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#Holiday Romance, alpha male, Author, blogger, Cathy Skendrovich, Christmas, faithful, guest, hero, historical, historical fiction, Historical romance, Holidays, love story, New Release, pirate, pirates, release day, rich, romance, Sexy, willing
Welcome aboard, Author Cathy Skendrovich. We’re super jazzed you’ve come to share your new release with us today. Holidays and pirates! What’s not to love, eh? And you’re bringin’ ’em both. Huzzah!!!
Lady Cathy: Ahoy, and thank you for having me aboard, Lady Katherine!
For those of you who don’t know me, I write historical and contemporary romance. Today I’ll be talking about one of my favorite characters, pirate captain Andre Dubois, and giving you five reasons why you’ll fall in love with him in my Christmas novella entitled The Pirate Bride’s Holiday Masquerade, coming from Literary Wanderlust publishers on Oct. 1st. You first meet him in my novel The Pirate’s Bride, when he is forced to marry Sophie Bellard, a spitfire with whom he eventually falls in love. He’s an extreme Alpha male of whom readers, and Sophie, can’t seem to get enough. Read on for a few reasons you might want him for yourself.
- He’s sexy as hell, and the things he doesn’t know in the bedroom wouldn’t even fill a thimble. He’s willing to try anything, yet he’s patient with his much more inexperienced wife. He makes sure she’s satisfied before himself, and he doesn’t roll over and snore once he’s finished. He actually engages in pillow talk. He’s even knowledgeable in birth control, something most men didn’t even consider back then. Andre truly is a man ahead of his time.
- Andre treats a woman equally. That isn’t to say he doesn’t go all Alpha and demand she follow some of his rules. He is a captain, after all. However, he encourages Sophie to learn to protect herself, to learn how to get more speed from her ship, and, most importantly, to face an enemy from her past. He wants her to be the best person she can be, regardless of her sex.
- He’s faithful. Once a lady’s man, Andre only has eyes for Sophie now. He’s so in love with her he wouldn’t dream of cheating on her, and gets angry when his father baits him about it. He has no qualms saying he thinks he would die without her. While some men balk at saying those three important words, Andre tells Sophie he loves her numerous times a day.
- He’s rich. Even though that’s not a requirement in loving a man, it’s still a good quality. An even better quality is that he’s generous. What’s his is hers. Even though he lives during a time when women were the property of men, he shares the wealth. His home, his plunder, and his money is Sophie’s for the asking. He looks at riches to be enjoyed, not hoarded away. Besides, he likes the fact that she can pillage and plunder as well as he can, which goes back to treating women equally.
- He’s willing to do things he doesn’t like. Have you ever asked your husband to go to an opera, or a musical, and he flatly refuses? In The Pirate Bride’s Holiday Masquerade, Sophie wants to throw a Christmas masquerade ball, complete with minuets, and Andre agrees. He may not be happy about it, actually hates to dance, but he agrees to the shindig because he sees how important the party is to his wife.
Captain Andre Dubois is an unusual man. On the one hand, he’s an Alpha male who takes pride in his abilities in the bedroom, and on the open sea. Yet readers see a tender, loving side to him whenever he is with Sophie. Add the two halves of his personality together, and you can understand why it is easy for readers to fall in love with Captain Andre Dubois of The Pirate Bride’s Holiday Masquerade, available Oct. 1.
Which one of these five traits do you think is the most important in a man?
Pirate captains Sophie and Andre Dubois have finally reunited and are enjoying marital bliss. However, their good fortune wanes when Sophie contracts a mysterious illness. Andre is at a loss for how to help his wife, so when she asks to return to La Nouvelle-Orléans to throw a masquerade ball for Christmas, he doesn’t hesitate to acquiesce.
Once on land, Sophie regains her strength, and preparations for the party begin. Those plans take a dark turn when an old enemy reappears. Sophie is left to make the choice between her honor and her husband’s life. Will she have the strength to make the right decision?
~ Excerpt ~
“Sophie? Sophie Bellard? Is that really you?”
Sophie’s head snapped up at the sound of the unforgettable voice from her past, while her purse fell to the cobbled street from suddenly nerveless fingers. Her body began to shudder and vibrate at the nightmare that was Gilbert Harrington’s silky voice.
She felt faint, in danger of collapsing, her past hurtling toward her like an out-of-control mining cart threatening to jump its track. She reached out a steadying hand against the brick wall of the flower shop.
No longer did she occupy a cobbled street of the Vieux Carré during Avent. She’d been transported, trembling and afraid, to that time, five years ago, when she’d lost her innocence. Her innocence, and her youth. Just the sound of his voice, the timbre and its cadence, was enough to catapult her into a shivering mass of fear and dread.
She had no defense, carried no weapon. How could she? Gone was her pirate garb, her protective armor. In its place, she wore silk and brocade, gilt buttons and a feathered hat. There was no hiding place for a deadly dagger or a one-shot pistol. Just as there was no devilish pirate to come swinging in on a line, clenching a curved blade between his teeth and racing to her rescue. She was his defenseless prey.
As she continued to stare dumbly at the man before her, one part of her mind, not frozen in fear, noticed that Gilbert Harrington hadn’t changed much in five years. He’d bulked up slightly, bore a man’s frame instead of a youth’s, and his eyes glittered like hardened chips of ice.
Gone was the thin, gentlemanly veneer he’d used to woo a star-struck young girl experiencing the first throes of romance. In its place stood a man used to getting what he wanted with little or no resistance; a man stimulated and aroused by feminine defiance. She recognized these traits after living in the company of men for those same five years. Recognized, but could not articulate a properly scathing response.
Like a predatory shark, he moved in, grabbing hold of her upper arm in a tight grip and leaning forward until his mouth rested mere inches from her ear. “I remember you, Sophie. I remember every moment we were together like it was yesterday. Every touch, every sound, every movement.”
His hand began to smooth up and down her brocade-covered arm in an unsettling caress. She remained statue-still, incoherent whimpers erupting from her throat. This could not be happening. He could not be standing here, in her present life. But he was, she acknowledged through the haze of fear blanketing her, as she stared straight into his smiling visage. He stepped back a short pace.
Cathy Skendrovich likes writing romance because she feels it’s lacking in today’s technological world. While she enjoys writing contemporary stories, creating romance in bygone times fascinates her. She hopes her ability to write in both genres will be the beginning of a long and satisfying writing career.
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As a reminder, Lady Cathy asked, which one of these five hero traits do you think is the most important in a man? I’ll take all five in one hero please!!! (Pirate!)
****Treasure Alert**** Cap’n is giftin’ one lucky commenter here an ecopy of Cathy Skendrovich’s new release, The Pirate Bride’s Holiday Masquerade!!! Comment below for a chance to win!
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