Fated Love - Deluxe Version

Dear Reader

DEAR READER,

Writing FATED LOVE has been the most fun I’ve had writing in a long time.

NOT!

This bear of a book challenged me in ways I never envisioned, nor have experienced until now. I loved the story I saw in my head so much, that I couldn't dream of doing it any other way. Early on, I thought I needed to write three books to fit in the market, not the one book with all three romances I envisioned in my head. So I started the first book, got about fifty-thousand words into it, and... I hated it. Me being me, I deleted it and started it over (I have a bad habit of doing this.) Now, the story that follows is as close to the earliest visions I had about the three little girls christened at the end of Already His as I could get.

Believe me, I considered splitting these girls up, and doing three different books. It might have been easier on me, and my editor. But once I was committed to doing one book for all three girls, I wanted to stick to moving forward in the chronology of events, and didn’t want to hop forward and backward on the timeline with each couple—that felt like covering some of the same ground in every scene (except from a different point of view,) and that would get boring fast. So, in blending their stories together, rather than splitting them, I hope I gave you the right amount of detail for each developing relationship.

Anyway, I know it's long overdue, but I hope you love Fated Love as much as I do.

Sincerely,

Sandy

p.s. I really could write about horses all day long, but cut a good bit out. Mainly because the book was already so long, and also because I think people might get sick of reading about riding. Not me, of course, but I’m sure some out there do. Right? :-D

A couple of notes:

Rail between London and Edinburgh is off by approximately 2-ish years. I wanted to get the parents there quickly and had to work within the time constraints of this story, and of the overall timeline for the series. Queen Victoria and her husband Albert, the Prince Consort, were in Scotland from August to September that year, but for the purpose of the story I put them there in October because I needed it to be the right time for the autumn hunt season.

Addendum for the Deluxe Version:

WHAT THE FATES DECREE began as preliminary notes for writing FATED LOVE, and when I was behind schedule, I cleaned up the notes and published them partly as a teaser, but also so those interested could get a glimpse into my process. I usually do a good bit of pre-writing, and then a pretty extensive outline before starting to get a feel for my characters. Then things sometimes change so much during the writing of the book that it sometimes is not even the same plot when I’m done. (clears throat dramatically… Phoebe and the Doctor, To Waltz with a Dark Lord, and I can’t remember how many others.) Anyway, if you haven’t read WHAT THE FATES DECREE yet, then *I* would recommend reading that short story first before you read FATED LOVE.

In doing this deluxe version I decided to add that short story, AND do something similar in the fathers’ points of view. Since they’re the ones giving away their baby girls, I had to give them each a story here, and do it in the same vein as the mother’s stories. HOW THE FATHERS MADE IT HAPPEN is Ren, Michael, and Christopher’s points of view on what went down BEFORE that October fox hunting house party AND their part in allowing events to play out the way they did. This can be read AFTER the main book.

I hope you enjoy the Deluxe Version of Fated Love with the parents’ thoughts from before and after.

Sandy ;-)