I’ve been tagged in another blog hop!

This blog hop highlights a main character from an author’s work-in-progress (WIP) or recently published or soon-to-be-published work. I was tagged by the witty and always fascinating Karysa Faire, who has a sexy character named Rodger in her WIP Swashbuckler, but she decided to introduce Hannah on this blog hop, a character from an entirely different book in a projected series that sounds absolutely wonderful. I’ve put all her links at the end of this post.

Now on to meeting one of my characters…

1) What is the name of your character? Is he/she fictional or a historic person?
Joseph Phillips. He’s a fictional person in a historical setting.

2) When and where is the story set?
Mainly in England – Lincolnshire and London – in 1860. There are some bits in Southampton and New York City.

3) What should we know about him/her?
Visually, Joseph is tall and brawny with light brown hair and gray eyes flecked with brown, perhaps slightly imposing upon first sight – or exceptionally handsome, especially if one is an eighteen-year-old bored debutante. He is 21 years old, with experience far beyond his years. He prefers women, likes men, and willing to try both at once.

He’s American, from New York City, and a former dock worker with an enterprising idea about the burgeoning mid-Victorian railway industry. Fortunately he’s made contacts with some influential people, including British aristocrat Arthur Harwell, the Earl of Petersham. Arthur is so impressed he decides to form a corporation and finance Joseph’s project. Joseph is rather grateful for all of this. <Ahem.>

Joseph is unassuming as he tries to hold his own in the midst of upper-class British society. Yet, while he may be quiet, he is always listening and observing, so evil doers beware!

4) What is the main conflict? What messes up his/her life?
Joseph falls in love with Arthur’s sister, Lady Sophia, a debutante who is a little too willing to be in Joseph’s arms. Unfortunately Sophia has been promised to a duke. Things get really messed up when the duke turns out to be the worst kind of villain and Joseph is compelled to take matters into his own hands. But class differences and the expectations of the aristocracy get in the way. Eventually Joseph realizes he can’t save Sophia alone.

5) What is the personal goal of the character?
That changes during the course of the book! He starts out just wanting to make a successful business out of his railway ideas, but ends up needing to save Sophia.

6) Is there a working title for this novel, and can we read more about it?
The book is called Disobedience by Design, and is Book 2 of my Harwell Heirs series. It was my 2012 National Novel Writing Month novel with the working title Lord Petersham’s Contract.
A much older Joseph was first introduced in The Pleasure Device, Book 1 of the Harwell Heirs series. Disobedience by Design, which takes place in 1860, is the prequel to The Pleasure Device, which takes place in 1879. There is a planned sequel, Where Destiny Plays, that takes place in 1880 and Joseph will be in that one as well.

7) When can we expect the book to be published?
It was published by Ellora’s Cave on July 25, 2014, and hit number 9 on Amazon’s Victorian Erotica Best Seller Top 100 in the first week of release! It is available in eBook form. All buy links can be found on my website.

More about the Meet My Characters blog hop!

I was tagged by Karysa Faire
Karysa Faire is a writer of the romantic, the unseen, the other worldly and the (sometimes) horrific. Residing in Northern California with her daughter, dog, cat, and snake, she reads when she can and cleans house when she has to. She’s currently working on Hannah’s Heart, the first in a series of five friends who find love as foretold.
Karysa introduced Hannah in her Meet My Characters post:
Follow her:
Karysa Faire Author on Facebook
@KarysaFaire on Twitter

I’ve tagged Raina Schell who will be posting on her blog on August 18th:
Raina Schell lives in an undisclosed location near Marin County, California with her secret boyfriend, invisible dog and a fish named Larry.
After being on the lam for the past 8 years Raina is finally coming close to completing her first novel, a paranormal romance/urban fantasy that may or may not be titled Exquisite Destiny and may or may not be the first stand-alone book of a projected 3 book series.
In the field of writing, non-novel specific: Raina has written and produced dozens of television segments and half-hour television shows. These have aired on local, national and international TV stations which will not be disclosed. For fun she’s also written un-optioned screenplays, a maverick movie trailer and countless blogs.
When Raina is not writing she has other jobs that she isn’t nearly as passionate about.
Follow her:
Raina Schell Writer on Facebook
@RainaSchell on Twitter
Raina Schell Writer Blog

[Full disclosure: I am not entirely certain Raina has a fish.]