“I see we have someone who cannot wait.” Regina pointed to the woman. “What is your burning question, my lady?”
An usher walked a microphone over to her.
“This is for Nora. I speak for many of us.” She gestured to the occupants of the room. “Will there be a sequel toEntering theMarriage Mart?”
Holding her personal microphone up, Nora winked and replied, “There’ll be two more books in the series.”
The attendees whooped, clapped, and let out a series of cat calls. They chanted, “Mal-colm. Mal-colm.”
Now I’m dying to know how much Malcolm is like his namesake.
On a whim, Sabrina pulled out her phone and began recording Nora and the panel.
This is going to be great PR footage for not only Nora, but all these authors. Readers who couldn’t be here are going to soak this up. Maybe I can use this to help them out somehow.
“My question is for Tia MacDonald. What inspired you to include the scene where the duke and his valet battle an army of chainsaw-wielding zombies?”
There is a type of Jane Austen story for everyone.
* * *
Sabrina leaned against the back wall of the room, grinning like the Cheshire Cat. “I counted a total of sixty people collecting your autograph.”
“It felt more like one hundred.” Nora massaged her right wrist with her left hand as she approached. “I need to get some blood circulation back into my arm. How was my brother? Was he offended? Angry? I couldn’t gauge his reaction.”
Sabrina shrugged. “He was amused by Lord Malcolm. I gave him a copy of the book to read on the flight back to Italy.”
“I’m going to have to tell Lucas before Lorenzo does.” Nora winced. “Lucas knows about the writing, but not about the character he inspired.”
“Is he still in Bath? I’d like to meet him in person.”
“No. He had to dart off to his family estate in Lincolnshire. He could only spare the one night with us.” Nora frowned. “Part of his arrangement with his father is that he spends at least half of his term breaks with them.”
For a fake engagement, Nora seems pretty upset about not being able to spend much time with him.
“Will he have time to see you again before he returns to Australia?”
“He’ll spend a week in July on Isola Nostrum with us.”
“That’s not long. Only a few more weeks.” Sabrina passed her a water bottle and her tote bag. “In the meantime, I have some other good news to share. Guess what your brilliant brother came up with?”
Sabrina recounted her earlier conversation with Lorenzo.
“That’s incredible news! I don’t know how either of us overlooked such a simple solution.”
They exited the empty room and paused in the lobby. Cardboard posters displayed the covers of the four Austen authors. Nora’s hand brushed over the text of her pen name.
“Oh! Let’s take a photo of you with the poster.” Sabrina reached for her camera. “Pretend you’re presenting it in the manner of a game show host.” She counted to three and captured Nora and the poster from a few different angles. “Go ahead and look them over. Make sure you like them. We’ll put the best one on your website.”
Nora cocked her head sideways. “I don’t have an author website.”
Sabrina clapped a hand over her mouth. “I’ve been working on building one up for you. It isn’t live yet, but I thought it would be important to your branding.”
“When did you have time to build an entire website?”
“On my off days.” Sabrina lowered her gaze. “It’s a way for me to fine tune some of my graphic design skills.”
“I prefer the up-close photo.” Nora secured her bonnet onto her head.
