Hello Lynn & Peri!
Thank you so much for visiting Written Butterfly to talk
about your new release “Prohibited”! I
adore the Roaring Twenties so I wanted to get some information about your book.
Q: Could you tell us
a little about “Prohibited”?
Prohibited features a handsome owner of a speakeasy, when
prohibition is a watch word. He hides another secret, one that could get him
killed, given his public flaunting of societal conventions. When he meets a
modern woman who disapproves of his career choice, their courtship is stormy,
but it’s her innate sense of honor that saves him in the end.
Q: How much research
did you do for this book? Did you find any cool tidbits in your research?
Lynn Rae: I did a lot of research with period newspapers and
some secondary sources, especially when it came to women’s reproductive health.
In a former life I was an archivist and the Teens, Twenties, and Thirties were
decades I had a lot of experience with, so I relied on my own familiarity as
well. One interesting fact about the Twenties that plays a part in our book is
during that decade, the Ku Klux Klan was very popular in Ohio
and had ties to the Women’s Christian Temperance Union, the group that was
instrumental in bringing about the twenty-first amendment to the U.S.
constitution.
Q: Since you wrote
“Prohibited” together, how was that collaboration? Is it hard to write with a partner?
Lynn Rae: I didn’t find it difficult at all, it was great
getting to be creative with someone who ‘gets’ me. Writing is solitary work,
and it was so nice to have that immediate give and take with someone. It was
also great that we got a sexy book out of it too!
Q: I see that is this part of the “Forbidden Series”. Is the next book set in the Roaring
Twenties? Can you give a little hint
about what’s to come?
Peri Elizabeth Scott: The next book in the series is set
later in the twenties, when things are a tad less roaring as the country edges
toward the Great Depression. It features some of the characters from
Prohibited, another unlikely couple who are another wonderful example of how
love conquers all.
Blurb:
In the early 1920’s in Lima, Ohio, John
MacDonald Adair hides his speakeasy from the law, and his mixed heritage from
the KKK, mingling with the rich, piling up the cash and taking his pleasure
within the ranks of the flappers who patronize his speak.
Lilly Townsend is a serious, modern woman, a suffragette and temperance
advocate with nothing to hide and no patience for the frivolity of the times.
And she doesn’t break the rules—yet.
Such disparate souls should never meet, but Fate conspires otherwise. Powerless
against overwhelming chemistry, and something far deeper, Mac and Lilly must
make some difficult choices and face down societal mores—together—to attain
their happily ever after.
Excerpt:
Making her way up the wide stone steps to the
porch, Lilly shifted the pie to one hand and pressed the doorbell with the
other. There was a barely discernible chime through the leaded glass and walnut
door but no other sound. She waited and pressed the button again. The door
opened with a rattle and creak.
When she recognized the person glaring at her,
all the breath left her body in a gasp. It was Mac Adair. Of course. Of all the
people in Lima who
could have purchased this house next to hers, it would have to be that man.
He narrowed his eyes at her and propped his arm
across the door opening as if to deny her entrance. He was wearing a
soft-looking red shirt with far too many buttons unfastened, and sturdy black
trousers. When she realized he wasn’t wearing an undershirt and she could see
the tanned muscles of his chest, her arms weakened and the pie wobbled and
dropped from her useless hands.
Stifling a shriek, Lilly flailed for the pan but
it was too late to catch it. Spraying its contents, the pie landed on the porch
with a sickening squash and the entire pastry top cracked apart as reddish goo
welled up like heart’s blood. Scarlet gobbets clung to her forearms and the
front of her embroidered linen dress.
Horrified, she looked up to find Mac Adair still
staring at her, although his features had smoothed away from the frown he’d
worn earlier. The corners of his mouth twitched with disgust or amusement at
her predicament. Lilly knew her own mouth was gaping open but she was frozen
with embarrassment and powerless to close it.
****
Stricken might be too
strong a word for Mac to apply in this circumstance, but it came damn close.
Perhaps another might find humor in this beauty brought to her knees by some
version of slapstick, but he was mortified for her.
It wasn’t lost on
him, this neighborly gesture of welcome, although no doubt she’d have painted a
black daub on his door to warn others had she known he lived here after the way
he’d treated her in his speakeasy. Mac fumbled for his handkerchief.
“Here, let me…” He
squatted to reach out and pat the worst of the spill from her wrist then
thought better of it and offered the cloth to her to apply instead.
Trembling fingers
snatched it from his grasp, the slight contact sparking a frission of static up
his forearm. Lil patted at the sticky fruit and flakes of pastry, lips set in a
thin line as she visibly regained her composure. Not that her full, bee-stung mouth
could compress into a truly regimented grimace.
“Thank you.” A quiet, dignified murmur at
last. She raised her coffee brown eyes to his again, the long lashes sweeping
up to unveil returning self possession. His heart pounded harder, and another
part of his anatomy responded as well, refusing to listen to his brain scold.
As awkward as a boy
in the company of his first crush, Mac struggled to his feet, offering her the
hand not occupied with the detritus of the pie as he did so. Lil reached out to
take it, and their fingers met amidst the gooey residue as he helped her up. He
felt his lips twitching and registered a similar movement of Lil’s. Laughter
bubbled over, a welcome warmth that enveloped his senses, and he guffawed in
response.
“Mac Adair.”
“Lilly Townsend.”
“My pleasure to meet
you, Miss Townsend. Please come in and you can freshen up.”
“I think it will take more than a mere freshen up. And it’s Mrs. Townsend, but
please call me Lilly. After our two, um, disparate meetings…”
She was married? How had he missed that fine gold
band? Married to that sap.
“Ah—” What in hell
was that man’s name she was with last night? “So, Walter is your husband.”
“Walter? Heavens, no!
My husband passed four years ago.”
The rush of relief at
the news made his knees weak—he was a total bastard for welcoming such news.
“I’m sorry for your loss, Lilly.”
“Thank you.” She
stared at him expectantly and he shuffled backwards into the foyer. Lilly
gracefully followed, only to come up short.
“Do you have a powder
room on the main floor?”
“There’s a newly
constructed bath just off the foyer.”
Carefully disposing
of the ruined pie in his sterile kitchen, he hustled back to the porch with a
rag and a small basin of water. He hadn’t cleaned a floor on his knees in,
well, ever, but the flies were gathering.
When Lilly emerged,
the stuff of her dress sported large, spreading damp spots tinged with an unfortunate
hue of pink, the same hint of blush remained on her cheeks.
“I had no idea you
were my aunt and uncle’s new neighbor.” The frost was back in her tone.
“Or you wouldn’t have
deigned to make me a welcome to the neighborhood pie. Let alone cross the threshold.”
Damn it, he was biting back as a dog snaps at flies.
She flinched at his
comment and held her head even higher. “I definitely wouldn’t have. You own a
speakeasy! Your reputation—”
“My reputation? I’m a businessman, Mrs. Townsend. I serve the public,
at least those who seek my services. And if memory serves, you were in my speak
just last night. How might that have impugned your reputation, I wonder? Or
perhaps it reflected who you are beneath the trappings.”
If he could have
ripped out his tongue by its very roots he would have done. Lilly’s breasts
lifted and fell rapidly in response to his set down and he tore his eyes away
from that bewitching sight to meet her very hurt gaze, swiftly being hidden by
outrage and disdain.
“I know who I am beneath my trappings.
Mr. Adair. Who or what do you hide behind yours? My slight lapse in judgment
last evening, correction, serious lapse in judgment won’t be repeated. Of that
I can assure you!”
Hell’s teeth, she was
lovely! All flashing eyes and high color. He couldn’t resist pushing her
harder.
“I knew my first
impression of you was correct.”
She sputtered. It was
fascinating to observe, those succulent lips parting with fury.
“If you consider
calling me priggish and straight-laced an insult, sir, you’re sorely mistaken.
I’m simply fine with your assessment. At least I’m contributing to the moral
compass of this world, unlike some people who undermine the very fabric
of—oomph.”
It was just too much.
Too much of everything. She had slipped a verbal dagger between his ribs and
pierced his conscience. Coupled with her intense appeal, he felt pushed over
the brink and reacted to both quiet her and soothe his abraded soul.
Her wealth of hair
spilled from its gathered twist on the back of her head as he pulled her
roughly into his arms, soft curves imprinting against his chest. He caught a
glimpse of her wide, startled eyes before taking her mouth with his own in
fierce possession, plundering the seam of her lips. Groaning with the effort of
suppressing his lust—he longed to sweep her up and carry her into the parlor
where a fainting couch reposed—Mac contented himself with kissing them both
senseless.
Buy Links:
Author links:
Author Bios:
Peri Elizabeth Scott lives in Manitoba, Canada. She and her
husband have a wonderful son, and a house full of animals. She recently closed
her part time private practice as a social worker and child play therapist to
spend more time with her husband. Peribeth has written for years, mostly short
stories and poetry, and reads everything she can lay her hands on. She has just
begun to pen contemporary romance, although has published dark erotica under
another pen name.
Lynn Rae makes her home in land-locked
central Ohio after time spent in the former Great Black Swamp, beside the Ohio
River, and along the Miami and Erie Canal. With professional experience
in fields ranging from contract archaeology to librarianship along with making
donuts and teaching museum studies, Lynn enjoys incorporating her quirky sense
of humor and real-life adventures into her writing (except the naughty bits). She writes sci-fi, contemporary, and
historical romances.
But Sky never forgot and when you head back to town, you find Sky isn't merely your old friend. He's a man now...smokin' hot, with muscles and intense eyes that haunt you. Although he's the Sheriff, he's got more kink than you knew was possible because Sky knows how to use his handcuffs in more ways than one.
