How Long Does It Take Thomas Keneally To Write A Novel?

BOOK 2: The Gentleman Series *Can be read as a standalone* ~~~ I think I had a one night stand with the Beast my sister was supposed to marry, now I’m marrying him. Angelica Hearst’s beauty is the bane of her existence. All she is and all she knows are tied to her beauty that everyone covets, but deep down she wants better for herself. She longs for escape from the man who has sworn to make her life a living hell and because of that she made a list of things she wants to do for herself and she’s determined to get through them somehow, but how would she with the Beast lurking? An illegitimate child, abused and forced to marry a wicked, bruised and pensive Don in place of her sister. It’s the last thing she wants, but maybe it’s a chance at the freedom she desires. ~~~ TRIGGER WARNING!!! This book contains themes that are not suitable for all readers, including; death, graphic violence, scenes of intimacy, strong language, physical and verbal abuse, manipulation, substance abuse, family trauma, and mental health issues. Proceed with caution and read at your own risk. Enjoy. x

“I want a divorce, Sera. It’s time we both moved on.” She had heard those words before, rehearsed in the cold space between them, in the silences that stretched too long over dinner, in the way he never quite looked at her anymore. But hearing them out loud was different. Hearing them made it real. Sera Calloway had spent four years being the perfect wife. Quiet when she should have been loud. Patient when she should have been angry. She had loved Elliot with the kind of love that asks for nothing — and received exactly that in return. She thought their marriage was simply struggling. Broken, maybe. But still theirs. Until she found out it was never only theirs to begin with. Another woman. Another home. Another life he had carefully built in the hours she never thought to question. She hadn’t screamed. Hadn’t shattered. She had simply gone still, the way a person does when the ground disappears beneath them and there is nothing left to hold onto. Sera left without a word. No ultimatums. No tears he would ever see. Because some heartbreaks are too deep for noise. Now Elliot is unraveling. The life he thought he could keep — the one he hid behind — is falling apart without the woman he took for granted holding everything together. He never knew what she was. Not really. Not until she was gone. And now the question isn’t whether he still loves her. The question is — did Sera ever stop?

Natalie Hale spent five years loving a man who never learned to look at her. When Ethan Cole's first love returns and he asks for a divorce, Natalie doesn't beg. She doesn't break. She asks for one month, thirty days for him to fulfill every promise he made and never kept. A candlelit dinner, a drive-in movie, an amusement park in autumn, Small things. The things that were supposed to mean us. He agrees, then he cancels and then he lies. Then she waits alone, again and again, learning in real time what she already knew in her bones, she was never his priority. But something shifts during that month. He begins to see her: her beauty, her grace, the way a room moves when she enters it. Too late, too slow, and far too little. On the thirtieth day, Natalie signs the papers, leaves a cup of coffee on the counter made exactly to his taste, and walks out the door. Three years later, she walks back in not to him, but into the same room. Radiant, accomplished and accompanied by a man who has never once made her wait. And Ethan Cole finally understands the difference between losing someone and letting them go. He let her go. She lost nothing.

“You,” Hades snarled, his eyes burning into Claudine’s, “are a viper in my bed. A ticking time bomb.” Claudine’s lips curved into a chillingly beautiful smile. “Darling, in your bed, I’m whatever you desire.” ~~~~ This isn’t your typical enemies-to-lovers romance. This is the story of the infamous daughter of the worlds greatest russian Kalashnikov Omerta,a woman driven by vengeance, who wanted the downfall of Hades Vancouver, the dangerous American mafia leader. Death was too merciful a punishment for the man who murdered her parents. But in a twist of fate, she’s caught in his grip and forced into marriage with him—the very man she swore to destroy. To Hades, she’s not simply his wife. She’s a snake he’s obsessed with, a woman he wants to bend to his will and claim in every way imaginable. Her true identity is hidden from him, but he’s been obsessed since the first night he fingered her into a screaming, squirt-filled orgasm that felt like a soul-shifting experience. The same night she stole from him. Now, trapped in a deadly game of forced proximity, where desire is both a weapon and a weakness, one wrong move could ignite a war that consumes them all. But when Hades discovers the tracker in her old gunshot wound, a relic of a past encounter, the game changes. Read on to find out if things were falling out of place for these characters, or perhaps things were falling into the right places.

His smoldering golden gaze struck sparks from hers. “I wanted you the first time I saw you nearly three years ago. Now I want you even more.” “Me too... I've been waiting for this for so long… Three years might seem an eternity sometimes. Touch me, Diego. Please,” she mumbled shakily. “I will, 'cariño'… And I won’t stop. Not until you beg me to.” "Then... Don’t you ever stop…” she whispered urgently, shifting her hips in a restive movement against the sheet, wildly, wickedly conscious of the growing ache at the very heart of her. “Never…” "Is this a promise?" "A certainty." For sexy, mysterious Mexican aristocrat Diego Francisco Martinez del Río, Duque de Altamira, Jacqueline Maxwell was a gypsy, a weirdo living in awful conditions. And she was raising his orphaned baby niece in… a trailer! So unacceptable! Since she wasn’t giving up on little Azura, and his niece was very fond of her aunt, Diego offered to marry Jacqueline and raise the little girl together. Yes, she was poor but she was a real beauty, and with a little help, Jacqueline might become a perfect wife for a Duque. Graceful, beautiful... delightful, even. Jacqueline Maxwell knew Diego and his kind all too well. He was as stunning and charming as the devil himself, but twice as ruthless and heartless. He was just a playboy interested in one thing and one thing only. And it had nothing to do with little Azura. Still, accepting his proposal of a marriage of convenience might be the end to all her worries regarding the little girl left in her care by Alyssa, her sister...

I had been in a secret relationship with my mafia boyfriend, Dante Castellano, for seven years. No public contact. No photos together. No proof I had ever stood by his side. He told me, "Once I'm powerful enough that no one dares touch you, I'll make it official." I believed him. The day before our seventh anniversary, I found a ten-carat diamond ring in his suit jacket. I cried with joy, thinking seven years of hiding were finally over. The next morning, I wore my most expensive dress and sprayed on the only perfume he had ever given me. I practiced my smile in the mirror, the one I would give when he proposed. Then, my phone lit up with a breaking news alert. [Breaking News: Seven-Year Love Story Reaches Perfect Ending—Romance Blogger Alessia Romano Accepts Boyfriend's 100th Proposal!] In the photo, the influencer with eight million followers stood on her tiptoes, kissing a man. His hand rested on the back of her neck. On that hand was a scar I would never mistake. It was the scar Dante got when he took a knife for me.