If there is one thing Lydia Kellaway, the heroine of A STUDY IN SEDUCTION, does not fear, it’s numbers. Equations comfort her. She enjoys theorems, series, postulates. She understands them. They understand her. And I loved the idea of a Victorian woman who has a harmonious relationship with math and who is renowned for her extraordinary intelligence.
The seed of Lydia’s character came while I was researching nineteenth-century Russia and discovered information about Sofia Kovalevskaya (1850–1891), a prominent Russian mathematician who made major contributions to the field.
Despite the barriers she encountered in academia, Sofia earned a doctorate summa cum laude from the University of Gottingen, becoming the first woman in Europe to hold that degree. Personal and professional struggles did not prevent Sofia’s success, as she soon became the first woman in Northern Europe to hold a full professorship at the University of Stockholm. She published numerous papers, edited a mathematical journal, and received the competitive Prix Bordin from the French Academy of Sciences.
While Sofia Kovalevskaya inspired my idea of a heroine who is a mathematician, I wanted Lydia to be a unique character in her own right. I loved that she could immerse herself in numbers and find comfort in equations, but what did that mean for the other parts of her life? What would happen if Lydia had spent her childhood in lonely isolation, with only numbers as her faithful companions, and then was suddenly forced to confront the exact opposite of intellect—the pull of lust?
After her destructive early experiences, Lydia lives in safe comfort inside her head… until Alexander comes along to wreak havoc with all his hot, Russian sexiness. He is fascinated not only by her body, but also by her brilliant mind. Writing about how Lydia’s affinity with math affects and changes their relationship was both a challenge and a pleasure.
Confession #4: I’ll never overcome my fear of math. Words I love, but numbers I’ll merely tolerate. I’ll always carry my portable calculator, and when my son’s math homework gets beyond me (which it soon will), I’ll either study with him or recruit someone else to be the homework helper. I’ll keep working at multiplication, especially the 7s and 9s, but in the meantime I take a small measure of comfort in Sofia Kovalevskaya’s remark to one of her teachers: “I was unfortunately weak in the multiplication table.”
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Contents
Welcome
Dedication
Map
Epigraph
Chapter One
Chapter Two
Chapter Three
Chapter Four
Chapter Five
Chapter Six
Chapter Seven
Chapter Eight
Chapter Nine
Chapter Ten
Chapter Eleven
Chapter Twelve
Chapter Thirteen
Chapter Fourteen
Chapter Fifteen
Chapter Sixteen
Chapter Seventeen
Chapter Eighteen
Chapter Nineteen
Chapter Twenty
A Preview of Haven Creek
A Preview of Sanctuary Cove
Also by Rochelle Alers
Acclaim for Sanctuary Cove
The Dish
Newsletters
Copyright
Copyright
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
Copyright © 2012 by Rochelle Alers
Excerpt from Haven Creek Copyright © 2012 by Rochelle Alers
Excerpt from Sanctuary Cove Copyright © 2012 by Rochelle Alers
All rights reserved. In accordance with the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976, the scanning, uploading, and electronic sharing of any part of this book without the permission of the publisher constitute unlawful piracy and theft of the author’s intellectual property. If you would like to use material from the book (other than for review purposes), prior written permission must be obtained by contacting the publisher at [email protected]. Thank you for your support of the author’s rights.
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ISBN 978-1-4555-1704-6
Angels Landing Page 33
