Author’s Note
As with many Regency romances, When You Wish Upon a Duke walks a fine line between history and creative license. The themes I hoped to tease from the tradition of Peter Pan, especially those related to Tinkerbell, included travel, pirates, and the poor choices we sometimes make in fanciful men. These themes, as well as the 1817 timetable established in Book 1 of this series, informed the history I would use—that is, the history I would manipulate—to bring a Tinkerbell-inspired heroine to life.
The founder of Britain’s first travel agency, Cox & Kings, got his start quartering English soldiers in India in the 1750s. In peacetime, Mr. Cox realized that the logistical experience he’d acquired while provisioning British troops could be useful to civilian travelers as well. Other travel agents followed and the business of packaging holidays, both domestically and abroad, began to crop up around London in the nineteenth century.
A shop like Hooke’s Everland Travel could have existed in Mayfair in 1817, but that is where history leaves off and my fanciful story takes flight. The practice of respectable English women vacationing alone in Europe was unheard of before 1850. When women did begin to travel alone, they were almost always working as missionaries or nurses or in a secretarial role in a scientific expedition.
Likewise, the notion of a female travel agent is entirely the work of my imagination. Nordic pirates fall also into this category. I’ll play the “fairy-tale card” for these and every fantastical detail in this series.
I can say that North’s heroics in the Peninsular War and the state of Iceland in 1817 should be closer to accurate.
By design, all of my books are a wild ride, but this one is particularly over-the-top. Perhaps that’s because it was written entirely in quarantine during the pandemic. I was isolated at home but sailed the North Sea to Iceland in my mind. Wherever you are when you read this book, I hope you have as much fun being swept away as I did.
Acknowledgments
Every author should have an editor as gracious, eagle-eyed, and intuitive as Elle Keck. I’m so grateful for her collaboration on this book and her faith in me.
The Usual Suspects helped me brainstorm throughout the nine months of writing this book. My buddies Lenora Bell and Cheri Allan kept me hitting all the beats. My teenagers made North’s war stories truly heroic and pressed for Isobel to pose as North’s captive instead of his fake wife. When I’m in too deep, it’s such a gift to have outsiders swoop in and elicit an Aha-moment.
Finally, I’d like to thank Captain Ally of Island to Island Charters in Key West, Florida, for sharing with me her experiences camping across Iceland. The backdrop of this book was borne of that conversation.
About the Author
USA Today Bestselling Author CHARIS MICHAELS believes a romance novel is a long, entertaining answer to the question, “So, how did you two meet?” and she loves making up new ways for fictional characters to meet and dislike each other before falling in love instead. She grew upon a peach farm in Texas and gave tours at Disney World in college, but now can be found raising her family and writing love stories from her screened-in porch in Northern Virginia.
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Announcement
Don’t miss the first book in Charis Michaels’s Awakened by a Kiss series,
A Duchess a Day
An heiress with a plan . . .
Lady Helena Lark has spent years trying to escape her wedding to the vain and boring Duke of Lusk. She’s evaded, refused, even run away. When her family’s patience runs out, they pack her off to London to walk down the aisle. But Helena has another idea: find a more suitable bride to take her place, even if she must look for a replacement duchess every day.
A bodyguard with a job to do . . .
Declan Shaw, better known as “The Huntsman,” is a mercenary who can pick and choose his clientele. After his last job, escorting a young noblewoman to France, landed him in jail under false accusations, he wants nothing to do with aristocrats or women. But the law isn’t done with him, and if he agrees to babysit a duke’s errant fiancée, the payout could make his legal troubles go away.
A most unexpected alliance . . .
When their worlds collide, Declan realizes that containing his new client is only slightly harder than keeping his hands off her. Helena senses an ally in her handsome new bodyguard and solicits his help. Together they must escape the forces that oppose them and fight for the fairy-tale love they desire.
On Sale Now
From Avon Books
By Charis Michaels
Awakened by a Kiss
Duchess a Day
When You Wish Upon a Duke
The Brides of Belgravia
Any Groom Will Do
All Dressed in White
You May Kiss the Duke
The Bachelor Lords of London
The Earl Next Door
The Virgin and the Viscount
One for the Rogue
Copyright
This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
when you wish upon a duke. Copyright © 2021 by Charis Michaels. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. By payment of the required fees, you have been granted the nonexclusive, nontransferable right to access and read the text of this e-book on-screen. No part of this text may be reproduced, transmitted, downloaded, decompiled, reverse-engineered, or stored in or introduced into any information storage and retrieval system, in any form or by any means, whether electronic or mechanical, now known or hereafter invented, without the express written permission of HarperCollins Publishers. For information, address HarperCollins Publishers, 195 Broadway, New York, NY 10007.
Digital Edition SEPTEMBER 2021 ISBN: 978-0-06-298498-2
Print Edition ISBN: 978-0-06-298497-5
Cover design by Nadine Badalaty
Cover illustration by Chris Cocozza
Cover photograph by Shirley Green Photography (couple)
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HarperCollins is a registered trademark of HarperCollins Publishers in the United States of America and other countries.
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