"Six Impossible Things"

Elizabeth Boyle has always loved romance and now lives it each and every day by writing adventurous and passionate stories that readers from all around the world have described as “page-turners.” Since her first book was published, she’s seen her romances become New York Times and USA Today bestsellers and has won the RWA RITA® and the Romantic Times Reviewer’s Choice Awards.

Boyle applied the Page 69 Test to her new novel, Six Impossible Things, and reported the following:

From page 69:

Oh, wouldn’t Lady Essex find that a delicious on dit? Not that Roselie could divulge how she came upon such a tidbit. She would have to suffice with sharing it with Mariah.

Around the table were any number of society’s glittering jewels all watching the single woman at the table playing for such high stakes. But it was the man across from the mysterious lady who had Roselie drawing back a bit.

Lord Ilford.

So he was here. She’d half-hoped Abigail’s hurried note had been penned in one of her less lucid moments. But to their benefit, the usually sharp-eyed marquess had his attention fixed entirely on the woman opposite him.

Roselie’s brow furrowed, for she couldn’t place the beauty.

Like nearly all of the women at St. John’s, she wore a mask to conceal her identity—most likely to keep her paramour from finding out about her misadventures. Or she might be a lonely wife seeking a bit of solace outside her marriage.

In any case, Roselie shrugged, for she hardly cared who this Cyprian might be, for thankfully the creature was keeping Ilford entirely engaged.

If anything, this was her first bit of luck in a long time.

She smiled at the darkly clad woman, silently thanking her for her unwitting help, and then paused as she realized something else. That gown...

A deep midnight blue velvet with brilliants sewn about it like stars in the night.

Good heavens, Roselie knew that gown.

I like this page because it is the first time the reader sees Roselie in her full Asteria persona, a spy for England and at that same moment exhibiting why she is so darn good at her work: she has an eye for detail and sharp mind for deduction.

Miss Roselie Stratton was great fun to create and write about—as I firmly believe that women contributed to covert operations throughout history—even if their work was never acknowledged. Rather than writing the typical Regency miss, I prefer to write about women who owned their lives. After all, the great joy of writing fiction is creating a story, an adventure, and taking the reader along with you on a grand game of “what if--?”.

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--Marshal Zeringue