The Rules for Grown Ups by Shana Galen

I was probably born to be a teacher. My grandmother was a teacher and my aunts were teachers and from as far back as I can remember, my mom would say to me, “you should be a teacher.” This was inevitably during a time when I was bossing my little sister around. Hey, some people just need more direction, right?

I did become a teacher and taught for eleven years. There were definitely aspects of teaching I did not care for, but there were some I embraced without fail. The rules was one of these. Before my first year of teaching, I spent many hours thinking about my classroom rules—how many would I have (not too many!), how would I write them (as positive “Do” statements), and how would I enforce them (detention!)? I probably should have been thinking about what to do when a student cursed at me and threw his shoe at my head, but I was 23 and had no experience with inner city kids.

The hero of my next book, When You Give a Duke a Diamond, which releases September 1^st, has never been a teacher and he would have throttled that little punk without a second thought. But what Will, the sixth Duke of Pelham, does have in common with most teachers is that he has rules. Very strict, important rules.

Will lives his life by rules, which is true of all of us to some extent. We obey the rules of traffic, of social interaction, even of social media. But Will has what he calls Cardinal Rules, additional rules he has imposed on himself. Most kids can’t wait to be a grown up, so they don’t have to follow all of the rules anymore, but Will lives his life by rote and rule. He eats, sleeps, and works on a schedule. His first Cardinal Rule is that the schedule is to be preserved at all costs. His second Cardinal Rule is never fall in love.

You see where this is going, right? Because Will is going to meet Juliette, who scoffs at rules and scoffs at the Dangerous Duke.

Have you ever encountered a preposterous rule? I saw a picture on Facebook for a sign that said, “Warning: Do not walk on ceiling.” Good rule, but necessary? How about you?

He had a perfectly orderly life...

William, the sixth Duke of Pelham, enjoys his punctual, securely structured life. Orderly and predictable—that's the way he likes it. But he's in the public eye, and the scandal sheets will make up anything to sell papers. When the gossip papers link him to Juliette, one of the most beautiful and celebrated courtesans in London, chaos doesn't begin to describe what happens next...

Until she came along...

Juliette is nicknamed the Duchess of Dalliance and has the cream of the nobility at her beck and call. It's disruptive to have the duke who is the biggest catch on the Marriage Mart scaring her other suitors away. Then she discovers William's darkest secret and decides what he needs in his life is the kind of excitement only she can provide...