My obsession with period novels started when I read Wuthering Heights at aged thirteen. Heathcliff was the anti-hero - dark, smouldering, sexy and so, so bad. He wanted Cathy with a passionate abandon that took over his entire life. Mr. Rochester was just as hot and brooding, especially when Orson Welles donned the mantel (and the breeches) in the 1943 film to seduce Joan Fontaine as Jane Eyre. The Bronte sisters knew how to write their men. I think they were ahead of their time in that respect and I think they set a template for the classic hero in fiction.
Seducing Mr Storm
My obsession with men in tight riding breeches started later on when I saw Colin Firth take Mr. Darcy and make him his own. Let me pause here a moment to relive some scenes from that mini-series.
Okay, where was I?
I hadn't read Pride and Prejudice before the BBC's adaptation of it. I hadn't realized there was someone out there in literature as sexy as Heathcliff. Nor had I realized Colin Firth was out there. Then he jumped into that lake and came out dripping wet with every item of clothing plastered to him and well…a nation swooned.
There's something about a man in period costume. Something about the era, where we know good manners stop him ripping off the heroine's clothes and ravaging her, when that's what he wants to do deep down. There's something about the riding breeches, the boots, the frockcoat and the hat. And his counterpart - the strong-willed woman in the cleavage-enhancing corset with needs of her own.
I've wanted to write my own historical heroes for so long. I picture Heathcliff or Mr. Rochester or Mr. Darcy in my head when I create them. Brooding and sarcastic but with a passionately beating heart beneath the stiff, formal clothes.
Mr. Elijah Storm is an amalgamation of all the strong, desperately exciting heroes of the 1700-1800s I've seen or read about. He's tall, fit, strong, and dangerously handsome and of course, has a large…purse. Every woman wants him but few are a match for him in terms of wit, intellect and passion. He wants a mate for life and isn't afraid to shop around until he finds one. Which makes his reputation all the more exciting and forbidden. In the double standards of the day, a man was sowing his wild oats, a woman was sleeping around and ruining herself.
Mr. Storm's heroine Susanna doesn't give a damn about the morals of the day. She knows what she wants and isn't afraid to go after it. Unfortunately, she thinks she can tangle with Mr. Storm and not lose her heart in the process, which isn't how it works with Elijah. He's looking for the real deal. What starts off as helpless attraction soon becomes a battle of wits with one prize at stake: marriage.
Blurb for Seducing Mr Storm:
Can Susanna seduce Mr. Storm-and keep her heart intact?
In the late 1700s, Susanna Seymour's mother is very keen to find a husband for her younger sister, Lucy, while Susanna is considered on the shelf at twenty-seven. Enter their neighbor arrived from London, the dashing and irreverent Elijah Storm, who makes his admiration for Susanna plain from the start. Susanna is not looking for a husband and is keen to make sure Lucy wins the bachelor, but things don't go quite to plan. Elijah is frank in his desire to have Susanna's sexual services, and she believes by giving him what he wants, he will lose all interest in her. Her price is his agreement to marry her sister. But when passion ignites, what will happen when Susanna seduces Mr. Storm?
About Poppy Summers:
Poppy Summers is the straight side of multi-published M/M author, Scarlet Blackwell. She likes heroes in tight breeches with a dash of Heathcliff and Mr. Darcy about them and feisty heroines who know what they want. She also likes polar bears and cheese, but not necessarily together.