Spotlight on Kris Kennedy's DECEPTION

So happy to be here with Eliza today, hanging with you, my fellow historical romance loving peeps!

I’ve got a new release this week, Deception!  Smugglers and sword fights and sexytimes, oh my! 

It’s a big, epic, hot-hot-hot medieval adventure, a second chance romance with an Irishman on a mission of revenge and the woman who can bring the whole thing crashing down around him.

First he loved her. Then he abandoned her.

Now he’s the only one who can save her.

The hero, Kier, is a black-hearted Irishman working a long con against some Very Bad Men who once tried to destroy him (there were smugglers’ huts and ropes and incinerating fires).   Kier rebuilt himself mind and body and now he’s back, on the hunt for retribution. Everything’s going according to plan…until Sophia shows up.

He’s shocked and stunned by the reappearance of the only woman he’s ever cared for (he can’t call it love…he doesn’t know the meaning of the word yet).  But Sophia has her own desperate plans too, and when she forces her way into his schemes, Kier is furious.

But Sophia is so very, very good at charming the people Kier needs charmed, and he’s a risk-taker to the bottom of his heart, so he’s not above using her. But he will never, ever protect her. It’s a most solemn vow.

I'm sure it’ll all work out.  After all, they're two adults, one on a mission of vengeance, the other on the run from the most dangerous men in England. They both want the same thing. Only one of them can have it.

Oh, and they want each other with a scorching hot desire that won't be denied. What could possibly go wrong??

Come find out!

http://www.kriskennedy.net/DeceptionAmazonw
http://www.kriskennedy.net/DeceptionKobow
http://www.kriskennedy.net/DeceptionNookw  

I thought you might like an excerpt!

***

DECEPTION

 ...Kier turned and stared through the open doorway at her.

He looked like sin. His hair was dripping dark and wet over his face. His clothes were molded to him, his tunic slack with rain, pressed to his body, his breeches tight, his black boots gleaming, as were the dark eyes he pinned on her.

“Where were you going, Sophia?”

His words were quiet and low, but they unleashed a shiver through her body, prickling her skin from chest to belly.

He advanced a step. “Where were you going with the ledger?”

“Kier,” she said in a low, warning tone.

He kicked the door shut behind him.

“Kier, stop,” she said firmly, but the resolve in her words was belied by the way she started backing up, one hand stretched out behind her, feeling for obstacles. She bumped into a bench and backed around it.

“Where were you going?” His eyes never left hers as he shoved the bench out of his way. “To Cosimo? Or had you others in mind? Perhaps you meant to sell it to the highest bidder?"

"Kier, stop."

"Surely you could have offered me rights of first refusal, could you not, now?” His Irish was getting stronger as his emotions ratcheted up. Jagged chills raked across her chest, a saw-edge of fear.

She shook her head wildly and tripped backward another step. The back of her knees hit the bed and she dropped onto it. “Kier, no, you must see—”

“See what? Perhaps you were evening the score, aye? I left you, now you leave me?”

She scooted across the bed, pushing with her elbows and heels. “No, ’tisn’t—”

He closed his fingers around her ankle.

“Oh, Jésu,” she whispered as he pulled her toward him, bundling the sheets beneath her, until she was laid out beneath his towering body.

His eyes were like fury, his face like stone. “You erred, lass,” he rasped.

She stifled a scream, kicked hard into him, and launched herself over the bed and took off running for the door. She made it two steps before his arm closed around her waist, stopping her like an iron bar. He yanked her back into his chest and the raw, barely-restrained power of him.

"You wanted to negotiate? Let's negotiate," he said, his breath hot in her ear.

***

I love big, sexy, adventure romances with reluctant heroes and smart, feisty women who push their buttons, so if you do too, you might like the stories too!

You can check out Deception right now!

http://www.kriskennedy.net/DeceptionAmazonw
http://www.kriskennedy.net/DeceptionKobow
http://www.kriskennedy.net/DeceptionNookw  

Unfortunately, iBooks and GooglePlay are being difficult, so they’re not live there yet. But you can sign up for the newsletter to get informed when they are!

And stop by the website for all links and loads of excerpts from all the books (including the first 4 chapters of DECEPTION!)

Kriskennedy.net

How about you?? What’s your favorite kind of historical romance?

Kris Kennedy is a USA Today bestselling author writing super sexy, adventure-laden historical romances set in England and Ireland during the ages when chivalry and bad boy knights reigned supreme.  They're hot, epic romances with big bad alpha heroes and strong, fiery heroines who aren't afraid of them (well maybe just a little afraid...)

Come on in and indulge!  Ride the king’s highway on horseback and visit smugglers caves. Travel to medieval France & England & Ireland, and get a taste of the Holy Lands. Visit sea towns shrouded in darkness...sneak into hidden caves...sail on ships…get snowbound in a firelit cottage with no one but a dangerous outlaw and the way he’s looking at you, firelight glinting in his eye.

You can do it all in the books!

Have fun in there!

Kriskennedy.net

Behind the Research Scenes of The King's Outlaw with Kris Kennedy

Welcome to History Undressed, guest author Kris Kennedy! I'm thrilled to have been part of an anthology with Kris that just released yesterday: Captured by the Celtic Warrior! Today, she's written a fun post on the history behind the dagger that features in our book! Enjoy!

Hi, I’m Kris Kennedy, and I’ve got a little ‘Behind the Research Scenes’ glimpse for you, from THE KING'S OUTLAW, in the Captured by a Celtic Warrior anthology that I’m doing with fab authors Eliza, Vonda Sinclair, and Jennifer Haymore!

The story is set in 1193, deep in the era of crusading knights and questionable chivalry, and despite all my research on this time period already, while researching THE KING’S OUTLAW, I learned still more!

One of the coolest things I got to research was the history of the Hashashin, the real, original Assassins.

This were a Nizari sect of Islam that formed in 11th century, lead by the "Old Man of the Mountain." They were a military order, but conducted high-level espionage and political murders through one class of their order, the "fida'i." These were young men, highly trained in many arts and skills, from combat to linguistics to espionage techniques.

Although they often conducted extremely public murders of high-ranking figures, to terrifying effect, they primarily worked covertly, in secret and quiet. They would assimilate into the towns and social worlds around their targets, sometimes for months on end.

They were immensely fond of using daggers, sometimes poisoned, both as a weapon and as a threat. They were legendary for sneaking into the tents of political opponents at night and leaving a dagger and a note lying on the pillow or the floor, right beside the body of leader they'd stood beside, undetected, in the dark.

One of many stories of their exploits: In 1092, upon his coronation, the new sultan of the Seljuk empire rebuffed a Hashashin ambassador. Bad idea. He woke up one morning soon after with a dagger stuck in the ground beside his bed. He didn't say anything about it--who wants to announce a weakness like that??--but a little while later, a messenger from the Assassins arrived, saying, "Did I not wish the sultan well that the dagger which was struck in the hard ground would have been planted on your soft breast."

Gotcha. For the next several decades there was a ceasefire between the Nizaris and the Seljuk.

Saladin, the Crusaders best opponent, was repeatedly targeted by the Assassins, and finally came to terms. Many, many Crusading leaders did as well. In fact, almost a hundred years later, Prince Edward—later to become King Edward I of England, the ’Hammer of the Scots’—was wounded by a poisoned Assassin's dagger in 1271 while he was crusading!

The reason all this entered my research lens during the writing of THE KING’S OUTLAW for the CAPTURED BY A CELTIC WARRIOR anthology is because there’s a jeweled dagger that runs though all four of our stories. Since my story was appearing first, I knew I wanted to set up a compelling, exciting ‘tale for it.  But I also had to keep the storyline relatively tight—no sprawling 400 pg epics here!    And of course, it had to be über-sexy. All within a ‘captured’ theme.

So, there I was, looking for a crusade-era story that did—or could—involve a dagger.  And I found the Assassins. 

In fact, not only did I find the Assassins, but I found them involved in the very public murder of about-to-be-crowned king of Jerusalem, Conrad of Montferrat, in 1192.  And more not onlys…when captured, the surviving Assassin claimed that Richard the Lionheart, King of England, had hired them to murder Conrad. The perfect tie-in!

Sometimes research can feel external, like a layer atop the story, but I like it best when it shapes and informs the story, when it’s so integral to the unfolding events that you couldn’t transplant it to any other time period.

I didn't get to use my research on the Assassins as I would have liked, so I might have more crusades-related stories in my future!

For more info on the anthology:

Amazon

Barnes and Noble

iBooks/ iTunes

Kobo

ABOUT KRIS KENNEDY…

Kris writes sexy, adventure-laden romances set in England and Ireland, during the ages when chivalry and knights reigned supreme. With hard alpha heroes, strong heroines, and loads of adventure, her books have won multiple awards, including DECEPTION, which received Romantic Times' Book Reviewers K.I.S.S. Hero Award, for the best historical hero of the year, and THE IRISH WARRIOR, which won the Romance Writers of America's® Golden Heart Award.

To learn more about Kris, visit her website at http://kriskennedy.net, find her on Facebook at https://facebook.com/kriskennedybooks, and on Twitter @KrisKennedy.

To get all the latest release news and deals, click here to sign-up for Kris's Book Alert newsletter.

Guest Author Kris Kennedy on Undressing the Heroine: Medieval Girls

Today I'd like to welcome back guest author Kris Kennedy to History Undressed!  Some of you may have read the Medieval Cookery blog, which Kris did with me a couple years ago. Since it published on HU, its been the most popular blog to date, and still gets hundreds of readers a week.  She's the author of sizzling and intriguing medieval romance--which I recommend you read, her books are awesome! Today, Kris is back to tantalize us with one of my favorite topics: historical clothing! 

Undressing The Heroine: Medieval Girls

By Kris Kennedy

A few weeks ago, Mia Marlowe came by and chatted about women’s dress in the Victorian age. I, though, write sexy stories set in the middle ages.

It’s difficult to imagine two eras more dissimilar. But there were still find important commonalities. Trappings change, technology advances, but what was important to people in 1215 was important in 1857 and is still important today: food, friendship, family…sex.

You knew that was coming, right? Clearly, one of the most important similarities shared among all time periods is this: heroes still have to undress their heroines.

Today we’re going to chat about this pressing issue, and I’ll run through what, exactly, our intrepid medieval hero will encounter as he attempts to do what romance heroes do so well: undress their heroines.

As with Victorian era, there were many fashion changes over the era considered ‘medieval,’ from gowns to headgear to footwear, from eye loops to buttonholes. So let’s focus on . . . oh, say the early 13th century, around the year 1215, the year of Magna Carta and, why, look at that, coincidentally the year Defiant is set.

First, our medieval hero is going to have a much easier job getting to the object of his desire than the Victorian hero.



copy of image permitted
credit to: http://etc.usf.edu/clipart



Assuming he is dealing with a lady of some means, he’s going to first have to remove the girdle, the gilded belt. It hung off the hips, circling the waist, dipping to a V low, usually over the abdomen, and cascading in a decorative fall to the knees or below. Made of hammered metal and precious stones, it would be gorgeous and lush. Often, suspended from it would be the keys to the home or castle. Nothing would be coming off until that did.

This is where the hero is going to begin his assault.

After that, his job gets a lot easier. He has two layers of tunics to get through, starting with an outer tunic, originally called a bliant, which came simply to be the surcoat. By the mid-century, there was even the daring sideless surcoat for women, cut to be form-fitting. It was laced up the back or sides. A brightly colored chemise would be worn, sweeping to the ground, and would show through the places on the sides.

Our hero is so getting in that way.

Sleeves were long, often beyond the wrist, to the knuckles or covering the entire hand. They were stitched tight at the wrist so the hands could still be used. (Buttons and buttonholes made their appearance in the West from about 1200 on, but probably weren’t used on wrists in 1215.) The hero would have to battle his way past these. Let’s hope he’d be gentle.

The sleeves of the outer tunic, on the other hand, began to hang quite long and wide, falling almost to the ground as time went on, creating a billow, luxurious look. Much later, they became mere thin bands of fabric, called tippets.

Once he’s through these, the hero’s job is pretty much done. Women wore hose, generally to the knee, either woolen or silk, held up by garters. No need for a Victorian-style slit in the pantlets; the entire skirt could just be flipped up at need, should the occasion require, ahem, quicker action.

And don’t be fooled in thinking the hero is flinging aside drab layers of linen and burlap as he works his way in. Women were highly decorated. (So were men and walls and food and saddles and sword hilts and…well, you get the picture) Ornamentation was the rule, not the exception. Valuable stones, precious metals, embroidery, and above all, color.

Gems decorated anything to which they could be affixed, including girdles and hair, brooches and purses. Fabrics were dyed bright, rich hues. Metalwork was intricate and expensive. Soft wool and silk, silk gauze and satins were dyed brightly, tempting and beguiling the hero.

So, remember to admire the romance hero in every era who has the determination and persistence to work his way through all the layers required to finally achieve the object of his desire.

Kris Kennedy writes sexy medieval romances for Pocket Books. Her latest, DEFIANT received a starred Publishers Weekly choice, and is out now. Her previous release, THE IRISH WARRIOR (Kensington, 2010), won RWA’s 2008 Golden Heart Award for Best Unpublished Historical Romance. You can find exclusive excerpts, newsletter sign-up, and more at the website: http://kriskennedy.net