Ten days ago, I turned the manuscript in for Put Up Your Duke, the second book in the Dukes Behaving Badly series. My editor has already read it (!), and there are minimal edits (!!), so I will be turning edits in for that plus my novella, When Good Earls Go Bad, on November 1. If my head doesn’t explode.

I have a newsletter sign-up as well at my website, meganframpton.com. The sign-up thingy is just to the right on the home page, and I promise not to deluge my subscribers with too many newsletters, mostly because that would be work I don’t want to do.

Meanwhile, I’ve been working on another proposal, further adventures in the Dukes Behaving Badly series, and this duke is entirely staid and doesn’t behave badly at all until he meets the heroine. He’s a fun character to get to know. Here’s a smidge of it thus far:

          “Yes.”

So easy to say, Lasham thought. And lord knew he heard it enough. Did dukes ever hear the word ‘no?’

The answer to that, of course, would be “no.”

He stared out at the crowd on the dance floor, a milling whirl of men and women, the best people of his Society, all of who had likely said “yes” to him at some point or another. Or at least wanted to, if asked.

Lasham took too big a swallow of his wine, knowing his headache would only be exacerbated by the alcohol, but unwilling to forego the pleasure of being able to suspend his constantly analyzing brain for a few minutes of blessed numbness.

He knew he had nothing to complain about (“Is there anything about which you’d like to complain, Your Grace?” “No.”), but he wished he weren’t constantly on display, constantly reminded of his Dukeliness with every “yes.”

And I’ve been reading, too! Of course. Because I always read. I joined the Old School Romance Book Club started by Sarah MacLean, and am currently reading Julie Garwood’s The Bride, which is great fun (I also got to read Sarah’s upcoming release, Never Judge a Lady by Her Cover, which was incredible).

I hope everyone is having a wonderful weekend!

Megan

I’ve been absent, lo these many weeks, while on deadline for the second book in my Dukes Behaving Badly series. And now I’ve got it (sort of) finished, and I also have a title–Put Up Your Duke.

Yes, the dukely hero also boxes, as dukes do (!). He is in a marriage of convenience, and because he and his new duchess have not yet, um, done things, he heads out to the boxing saloon each morning to punch away his frustration.

Eventually, his wife asks him for boxing lessons, and that is fun, too. And then she punches someone she dislikes immensely, and takes great satisfaction in that.

Other than that, I’ve been caught up in the delicious drama of Outlander, anticipating Sleepy Hollow’s return, LOVING The Knick (starring my fave, Clive Owen), and doing a lot of reading (yay for a long subway commute!).

How is everyone doing?

This is my hero.

While I can’t claim to have thought of the idea first–Seinfeld was famous for being “a show about nothing,”–I can say that I am proudly writing a book about nothing.

It doesn’t work out so well, it seems, when I try to put too much plot in there. So I am writing a book about a gentleman who succeeds somewhat unexpectedly to a dukedom, and finds that the dukedom comes with a duchess–a woman whose parents have entered into agreements to wed her to the man affiliated with the title, no matter who the man is.

It’s a Marriage of Convenience story, and there’s no big villain, or big misunderstanding, or traumatic life or death issues at stake; merely the happiness of two people who are already relatively comfortable in life, at least in terms of their circumstances.

It’s hard to keep the focus purely on the relationship, but I’m a quarter of the way in, and so far, it seems to be okay. I like stories about nothing but the relationship, although I definitely envy authors who can add plot and not make it seem incredibly lame.

Plot will find its way in somehow, it usually does, but meanwhile, I have two characters who have to come to know one another, trust one another and, eventually, love one another.

What other ‘books about nothing’ have you loved?