The WINNER of Teresa's Imperial Scandal is Lysette Lam. I've emailed Lysette.

It's my privilege to introduce another guest on my INVITATION TO ROMANCE  blog tour, Teresa (Tracy) Grant.  Teresa has been making up stories as long as she can remember and writing them down since third grade when they were assigned writing a story in class and she realized she had a wealth of characters and plots inside my head. Since then Teresa has gone on to publish over fifteen novels, her latest, Imperial Scandal (April 2012), received a 4 star review from RT book Review...

Vienna is a whirlwind of balls and espionage as Napoleon’s troops draw closer to Brussels in the wake of the emperor’s escape from Elba. Wellington prepares for battle, while Malcolm and Suzanne are caught up in a murder the night Malcolm meets with a French spy and is shot at, when they discover the body of quiet, well-respected Lady Julia Ashton. What was the woman doing in the garden? Spying? As the chaos of battle takes over the city, Malcolm and Suzanne try to piece together the reasons for Julia’s death. They’re drawn into a hunt for a killer. Secrets are everywhere, and they begin to wonder if there is anyone they can trust.

Teresa has kindly agreed to share a snippet of her latest release and to offer a copy of Imperial Scandal to one commenter who can tell her what genre you love reading and why? [CLUE SIXTEEN: TO]

Welcome Teresa!

Thank you for having me on Regency Seductions blog today. Like most writers, I'm often asked "where do your ideas come from?"

The answer is all over the place - an intriguing research fact about an historical character or event, a present-day newspaper article that stirs ideas about the past, a night at the opera, a movie or play that prompts me to think "what if…", an idea from an earlier book in the series. In the case of my recent release, Imperial Scandal, I knew I was going to take my hero and heroine, Malcolm and Suzanne Rannoch, from the glamour of Vienna in the previous book, Vienna Waltz, to Brussels on the brink of the battle of Waterloo. But the idea for the plot began with a the image of a scene, which became the opening scene in the book. Malcolm leaving a ball in Brussels to go to a rendezvous with a fellow spy at a deserted château. An ambush. Unexpected results. The story unfolded from there.

Here's the scene as it plays out in the finished book. I'll be giving away a signed copy of Imperial Scandal to a commenter on today's post.

Chapter One
Outside Brussels, Belgium Wednesday, 14 June 1815, 1:00 am

Malcolm Rannoch swung down from his horse in the moonlit courtyard. His kid-soled dress shoes made a soft thud on the flagstones. He patted his horse’s sweat-dampened neck. It had been a hard half-hour ride from Brussels. A mere half hour. Odd to think that little more than thirty minutes ago he had been holding his wife in his arms, waltzing in the British ambassador’s candlelit ballroom. Odder still to think that he had been waltzing at all, rather than hiding out in the library behind the fortifications of a book or newspaper. The past six months had changed him a great deal. Or perhaps the change was owed to his wife.

He slid his hand beneath the Bath superfine of his evening coat and drew out his pistol. The man he was meeting was a friend. In theory. But with the Allied army headquartered round Brussels, and the French army under the recently restored Napoleon Bonaparte in Paris, only a few days’ march away, one never knew.

He drew his mare, Perdita, into the shadows of the gatehouse and gave one last pat to her forehead. She nuzzled his hand in response. No need to worry she wouldn’t stay where bidden.

The moonlight threw a blue-black sheen on the flagstones and showed the outline of the old iron gate. He turned the handle and eased the gate open. The loamy scent of earth damp and the fragrance of roses and violets greeted him. He paused for a moment to get his bearings, to pick out the dark lines that delineated hedges and benches and statuary. The solid dark blur to his right was the château itself. He could see the lacy filigree of a balcony railing against the lighter stone of the walls.

He stepped forward along the pale line of a gravel path and gave a low sound close enough to the call of a thrush to fool all but the most adept ornithologist. No answering call greeted him. Well, though there wasn’t enough light to see his pocket watch, he was probably a bit early. Wellington had been most insistent when he gave him the message, and he’d ridden hard.

He leaned against the trunk of what he thought was a lime tree, secure in the shadows. A gust of wind rippled through the trees. An owl hooted. A real owl? No way to be certain.

Ten minutes had passed if he counted correctly. He reached beneath his coat and unhooked the watch his wife had given him their second Christmas together. As he snapped it open, his thumb slid over the quote from Romeo & Juliet inscribed on the inside cover. He peered at the dial, his eyes now more accustomed to the moonlight. Nearly one-fifteen. La Fleur was almost a quarter hour late. Anyone could be delayed, especially these days. But in the two months he had been giving intelligence to the British, La Fleur had been almost painfully punctual.

A faint creak sounded from the shadows, followed by three thrush calls in quick succession. Malcolm stepped away from the tree.
“Sorry. Had to reconnoiter.” Jean La Fleur, for the past two months one of their best sources of intelligence within the French army, stepped into the garden. He moved without haste, his pale hair gleaming in the moonlight. A few feet off, he stopped and scanned Malcolm in the shadows, taking in the evening coat and white net pantaloons and silver-buckled shoes.

“Dancing?” La Fleur’s voice had the ironic lift of a soldier addressing a civilian.

“All in a day’s work. Where else does one collect intelligence?”

“I could name you some possibilities. More interesting than a ballroom.” La Fleur leaned his arm against a stone statue that looked to be some sort of Greek goddess and cast a glance at the house. “What is this place anyway? Something Wellington keeps for assignations?”

“The property of one of our Belgian allies. Conveniently empty and conveniently close to Brussels.” Malcolm studied La Fleur in the shadows. The negligent line of his arm, the self-assured tilt of his shoulders. In all their months of dealings, of passing papers and money back and forth, Malcolm had never asked the Frenchman what drove him to betray his comrades. The thought left a faint tang of distaste in Malcolm’s mouth. Which was absurd. What was intelligence if not betrayal, often of multiple people at once? “La Fleur? What’s happened? Wellington said you indicated it was urgent.”

La Fleur shook his head. “Sounds like a cliché, doesn’t it, but for once I don’t think I’m exaggerating. Listen, Rannoch—”
Malcolm grabbed La Fleur’s arm and went still, senses keyed to every creak and vibration in the garden. Then he heard the sound again. A faint scrape and stir. Not an animal. Boot steps. In the garden of the supposedly empty château.
Malcolm leveled his pistol.

Excerpted from Imperial Scandal by TERESA GRANT Copyright © 2012 by Tracy Grant. Excerpted by permission of KENSINGTON BOOKS. All rights reserved. No part of this excerpt may be reproduced or reprinted without permission in writing from the publisher.

WOW - the book sounds fabulous and the cover is delicious. Thanks for sharing Teresa and for offering a copy to the person who tells her their favorite genre and why?

About Teresa:

Teresa (Tracy) Grant studied British history at Stanford University and received the Firestone Award for Excellence in Research for her honors thesis on shifting conceptions of honor in late fifteenth century England. She lives in the San Francisco Bay Area, where she is on the board of the Merola Opera Program, a training program for professional opera singers, coaches, and stage directors. She is currently at work on more books chronicling the adventures of Malcolm and Suzanne Rannoch/Charles and Mélanie Fraser.