A
randomly drawn commenter will receive a digital copy of the book.
In 1897, a young cockney nursemaid takes her first train ride, leaving
London for the lush and sprawling Sandringham Estate, private home to Britain’s
royal family. Hired by the Duke and Duchess of York to help rear their royal
children, Charlotte Bill is about to become privy to all the secrets families
hide, and caught between the upstairs and downstairs worlds.
Excerpt
Of course I’d been out on the for-hire steam launch
on the Thames my father captained, but in the railway carriage, I felt I was
flying. It was noisy too, here in third
class with the huge engine just ahead, huffing and blowing smoky steam which
dashed past the windows. . Where I sat was quite plain with the leather
seats a bit worn and cracked, but I felt I was in a magic cart to the moon
anyway. My father had said the tracks
would be well-kept since this was the route the royals themselves used to get
to their Norfolk estate where I was headed.
But when he’d put me on the train, he’d been disappointed that none of
the royal carriages were on this run.
As I was sent for to become undernurse to the
royals at York Cottage on the Sandringham Estate, it was the first time I’d
been in a railway carriage and the first time so far from home. I was going one-hundred-and-twenty miles from
London, and didn’t have to pay for the passage ticket either! Maybe that would be one of the grand things
being in service to the royals, because Mama said they were all rich, rich,
rich. Honestly, I didn’t care a whit
about that, just that I could better my station and send some money home in
these tough times, but how I missed my former and now grown toddlekins from Dr.
Lockwood’s family in London. They didn’t
need a nurse anymore, all grown up to only need their new stepmother.
NEW YORK TIMES and
USA TODAY bestselling author Karen Harper is a former university (Ohio State)
and high school English teacher. Published since 1982, she writes contemporary
suspense and historical novels about real British women. Two of her recent
Tudor era books were bestsellers in the UK and Russia. A rabid Anglophile, she
likes nothing more than to research her novels on site in the British Isles.
Harper won the Mary Higgins Clark Award for DARK ANGEL, and her novel SHATTERED
SECRETS was judged one of the Best Books of 2014 by Suspense Magazine. The author
and her husband divide their time between Ohio and Florida. For more information please visit:
www.karenharperauthor.com
Remember to follow the rest of the tour! Dates can be found via:
http://goddessfishpromotions.blogspot.com/2016/06/book-blast-royal-nanny-by-karen-harper.html
Thanks for hosting my ROYAL NANNY giveaway! Much appreciated by a busy author!
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