Haunted Miss Hampshire (ePub)

A Kasey Michaels Classic Alphabet Regency

You've heard about them, "those perfect little books" USA TODAY and NEW YORK TIMES bestselling author Kasey Michaels penned in the 1980s and early 1990s, known to her many fans as her "Alphabet Regencies." These are classic Regencies, not Regency historicals, and they center on the foibles of the day, the eccentrics that populated the drawing rooms (and there were many of these silly people, especially when Kasey is the one telling their stories). The love scenes fade to black with the reader encouraged to use her or his imagination to fill in the blanks — oh come on, you know how to do that, right! Classic, traditional Regencies are sophisticated, lighthearted character studies if you will, and a fine introduction to the Regency Era.

They're also a lot of fun.

Being Kasey, she didn't start with the letter A, and then move on to B, C, etc. No, she started with B...and then danced up and down the alphabet, in 1992 landing on H, for THE HAUNTED MISS HAMPSHIRE. Why? Because nobody told her she couldn't, that's why. That's the beauty of being a writer — when it hits you, it hits you, and you run with it.

Miss Cassandra Hampshire is yet another poverty-stricken young lady of quality, but her luck is about to turn, for her distant relative, Lucinda Benedict, has willed her a small estate rather incongruously known as Wormhill. But the gift comes with a catch. Cassandra only inherits the estate if she and Philip Rayburn, Earl of Hawkedon, can share the residence for the space of two months without killing each other.

You see, Lucinda Benedict was a romantic, and she believed that putting these two fine people in each other's company would prove to be a fine bit of matchmaking. The only problem (other than these two very matchable people killing each other) is that Lucinda didn't realize that she would be an earthbound ghost until the marriage took place.

The widow Benedict, known to readers of THE TENACIOUS MISS TAMERLANE and THE PLAYFUL LADY PENELOPE as a dotty dear who speaks only in quotes, has gone to her reward ... except that she hasn't. She's still residing at Wormhill, with only True Believers able to see her ... and Philip is far from a True Believer...

Thanks to the wonders of technology, Aunt Lucinda is back for a third and last time, along with Cassandra and Philip, and all the other eccentric characters that make up Kasey's delightful ghost story, THE HAUNTED MISS HAMPSHIRE, of which Affaire de Coeur said at the time of the original publication: "One of the most delightful Regencies to hit the bookshelves in a long time ... witty, slightly wacky, and totally charming."

Be sure to search out THE TENACIOUS MISS TAMERLANE and THE PLAYFUL LADY PENELOPE, and more of Kasey's Alphabet Regencies, soon available in e-book form.

After all, everyone needs a good laugh now and then, right?