Please help me welcome author Michelle McLean to my blog today. She’s going to talk to us about her Blood Blade Sisters series, a twist on the classic Robin Hood tale. The blog is yours, Michelle.

Thanks so much for having me on your blog today, Margery!

I just had a new book release, A Bandit’s Broken Heart, and one thing people often ask me is how I decide where to set my stories.

I’ve always been a huge history nut. I even got my bachelor’s degree in History and loved every second of studying different time periods. One of the great things about writing historical romances is getting to immerse myself in long ago times and places.

For my Blood Blade Sisters series, I wanted a setting that I hadn’t seen very often. The series is about three sisters who become Robin Hood-type figures in order to save their ranch and their town from their corrupt half-brother, the sheriff. I was already throwing a twist into the Robin Hood tale by making the main characters women. I wanted even more of a twist and thought about how fun it would be to make them Wild West Robin Hoods. I grew up in California near the old Gold Rush towns, so it was a location I was both familiar with and really loved. And so the setting for book one, A Bandit’s Stolen Heart, was born 🙂

Book Two, A Bandit’s Broken Heart, (and the newest release), centers on the eldest sister, Brynne. Brynne has a hard time of it in book one and book two finds her starting a new life in a town as far away from her Californian home as she could get. I knew I needed something far away, but I also wanted a place that would have a lot of culture, an elite society that would be hard to be a part of if you’d been raised on a ranch in the wilds of California. So I chose Boston, which gave me the opportunity to do a ton of research, something I weirdly love to do 😀 Brynne is very much a fish out of water in this story and it was fun to pit her feisty country girl-ness with the refined Bostonian elites.

For book three, I needed another vastly different location…but I wanted to keep the story set in the United States. So Lucy, the youngest sister, will have her story played out in the South, a location where I lived for several years and so am very familiar with. It will be fun to see her in such a different setting.

But for now, readers can follow Brynne to Boston and see how she fares as she tries to rebuild her life.
Here is the blurb for A Bandit’s Broken Heart, along with the book trailer if you’d like to get a little peek of what’s in store for Brynne.

A woman with a past

Widowed mother, Brynne Forrester, gave up her bandit activities when she left California to make a fresh start with her young daughter in Boston. Working for a handsome doctor fulfills her need to be useful and independent, but he creates another yearning she can’t deny.

A man with a purpose

Dr. Richard Oliver assumes Brynne is just another debutante hunting for a rich husband, until she intrigues him with her steady hand for stitches…and guns. He can’t put her out of his mind, but the young widow has mysteries he’s determined to unravel.

A love in danger

When smugglers raid much-needed supplies from the clinic, Brynne must resurrect her bandit persona for the good of the sick and the poor. Her secret life threatens to destroy everything she’s worked so hard to protect…her life, her family and her heart.

About the Author:

I spent 98% of my formative years with my nose in a book indulging in my love of reading and research. Expanding that love into writing was inevitable. I have a B.S. in History, a M.A. in English, and tend to be a bit of an organized mess with an insatiable love of books and more weird quirks than you can shake a stick at.

I am the author of the historical romances To Trust a Thief, and the Blood Blade Sisters trilogy, and the non-fiction Homework Helpers: Essays and Term Papers. If I’m not editing, reading or chasing my kids around, I can usually be found in a quiet corner working on my next book. I currently reside in PA with my husband and two kids, an insanely hyper dog, and two very spoiled cats.

Where to find Michelle:
Website  |  Blog  |  Twitter  |  Facebook  |  Goodreads  |  Tumblr  |  Pinterest  |

To read Chapter One of A Bandit’s Broken Heart, Click HERE

Buy Links:
Amazon  |  B&N  |  iBooks  |  Kobo |  All Romance eBooks

Thanks so much for visiting, Michelle. I’m a huge history buff, too, and I love the idea behind this series!

[wysija_form id=”1″]