Exiles Return – Romance Lives Forever

This quick interview includes info about the author, and
introduces the story.

About the Author

Award winning Australian author, Alison Stuart
learned her passion from history from her father. She has been writing stories
since her teenage years but it was not until 2007 that her first full length
novel was published. A past president of the Romance Writers of Australia,
Alison has now published seven full length historical romances and a collection
of her short stories. Many of her
stories have been shortlisted for international awards and BY THE SWORD won the
2008 EPIC Award for Best Historical Romance.

Her inclination for writing about soldier heroes
may come from her varied career as a lawyer in the military and fire services.
These days when she is not writing she is travelling and routinely drags her
long suffering husband around battlefields and castles.

Interview with Alison Stuart

Why did you write
this book?

This book has been a long time in the writing. It is the
third in a series called Guardians of the Crown series, set in the English
Civil War and following the lives of three young men following the final defeat
of the royalist cause at the Battle of Worcester in September 1651. I wrote
Books 1 and 2 (By the Sword and The King’s Man) quite some time ago and they
had a couple of early incarnations before being picked up and re-released by
Escape Publishing as the Guardians of the Crown series.

My publisher felt that while both the previous books had a
‘Happy for Now’ resolution the series arc required a ‘Happy Ever After”
culminating in the Restoration of the King in 1660.

As I had left Book 2 with the fate of the hero’s brother,
Daniel, hanging in the air, he seemed the natural hero for Book 3 so Book 3 is
Daniel’s story and brings to a ‘happy ever after conclusion’ the stories of
Jonathan and Kit.

What is your favorite
genre to read?

Mysteries… particularly historical mysteries.

Who is your favorite
character from fiction (not including your own)?

I have so many favourites, but I’ll go right back to my
first love, Jane Eyre. I was 11 when I read this book and I just fell in love
with the gutsy, put upon, Jane. My much battered copy has literally followed me
around the world.

What are you working
on at the moment, and will see from you in coming months?

As I mentioned, I am playing with a historical mystery
series set in Singapore in 1910 (the Harriet Gordon Mysteries). Book 1 (Blood
Red) is almost done and, all going according to plan, will be out by the end of
the year.

Beyond that I have a number of other projects burbling on
the back burners – a time travel series, more stories linking some of my other
books… so many ideas, so little time!

Please tell us about
your latest book.

Exile’s Return (Book 3 in the Guardians of the Crown series)

The breath-taking conclusion to Alison
Stuart’s English Civil War trilogy introduces a heroine with nothing left to
lose and a hero with everything to gain…

England, 1659: Following the death of Cromwell, a new king is poised to
ascend the throne of England. One by one, those once loyal to the crown begin
to return …

Imprisoned, exiled and tortured, fugitive Daniel Lovell returns to
England, determined to kill the man who murdered his father. But his plans for
revenge must wait, as the King has one last mission for him.

Agnes Fletcher’s lover is dead, and when his two orphaned children are
torn from her care by their scheming guardian, she finds herself alone and
devastated by the loss. Unwilling to give up, Agnes desperately seeks anyone
willing to accompany her on a perilous journey to save the children and return
them to her care. She didn’t plan on meeting the infamous Daniel Lovell. She
didn’t plan on falling in love.

Thrown together with separate quests – and competing obligations –
Daniel and Agnes make their way from London to the English countryside, danger
at every turn. When they are finally given the opportunity to seize everything
they ever hoped for, will they find the peace they crave, or will their
fledgling love be a final casualty of war?