Kate McMurray's Blog

Book 2 in my Regency series, Everything But the Earl has a cover!

Not quite a marriage of convenience…

When Grace Midwood finds her betrothed kissing another, she doesn’t know what to do. Her parents want her married off this Season, but obviously that match is out of the question. But where will she find a husband?

Owen Thomas, the Earl of Caernarfon and a Welshman who spends most of his time in London, has no interest in marriage. But Grace catches his eye at a ball and before he knows it, she’s compromised and he’s proposing marriage. Not that he minds. Grace is smart, witty and very beautiful.

After a hasty marriage, he sends her to live at his estate in Wales, a place Grace is greatly looking forward to exploring. Each thinks their marriage is the perfect solution to their dilemma. Grace gets to live her life as she pleases and Owen can return to London and fulfil his duties in Parliament.

Then something strange happens—they start to miss each other. Owen and Grace keep up a steady correspondence while they are separated, and through these letters, they finally get to know each other. In fact, getting a letter from Grace soon becomes the highlight of his week. Is he falling for her after all?

But suddenly, the letters stop. And after three weeks, Owen becomes worried. But it enough to make him go to Wales to finally claim his bride?

Pre-order here!

You can now purchase I Never Forget a Duke!

Buy it here!

I’d thought I’d use this release day post to aggregate all the information you could ever want about the book.

Here is the series page on this here website.

I wrote an essay about my inspirations for my newsletter.

I was on a virtual panel whereI talked about the new book and how I build series.

I did an author interview for the publisher’s website!

I will continue updating as more media about the book is posted online!

(I don’t thnk the preorder is up quite yet, but should be soon!)

So, a couple of years ago I got in touch with my inner Judith McNaught and I wrote the first book in a historical romance trilogy. I like to think of it as an old-school bodice ripper with a modern twist: a duke gets amnesia and is Florence Nightingale’d by a woman who has fallen out of favor with society. (There’s also a queer secondary romance.) My directive to the cover designer was “I want this to be the bodice rippiest old-skool clutch cover you can make” and I’d say she delivered. I don’t think the pre-order is actually up yet but should be soon and you can get the book yourself this fall! (Book 2 has a secret baby. I went all in on the soapy tropes.) But lo, here is a cover!

Hugh Baxter, the twelfth Duke of Swynford, is one of the most powerful men in England. Then one night he is hit over the head by an unknown assailant and left for dead on the streets of London. 

Adele Paulson is the daughter of an earl of dubious character, and after the death of her fiancé, she’s resigned herself to life as a spinster. Then she witnesses a man being thrown from a carriage one night and decides to bring him into her home. When he comes to, he has no idea who he is. 

Adele and the handsome stranger begin to fall for each other as they search for his identity. A news story about the missing Duke of Swynford leads Adele to connect that her stranger and the duke are one and the same. But as Hugh begins to recover his memories, he does not want to leave Adele behind. Although everyone disapproves of their relationship—including his mother and his closest friends—Hugh is determined to have Adele as his wife. But before they can settle into their life of married bliss, Hugh must also find who wants him dead.

I got a request from a reader to make this little marriage proposal epilogue available again, so I tracked it down and am reposting it now! It’s obviously of a specific moment in time, but I still think it’s cute. Enjoy!

Matt lingered in bed, enjoying the sun streaming in through the window and nothing in particular on his agenda for the day. Maybe he’d read a book or take a walk, or maybe he’d just sleep another hour; no rush on anything.

            He wasn’t even that sore. He was a little sore, especially through his legs, probably from all the jumping and cheering he’d done when the high school kids he’d been coaching had won the city-wide baseball finals. And, since today was technically the last day of school, he was done unless he decided to get involved with Little League or something over the summer. Iggy had been encouraging him to do just that. He’d grumbled about getting old and needing some time off. So, yeah, maybe he’d look into a coaching gig for the summer now that the academic year was over, but he’d worry about that tomorrow, because right now, he was drifting back to sleep.

            Just as he was slipping back into dreamworld, though, there was a crash at the front door. Matt jerked up in bed, convinced the apartment was being broken into. He was about to scramble out of bed and grab a bat or something when he heard, “Matt! Matt, oh my god, Matt. Where are you?”

            “Bedroom. Jesus, Iggy, you scared the shit out of me.”

            Iggy appeared at the bedroom doorway with a sheepish grin. “Sorry. Well, not really. Have you heard the news?”

            “What news? I just woke up.” Matt stretched his arms and wondered if he should bother to lay back down. “Shouldn’t you be at practice?”

            “Fuck practice. This is more important.”

            Matt spared a thought for what on earth could have Iggy this wound up, but instead patted Iggy’s side of the bed and said, “All right. Tell me.”

            Iggy smiled, so clearly it wasn’t bad news. He sat on the bed and put a hand on Matt’s thigh. “Babe, the Supreme Court ruling was just announced. We won!”

            Through the haze of sleepy misunderstanding, Matt stared at Iggy until he remembered that the Court was supposed to have ruled on marriage equality. “Wait, what? We won?”

            “It’s unconstitutional to ban us from marrying each other. Not just here in New York, but across all fifty states. Can you believe that? Did you ever think you’d see the day?”

            “No. I really didn’t.” It was overwhelming. Matt’s heart raced as he thought about it. But then, the world changed so fast. When Matt had retired from the game, coming out publicly seemed inconceivable. But now Iggy was out and proud and still an active player. He got some shit for it in some stadiums, but the Eagles organization made it clear that they always had his back. They’d even issues tee-shirts just that season that showed the Eagles’ logo done in a rainbow. Fans could purchase Rodriguez (and Blanco) jerseys with pride messages or rainbow flags on them.

            Matt had been following the news. He and Iggy had talked quite a bit when the Court struck down the Defense of Marriage Act. But Matt was still adjusting his expectations. He was a gay man in his forties, after all, and he’d spent most of his life hiding that he was gay; marriage had never felt like it was in the cards. Not even after the state of New York had ruled it legal.

            He looked at Iggy, who was still smiling ear to ear. “It’s really…” Matt tried. Then he shook his head. “I mean, across the United States. All of the states. Gay couples can get married?”

            “Yup. I mean, I imagine there will be some resistance in some states, you know, but it’s… I had pushed the whole thing out of my mind. I was worried the Court would rule with the appeals court and the bans would be upheld, and I didn’t want to think about that, so I had pushed it aside. We’ve got that series against the Sox starting tonight, which is what I really should be thinking about, and Bill is going to kill me, but… I got an alert on my phone just as I was raising my hand to hail a cab to the stadium, and I had to tell you in person.”

            Matt closed his eyes for a moment to just feel everything that was happening. It had been a strange couple of years. Iggy was still widely considered one of the most valuable players in the Majors, Matt was highly sought after as both a coach and a public speaker, and the anticipated apocalypse hadn’t happened. Matt’s reluctance to even think the word “marriage” near Iggy had stemmed in part from his constant fear that all of this was about to crumble down around them.

            But, no, the Supreme Court had ruled.

            Iggy was saying something Matt hadn’t heard. “…so in the eyes of the law, we’re real people, you know? Our relationship is real. And it means something important.”

            Iggy was right. All the years he and Matt had been together had been good. Not without problems, both outside of their relationship and within it, but definitely good. Great. Amazing, even. Matt’s love for Iggy hadn’t dimmed in the years they’d been together, even after they settled into routines and habits. Matt love Iggy even more now than he had that night of his going away party, back when he’d been traded to Texas and was planning to move across the country, and Iggy had stood in the kitchen and told Matt he loved him and wasn’t ready to let him go yet, and Matt’s heart had neatly burst because he loved Iggy right back.

            And because they’d been together for nearly six years, and because the world had not ended because of it, and because the Supreme Court of the goddamn United States had just more or less blessed their relationship, Matt said, “Marry me.”

            Iggy’s smile was incandescent. “Oh, baby. I thought you’d never ask.”

In 1960, Pete gets a beer at his regular bar and is stunned to see that the guitarist playing that night is Bobby, with whom Pete was in love when they fought together in Europe during World War II. Pete seeks him out, and they immediately reconnect. Though they’ve been separated by years, it’s like no time has passed at all. 

Unfortunately, Pete works at the State Department, and Bobby is an aid to a conservative Senator, and if anyone found out they’re together romantically, they could both be fired. It’s the height of the Lavender Scare, and the U.S. government believes homosexual employees are a threat to national security. 

With so much on the line, Bobby gets involved in the nascent gay rights movement in D.C., which is planning to picket the White House. Pete thinks getting caught there is too much of a risk. But Pete has to confront an important question: is it worth it to him to keep the love of his life in the shadows, or should they both walk into the light?

“Lavender Love” is a short story originally published in the Loving Hearts anthology last summer. I’ve released it as a standalone, and you can buy it now from your favorite ebook store for 99¢!

When the story came out, I also wrote an essay about some of the history behind the events of the story, if you’d like some more background.

You can get the story here.

[Note: As of press time, the story is only available at Amazon, B&N, and Kobo. I’m having a technical issue with Apple Books, that I’m working with their customer service people to resolve and will update this post when it’s up there. Apologies for any inconvenience!]

Stef offers to help his friend Val learn how to date to give Val enough confidence to ask out Hugh. It’s messy, but it works… until Stef develops feeling for Val.

My novella is out now at Amazon/KU (everywhere in February)! Get it here now!

Here’s the full description:

Val has had an unbearable crush on Hugh for months, and his friends are urging him to go for it. The problem? Val has no romantic experience. Zip, zero, nada. And Hugh is about to leave for a summer-long trip to Europe. 

Enter Stef. Val’s more experienced best friend volunteers to teach Val all about how to date in order to boost Val’s confidence so that he can ask out Hugh when Hugh returns. Val thinks the idea is silly, but as Stef cooks up pretend dates to museums and baseball games and the sorts of things Hugh loves to do, Val does start to feel more comfortable in romantic settings. And it just so happens that he has tickets to a splashy movie premiere the week after Hugh returns, and it’s the perfect occasion for a first date.

The problem for Stef is that all this fake romance is making him realize he has real romantic feelings for Val. Is he setting himself up for heartbreak when Val inevitably walks off into the sunset with Hugh, or can he persuade Val to stay with him?

I wrote a novella!

Love 101 is a short rom com set in New York City about one friend helping out another friend. More in the description below. It is unseasonably set during a very hot (ahem) summer.

My previous endeavors into indie publishing have all been reissues of previously published work, but this is BRAND NEW! As such, here is how the book is being released:

This is an ebook exclusive. It will be on Amazon and Kindle Unlimited for a limited (heh) time starting on November 14, 2023. Then it will be available everywhere (well, Apple, Kobo, and Barnes & Noble, at least) in February, just in time for Valentine’s Day. (So don’t fret if you’re not an Amazon shopper, it’ll be available where you buy ebooks early next year.)

Here’s the description:

Val has had an unbearable crush on Hugh for months, and his friends are urging him to go for it. The problem? Val has no romantic experience. Zip, zero, nada. And Hugh is about to leave for a summer-long trip to Europe.  

Enter Stef. Val’s more experienced best friend volunteers to teach Val all about how to date in order to boost Val’s confidence so that he can ask out Hugh when Hugh returns. Val thinks the idea is silly, but as Stef cooks up pretend dates to museums and baseball games and the sorts of things Hugh loves to do, Val does start to feel more comfortable in romantic settings. And it just so happens that he has tickets to a splashy movie premiere the week after Hugh returns, and it’s the perfect occasion for a first date.

The problem for Stef is that all this fake romance is making him realize he has real romantic feelings for Val. Is he setting himself up for heartbreak when Val inevitably walks off into the sunset with Hugh, or can he persuade Val to stay with him?

You can preorder it now from Amazon!

You can add it on Goodreads!

You can add it on BookBub!

I made a Novel Planning Kit to accompany my plot beats class a few years ago, but all writers may find something like this useful. The kit contains two character sketch worksheets and a complete set of plot beats. Download, print it out, fill it in yourself! I’m putting it here as a handy reference. (It’s a PDF.)

Novel Planning Kit

So, funny story. In my continuing mission to read more outside of what I usually read (something I started doing last year) I decided that in 2023, I’d keep a reading journal. I generally track my reading on Goodreads, but I wanted some space to write about my impressions of what I read in a way I’m not really comfortable doing on a public-facing page. So I started shopping around for reading journals, and couldn’t really find what I thought would work, so instead, I bought a regular notebook, warmed up the label maker and some stickers, and made my own. (My inner twelve-year-old had a blast making it. Are there pink jellyfish on the cover for no reason? There are indeed.)

So then I thought it might be fun to do one of these reader challenges. It’s kind of a bingo card. I tried to pick things for mine that I thought I would actually be able to meet (I’ve seen been browsing lists made by others, and there are always a couple where I’m like, “Nah, I won’t be reading one of those”—taste is subjective).

Which is my long-winded way of saying that I put this challenge in my new reading journal, and I figured I’d share it with all of you!

You can download a PDF you can fill out yourself here!

Get your paws on the third book in the Whitman Street Cat Cafe series!

Head to Brooklyn’s Whitman Street Cat Café: the coffee is strong, the desserts are delicious, kitten cuddles are never out of stock—and finding love is guaranteed.

Pastry chef Brad Marks is the new hot thing at the Whitman Street Cat Café; he makes tasty treats for both the human and feline guests at the café. All the patrons love him, and freelance writer Lindsay Somers understands why; five years ago, she was smitten by his charms too—until Brad broke her heart. Lindsay is happy with her new gig at a trendy weekly magazine, but when her boss assigns her to do a story on the cat café, she’s thrown back into Brad’s orbit yet again…

The book is available wherever you buy books! Get it here!