Quilts and Books

5. Trouble at the Wedding / Laura Lee Guhrke . An impoverished Earl of dubious character is about to marry a wealthy American heiress from the backwaters of Mississippi. Her uncle hires an impoverished Duke, also of dubious character, to put a stop to the wedding. And thus begins this Edwardian-set historical that explores the British aristocracy's need for American money at the turn of the 20th century. Christian, the Duke and our hero, was married before and is determined to never marry again. Annabel is a smart and determined young woman who has a very business-like, practical approach to marriage. She wants to find a place in society specifically so her younger sister will never have to experience the social ostracism that Annabel experienced as a teen. Besides the setting, the best part of this book for me was Annabel who knew exactly what she was doing and why she was doing it. She understood how to use and make money and it was refreshing to see Christian come to her for ad...

Back in December, I read this post on The Passive Voice blog about how this self-published ebook became a best-seller. Author Darcie Chan had attempted to get this book published for years, but no one wanted it. And so one day, after reading about the success authors were having with self-publishing, she decided to do it herself. I believe it's been available since last spring. The full story of how she did it is worth reading. By the time the end of the year rolled around she'd sold over 400,000 copies, most of them at $0.99 each. I was impressed with Chan's rise to the best-seller ranks. I was also intrigued by the synopsis of her book: a wealthy, reclusive widow leaves her fortune to the people of the small town where she lived. I figured that for 99 cents I wouldn't be taking much of a risk and I bought it. So let me just say flat out that I ended up loving this book. It's not a romance, although there is a small romantic subplot. But I think this book w...