The Dark Affair Blog Tour + Giveaway: 5 Fun Facts

5 Fun Facts about The Dark Affair

1) Even though we never get to visit Ireland in the book, I actually stayed in Galway for almost two weeks to research Margaret's character. I had a bit of fun. Just a bit. :D  I will confess to lots of live music sessions at the pubs, drinking icy cold Bulmers (hard cider), and staring at Galway Bay for hours on end!

2) I was very passionate about making Margaret one of the "people" in Ireland rather than seeing herself as Anglo Irish Aristocracy. This was tricky but important to accomplish. So many of the nobility did indeed get caught up in the cause for Ireland's freedom.

3) The English really did see the Irish as trash. Lazy trash to add insult to injury. They thought the Irish SO lazy during the famine that they accused the people who lived by the sea of being so subhuman and unwilling to work, that they were refusing to fish for their food when the potatoes ran out. Clearly, these people just wanted a hand out and a break. Tragically, as verified by the Quakers who came into that region to help the Irish, the Famine otherwise known as An Gort Mór, coincided with the one of the largest off sea fishing disasters known to Ireland. The fish simply disappeared, compounding the food issue. A vast majority of the English refused to believe this.

4) The famous Claddagh ring actually comes from an area of Galway called The Claddagh. It is almost painfully beautiful. It was also one of the hardest hit areas by the potato blight, hence Margaret's intimate knowledge of the famine.

5) Powers and his father represent the many English families that did support the Irish cause, specifically the right to Home Rule.

Bonus fact: Morphine and the intravenous needle were brand new at the time The Dark Affair takes place. So, the use of it is cutting edge and the doctors genuinely believed it wouldn't lead to addiction because addiction came from hunger, hunger came from the stomach, and when the drug was administered through the vein, it bypassed the stomach, avoiding addiction. . . As they discovered later, this wasn't true at all.

About The Dark Affair:

The Victorian era was full of majestic beauty and scandalous secrets—a time when corsets were the least of a woman’s restrictions, and men could kill or be killed in the name of honor…...

Lady Margaret Cassidy left a life of nobility behind in Ireland, forsaking her grieving homeland to aid war-ravaged men in England. Still, she never expected a cruel turn of fate to lock her into an unwanted betrothal with one of her English patients—much less one as broken and dangerous as Viscount Powers.

Wrecked by his tragic past, Powers’ opiate-addled sanity hangs precariously in the balance, leaving him poised to destroy anyone who dares to utter the names of the wife and child he still so deeply mourns. So when he is forced to marry Margaret in exchange for freedom, he is shocked by the desire to earn her trust, her body, and—most alarming of all—her heart….

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More About The Book: http://www.maireclaremont.com/#!the-dark-affair/cey

Bio:

2011 Golden Heart winner Máire Claremont first fell in love with Mr. Rochester, not Mr. Darcy. Drawn to his dark snark, she longed to find a tortured hero of her own… until she realized the ramifications of Mr. Rochester locking his frst wife up in his attic. Discovering the errors of her ways, Máire now looks for a real-life Darcy and creates deliciously dark heroes on the page. Oh, and she wants everyone to know her name is pronounced Moira. Her parents just had to give her an Irish Gaelic name.

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Giveaway: 

A signed copy of THE DARK AFFAIR (US/CA). Please run the giveaway for a week and send me the winner’s info.

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