Book 4: For the Love of a Lairdess Update

For the Love of a Lairdess almost felt like writing a fantasy instead of a regency romance. It had these outlandish, unbelievable plot lines going through it like what one might imagine the golden ropes of fate to do, if fate were an old crony who liked to make people suffer. It had mistaken identity, murder, mayhem, chaos, beauty and the beast/Stockholm syndrome, and a hidden heir. So basically, the makings of the perfect high drama regency romance novel. 

Title: For the Love of a Lairdess

Series: Lords of Seductive Language, Book 4

Page Count: (Current work in progress)

Publication Date: Unknown

Author: Lyrica Lovell

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I definitely got the high drama part, but set in Scotland. I’m not sure if I captured the whole regency part. Since I landed in Scotland at the end of book one, it has been hard to pull the series out of Scotland, as the locations from book to book help to tie the series together nicely. 

I loved writing this book, though. Morally, gray characters have been trending lately, so I created one as the “hero”. Dashiell is to be a villain. In the first act and a little into act two, he is truly painted as someone vile. But then, for the rest of the book, I worked to make him into a redeemable character. I’ve read several authors who do this redemption arc well, Alexa Aston is one of them. As far as redemption arcs go, I’m not sure that I succeeded in completely making him one of the good guys by the end, and part of me thinks I should kill him off in future books. But again, that’s probably the harpy in me talking. 

No, this was one of my favorite romances to write so far, though I think I say that about each book I put out. As I write and publish more books, I like my own writing style more and more. I feel as if I am growing into it with practice. 

For the Love of a Lairdess also took me the least amount of time to write. I started it in November of 2024, and it’s coming out soon! It took me a little over six months to write and edit this piece. 

The writing process for this one was probably what I found to be the hardest. The editing and revising flew by, but I was only doing a section or two of the writing a day, as my brain would just block up. I hate to admit writer’s block, because so many authors believe you can power through on willpower alone, but the creativity would just dry up after a scene or two. It was like I was putting all the creativity and drama I had allotted for the day into those one or two scenes, and then the well was dry. 

I tried musical inspiration, writing parts of the book with pen and paper first, and even writing some up on my phone in the notes app. In the end, the conglomeration of it all was brought together into a rough draft to be fleshed out. 

It wasn’t as long as I was hoping it would be, either. While it’s a full-length novel worth reading, sitting at a little under 60k words, I was still hoping for more than that. 

What else can I say about the writing process or the book, For the Love of a Lairdess? Well, it is the fourth book in my series, Lords of Seductive Language. If I manage to make this series go through the alphabet, then this is book D for Dallis and Dashiell. That was my original intent, but the story has taken on a new life, so I don’t know if that many books will make it into the series. I want to tell a few other stories outside of this series, too. I feel as if to finish this series, I would need to write much faster! Once a year, like I have been, and I’ll run out of time. 

I was listening to a podcast, and I can’t remember the author who put it out, but he was talking about how the world is littered with half-finished books by authors who died before finishing them. He said you never expect your last book to be your last book. The thought of it, having to pick the stories that are most important to tell, or that I like the best, is not as motivating a thought as I’d hope. It makes me spiral and worry that I’m not picking the right ones. 

Alright, that’s enough of the morbid thoughts. This book is probably what’s gotten me thinking about it. The hero, Dashiell, commits a murder and spirals with brooding and guilt and an entire plethora of emotions surrounding the ordeal. He basically has a bit of a crisis on good and evil, and a crisis of seeing himself as the hero at one point and the villain at the next. You can follow along with my progress on writing For the Love of a Lairdess on the books page! Once it comes out, information on the preorder/where to get the book will be available on that page as well.