Amelia Gray on A Duke To Die For

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I like to start every story with “wouldn’t it be wonderful if”, and I didn’t break that tradition with A Duke To Die For. Though I would like to take credit for coming up with that phrase, I can’t. I heard a Harlequin editor say it in a workshop several years ago, and took it as my motto and it’s never let me down.


When I started thinking about an idea for a new Regency story, my first thought was “wouldn’t it be wonderful if my heroine was a young lady who desperately wanted to be in charge of her own life, but couldn’t because her father’s will said she must have a guardian?” That sounded intriguing to me so I kept going.



Wouldn’t it be wonderful if the heroine’s new guardian was a young and handsome, eligible duke who set her heart to racing? Oh, yes, I really liked that idea. And, wouldn’t it be wonderful if his life was chaotic and undisciplined, and he needed an organized and orderly person just like my heroine in his life? Hey, opposites attract so that worked for me.

Sometimes this technique even inspires a twist or two that I wouldn’t have ordinarily come up with otherwise, so I keep going. Wouldn’t it be wonderful if my heroine believes she is cursed because all her previous guardians have died mysteriously, and she doesn’t want the handsome duke to be the next victim? That would certainly add a dash of intrigue!


I keep going with my motto until I have the entire romance of the story plotted with these kinds of sentences, right down to the last wouldn’t it be wonderful if the duke decided he didn’t want the heroine to marry anyone but him, and he knew exactly how to woo her back into his arms?


I think you get the idea of how my motto inspires me whenever I begin a new book, and so far it has served me well.