Release Blitz w/Review: Lady of the Night by Emilie Richards

Lady of the Night by Emilie Richards

Emilie Richards (June 15, 2018)

Romantic Suspense/Mystery & Suspense

BLURB

The fragile young woman, lying comatose in the ward of City Hospital in New Orleans, has no name and no memories. When she finally awakens, the one thing she can remember is a man’s voice calling her back to consciousness. In all his years of training, no one has touched psychologist Joshua Martane in the same way, and he is determined to help her. Suspected prostitute. Near victim of a serial killer. Mystery surrounds who she is–and who she isn’t. One thing is certain. Joshua realizes he has become entranced with the woman he names Maggie. Therapists should never be involved with their patients, but Maggie quickly becomes more to him. Whatever her secrets, Joshua knows he has to help her find answers. For both their sakes.

Lady of the Night was originally published in the 1980s, edited & revised to fit in with today’s language. The setting is Pre-Katrina New Orleans.

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REVIEW

I’ve read Emilie’s women’s fiction. This is the first of romantic suspense by her that I’ve read. A suspected “Lady of the Night” found beaten and left to die has no memory of who and what she is. Her therapist has an immediate reaction to her as soon as she is brought into the hospital and does all he can to help her, while trying to maintain a distance. I thought it was well written, interactions between all the characters were interesting, and layers were uncovered in a well-timed way; not too fast, not too slow. The two following books in the series are Josh’s friends Sam and Skeeter which you meet in this book.

Reviewed by Comfy Chair Books/Lisa Reigel 6/15/18

Author’s Note

Once upon a time, in a publishing galaxy far, far away, I wrote two romantic suspense novels set in New Orleans. I was living in the city at the time and loved writing and researching both books. They were my first forays into suspense, and very different plots for me. Sadly, like all series romance novels, both were at bookstores for only four weeks, then they disappeared.

Fast forward to publishing today. A few years ago Lady of the Night and Bayou Midnight, the sequel, traveled across galaxies to my loving care once again. I was so glad to become reacquainted with my characters and stories.

Now what to do?

Time passes and styles change. My writing had changed, too, and I had moved away from romance to women’s fiction. Both books needed to be updated and revised, but I knew right away they were worth it. More important, in order to finish the series, they needed the companionship of a third book, Night Magic, which I had planned to write, but never did. Unfortunately, Skeeter, the third of three childhood friends who grew up on the streets of New Orleans, was just a bit too much the bad boy for my publisher at the time. Although I didn’t agree, I had to move on, and Skeeter’s book languished.

Now I was faced with a decision. Was publishing these stories as a trilogy so important to me that I was willing to drop everything else, write the third book and dip back into romantic suspense? Darned right. I still had everything I needed in my files, as well as the conviction that this story wanted to be told. Clearly it was time to get moving.

So welcome to this galaxy and to New Orleans Nights, complete at last. Welcome to the seamier side of The City That Care Forgot, to the bayous of Southern Louisiana and to the underworld of New Orleans voodoo. Most of all to the stories of three men whose friendship never wavered.

While the first two books were updated and revised, and the third book written in the same time frame, the books are still set before Hurricane Katrina, which changed the city so drastically in August 2005. This is the New Orleans I remember and love so well.

I hope you’ll enjoy reading this series as much as I enjoyed writing it, then and now.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

Emilie Richards is the USA Today bestselling author of seventy plus novels in several different genres including romance, mystery and women’s fiction. Published in more than twenty-one countries and sixteen languages, her most recent novel is The Swallow’s Nest, a June 2017 trade paperback and hardcover release from Mira Books. She’s won the RITA from Romance Writers of America and multiple awards from RT Book Reviews, including one for career achievement. Ten of her books have been made into television movies in Germany. Emilie finds relationships of all kinds intriguing and perplexing, and exploring that great diversity of possibilities is her passion. Having lived in nine states and briefly in Australia, she’s also determined to discover how the places we live help make us the people we are. Right now Emilie divides her time between Sarasota, Florida and Chautauqua, New York, when she and her husband aren’t visiting their four children and grandchildren.