A Notorious Proposition by Adele Ashworth

Synopsis

From bed partners . . .

Two years ago, while on assignment for the Crown, darkly handsome Garrett Burke left Lady Ivy Wentworth sleeping naked in his bed as he went in search of the missing Martello diamonds. After apprehending the dastardly thief, he intended to spend the rest of his life in the arms of the auburn-haired beauty. But when the case came to a shocking and dangerous end, Garrett was certain he'd been betrayed . . .

To partners in crime

Ivy once loved Garrett with a virtuous heart, but these days she can barely stand him. Arriving at a deserted estate on a mysterious errand, she never expected to see him again, nor feel the same ecstasy she once did at his touch. Now, joined with him in the search for the legendary jewels, she is willing to risk everything. Everything, that is, except her heart . . .

Biography

Meet Adele!

Adele Ashworth has always felt she's led a rather dull life on her road to becoming a romance author. Unfortunately, she's also often been wrong.

From the first time she stepped onstage to sing Petula Clark's "Downtown" for a crowd (at the age of three in a Juarez, Mexico, hotel restaurant, dancing on the table at the urging of the Spanish-speaking waitresses), she knew she was destined to be a singer. Her first miscalculation.

At the age of six, as she watched one of the Apollo rockets take off on live Saturday-morning television, interrupting the most important TV shows of the decade—The Monkeys and Scooby-Doo—she decided she would become a diplomat. Much to her mother's chagrin, Adele was caught in a heated discussion with a telephone operator who insisted it simply wasn't possible to put a six-year-old child through to President Nixon at the White House just to make a complaint about important programming interruption. Diplomacy clearly wasn't for her.

In elementary school, Adele, being a voracious reader, decided she would be a defense attorney just like Nancy Drew's father. (One knew at any age that one couldn't make a living simply by being a mystery solver like Nancy, but solving crimes as an attorney seemed practical.) After three years of knowing she was destined for Harvard Law School, Adele finished every published Nancy Drew novel (53 of them at the time) and moved on to reading romance. Thus ended her dreams of solving crimes. The idea of law school seemed far less enjoyable after immersing herself in Victoria Holt at the age of twelve.

The Song Bird Years

Adele continued topursue her singing into her teen years, deciding she was either going to be an editorial reader for a publishing company (because all she loved to do was read) or a Singing Superstar. She figured becoming a Superstar was probably an easier goal to achieve, and so, between reading romances (and in the late 70s there were very few to read), she practiced her art, training her developing coloratura soprano voice with private lessons from one of the best operatic instructors in the city of Albuquerque. Through numerous All-State Choir rehearsals, Jr. and High School choir practice, and various musical productions, she knew she was destined for stardom.

And then at the age of fifteen, her private vocal instructor told her the cold, hard facts: To really make it as a Broadway Singing Superstar, one not only has to read music well, but be able to act and dance and live on pennies. Adele does not dance (unless you count nightclubs in college and that time in Mexico when she was three…) and the "living on pennies" bit seemed highly questionable. Since her acting and music reading talents were also suspect, she decided Broadway might not be for her. Reality sure can be a shocker.

On the Career Path

In college as a journalism major (only because she had to major in something that might get her a paying job), she continued to pursue private vocal instruction with the University of Utah's finest, while performing in various musicals and college recitals. Having directed her through the lead in Cinderella, her drama teacher urged her to try out for local beauty—ahem—scholarship pageants. That was it. Adele was destined to be a singing, reading, reporting, Miss America.

Unfortunately, reality struck again. Not only was Adele a bit lacking in genius (to put it bluntly), being five feet and two inches tall, and possessing quite possibly the shortest legs in the history of womanhood left Adele doing well in talent portions of the contests, but lacking other…necessary attributes. Aside from being crowned Miss Sandy City and Miss Salt Lake County, the pageant thing never went anywhere. Alas, the Singing Beauty Queen future was out.

But Adele worked very hard at her favorite pastime and, by her senior year in college, she'd read just about every Kathleen E. Woodiwiss, Victoria Holt, Shirley Busbee, Laurie McBain, Johanna Lindsey, and Rosemary Rogers book ever printed. The new romance authors were just starting out—Julie Garwood, Judith McNaught, Jude Deveraux—and they immediately grabbed her attention as well.

After graduating from the University of Utah with a degree in Journalism/Broadcast Newswriting, Adele did what so many graduates do—pursued a job in an entirely different field. Thus, in 1986, she became a flight attendant for America West Airlines.

For Adele, the most exciting thing about being a flight attendant was the travel, spending overnights in various cities across the country. Unfortunately, what the airline frequently did was schedule 9-hour layovers in places like San Diego (no time to do a darn thing but sleep), and 23-hour layovers in Des Moines (Iowa is a lovely place, just…you know…not San Diego). So Adele took the opportunity to brush up on—you guessed it—romance novel reading. During the nearly seven years she worked for the airline, she read hundreds of books (most of them romances), including one in particular about getting a romance published. In 1990, Adele decided to write her first romance novel, though it took her three years to actually sit down and do it.

The Glamorous Romance Years

In the spring of 1993, Adele resigned from America West Airlines to pursue writing full-time. Her first book, Even as You Are, took only three months to write and was never published because, quite frankly, it was pretty darn bad. After brushing up on her skills and studying the market in further detail, she decided to write a second, My Darling Caroline, which she finished in April 1995. Two years later, her hard-working agent sold it to Berkley/Jove. My Darling Caroline, released in October of 1998, went on to win the prestigious Romance Writers of America RITA Award for Best First Book of that year.

In the end, what Adele did best was channel her overactive imagination into something arguably practical: writing books. Since the publication of her first novel, she's written several others: Stolen Charms and Winter Garden for Berkley, and Someone Irresistible and When It's Perfect for Avon/HarperCollins. Most recently, Adele completed her acclaimed, bestselling Duke's Trilogy and has begun a new series with a return to characters from Winter Garden.

Adele lives in Texas with her family, spending most of her hard-earned money at Starbucks, where she's frequently seen chugging down coffee while typing out another fantasy that she hopes romance readers will someday enjoy.