Captain Easterday's Bargain

Captain Easterday's Bargain
388 Pages
ISBN 9781509225422

In the Pool of London, Olivia Cantarell may be in over her head. The cutthroat shipping trade is no place for a lady, although Olivia has acted as her father's assistant secretly for years. Now she has inherited his company, she has no mind to give up control over it—and herself—by marrying, however flattering it is to be sought after for the first time in her life. In spite of threats and intimidation she will fight to keep her business.

Careful, responsible, and twice jilted, Captain Marcus Easterday has no heart to attempt marriage a third time. But he cannot stand by and see a woman cheated of her livelihood by Ambrose Hawkins, rumored to be a former pirate, a man whose name is known and feared in ports from the West Indies to China.
Courted by the ruthless Hawkins while relying on the scrupulous Easterday’s help, she must conceal the identity of one of her clerks, and protect her company and employees. Who can Olivia trust?

Kathleen Buckley

About Kathleen Buckley (Albuquerque, New Mexico Author)

Kathleen Buckley

As soon as I learned to read, I wanted to write. It’s been a long, long road. In the 1990s, I sold two stories to Robert Bloch (of Psycho movie fame) for Psycho Paths and Monsters in Our Midst. In 2013 I self-published a coming-of-age novel, Getting By. As far as I can tell, nobody’s ever read it—not even the free sample—certainly no one’s bought it. You would think this might be depressing, and there have been years-long stretches when I wrote nothing but chatty letters and an occasional letter to the editor (the kind beginning, “I view with alarm …”). But the writing fits always re-surfaced, rather like malaria.

An Unsuitable Duchess germinated after I’d been re-reading Georgette Heyer’s delightful romances and contemplating the fact that there would never be any more, Ms. Heyer having died in the 1970s. I wondered if I could write a similar novel—accurate background, humor, romance, interesting characters. While An Unsuitable Duchess didn’t really resemble Heyer’s books, I thought it was worth trying to find a publisher. And here we are.

I worked the assortment of jobs typical of writers (customer service in a hospital billing department, light bookkeeping in a commercial print shop, paralegal, security officer). In 2008, I moved from Seattle, Washington to Albuquerque, New Mexico.