange rate. Here’s a universal link, that should take you to your preferred e-book retailer, And here’s a link to amazon US.

This is the story of  Lily and Galbraith.  Romantic Times gave it a top pick and called it: “a beautifully rendered, emotionally powerful tale full of the wonder and healing power of love. Readers will empathize with her well-drawn characters and delight in the growth of their relationship, cheering them on to their HEA. The pacing never falters and the tried and true theme shines in Gracie’s talented hands. . . .  A story readers will cherish.”

ARRA readers voted it “Favouite Historical Romance” and Night Owl Reviews called it, “a perfect story, filled with a lot of delightful secondary characters who will keep you entertained.  I am looking forward to more in this series, although this can be read as a stand alone book.  Do not let this one pass you by!”

You can read part of the prologue here. 

Here’s what the story is about:

Shy young heiress, Lady Lily Rutherford, is in no hurry to marry. She dreams of true love and a real courtship. But when disaster strikes, she finds herself facing a scandal and the only solution seems to be a forced marriage to her rescuer, Edward Galbraith, a well known rake.

Despite his reputation Lily is drawn to the handsome Galbraith. In the gamble of her life, she agrees to marry him, hoping to turn a convenient marriage into a love match.

As heir to a title, Galbraith knows he must wed, so a convenient marriage suits him perfectly. But there is a darkness in his past, and secrets he refuses to share with his tender-hearted young bride. All Lily’s efforts to get close to him fall on stony ground, and in desperation she retreats to his childhood home–the place he’s avoided for nearly a decade.

Must Lily reconcile herself to a marriage without love? Or will Galbraith realize that this warm-hearted, loving girl is the key to healing the wounds of his past–and his heart?

Today’s post is inspired by this article, about the benefits of writing by hand. 

I have never stopped writing by hand, though I don’t do it consistently. I went to an academic high school, where there wasn’t a “secretarial” stream, and nobody learned typing. I do recall one far-seeing teacher who insisted that there would come a time in the not-too-distant future when we would all need to type, and he set up a voluntary typing class. Of course I didn’t want to lose any of my rare spare time at school, so I never attended it. Silly me!

As a result I’m a two or three finger typist — fast but not particularly accurate. And often I do all my writing on the computer. But whenever I’m a little bit stuck, or can’t decide how to approach a scene, or just need to feel out where I’m going in a book or have an idea not related to what I’m actually working on. I pull out a trusty notebook and write by hand.

In fact, I started my career as a writer when I was backpacking, and found my head spinning with stories. So I bought a notebook and started writing them down. I’d filled two whole notebooks by the time I got home. There were snatches of stories, story ideas, whole scenes, dialogue exchanges and a good chunk of a young adult novel.

 None of those ever saw the light of day, but the writing had inspired me. And the notebooks were there to glance through and be reinspired. Later I bought my first computer, and started seriously trying to write. I found though, that putting the first draft of a scene onto a computer was slow and unsatisfactory — my typing contained lots of mistakes and they distracted me and got in the way of “the flow.”

There has been a lot of scientific investigation into what happens in the brain when you’re writing by hand or using a keyboard, and the results seem clear that the best, most creative results come from handwriting. The article I linked to above explains it. Whether or not that’s the case for people who’ve grown up using keyboards, I’m not so sure. But it absolutely works for me.

So I learned to write a scene by hand and then type it up. In the typing up process  I also edited it. When writing a dialogue  exchange, for instance, my pen would fly so quickly I would only scribble down the words that the characters actually said, and nothing about where they were, what they were doing or thinking or even who said what.  So when I would go to type that scene up, I’d put in all that extra necessary stuff in, which is a kind of editing process.

I always have a notebook on the go, and have a new one ready for when I finish one. I use small sticky notes to mark where notes I keep notes for my current wip (work in progress). And I have kept all my notebooks, even the ones from that long ago backpacking trip. Just yesterday I pulled out an old notebook where I remembered I’d jotted down some ideas and scene stubs for a novella I started some years ago. That’s it at the top of the page. I remembered writing some scenes, but they weren’t in the computer file, so I knew they’d be in a notebook. And they were.

It’s getting chillier here as we slide toward winter. We had heavy rain and wind the other night and a large branch of my beautiful Silver Princess (eucalyptus caesia) tree crashed to the ground.

I had to get a friend around to cut it up with a chainsaw. This photo shows just a bit of it, after we’d moved it out of the way a little and cut off some of the thick part of the branch. It had landed on top of my xanthorrhoea (grass tree) and my car.  But the xanthorrhoea seems to be bouncing back and the car was undamaged.

The fallen branch had masses of white/silver gumnuts — so pretty, like ready-made Xmas decorations — so after I’d chosen some for me and a friend, I put more out on the nature strip, from where they’ve been steadily disappearing. Some of the clusters look like little candelabras.

Luckily the missing branch hasn’t spoiled the shape of the tree at all.  But there were masses of new buds on the fallen branch, so I guess we won’t get as many of the gorgeous flowers this year. (You can see what they look like here — and that’s the branch that fell down.)

Now my house is full of vases with the graceful twigs and leaves — it’s SUCH a pretty tree. The pic below is showing a vase between the temporary bamboo chairs where my newly covered lounge suite will go when it comes — hopefully towards the end of this month. And that little round table was made for me by one of my adult literacy students — he was 80 at the time.