Race to the Finish

June 29th? Im. Possible.

Ok, not impossible, but the summer has flown by so quickly that I can hardly believe July is almost here. I've been keeping busy with my upcoming releases from Sourcebooks: the Romance of the Turf series, focusing on a talented but troubled family at the heart of Newmarket's Thoroughbred-racing scene. 

I've just finished copyedits on the introductory novella, "The Sport of Baronets," which will be out in January. In February comes the first full-length novel, A Gentleman's Game--which I finished revising at the beginning of June. (My editor likes it! Yay!) The second novel is due in September, so I'm working on that now.

Not that I've spent the whole summer at a computer so far. Last weekend, Little Miss R and I took a trip out of state for a family reunion. While she played on a water slide, I caught up with my relatives--including one of my aunts, who gave me a manila envelope full of childhood "treasures" I had sent to her over the years. Here's one of them:

I drew this around the time I turned six, before I was apparently aware that people had noses. The names of the horses--as printed on their tack, because why not--are "Hish," "Dewey Ann," "His," "Han," "May," and "Red." 

I'm troubled by the fact that only one of the horses has a jockey. Did the rest buck theirs off? Han's behavior seems to indicate yes. In addition, May appears to be kicking a toy horse, or maybe that's my youthful mastery of perspective.

Considering my early fascination with racing, the Romance of the Turf series was an inevitable step in my writing career. :) Each romance will have a horse race in it--though with far more jockeys than this picture shows. And the horses will have much stranger names, too. As the hero of "The Sport of Baronets" says, "What a sad world it would be if the name of a racehorse had to make sense."

I hope you all enjoy the new series! I'll be posting info on the Books page of my website as soon as I can share more. You can also sign up for my newsletter to be sure you get the latest scoop before anyone else: http://theresaromain.com

Happy summer to you all! And if you find yourself in a horse race, keep a hand on your nose to make sure it doesn't vanish.

Historical romance author Theresa Romain pursued an impractical education that allowed her to read everything she could get her hands on. She then worked for universities and libraries, where she got to read even more. Eventually she started writing, too. She lives with her family in the Midwest. Find her at theresaromain.com or on Facebook or Twitter.