Meet an heiress and a fisherman in

Naomi Rawling’s

Historical Romance

Love’s Every Whisper

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The Story

Victoria Donnelly is, as always, a failure. With five years of failed courtships behind her and the calendar inching closer to another birthday, Victoria’s determined to redeem herself and snag a proposal from a wealthy childhood acquaintance, Gilbert Sinclair. But returning to Eagle Harbor stirs up long forgotten memories. Andworse, old affection for her betrothed’s enemy.

Elijah Cummings has loved Victoria for fifteen years. But fishermen’s sons don’t marry shipping barons’ daughters. He knows it. She knows it. The entire town knows it. Resolved to keep his distance from Victoria, Elijah focuses on establishing a much needed life-saving station, risking his own life by rescuing sailors stuck aboard shipwrecks.

He knows how to save drowning sailors, but how is he to save a woman from the biggest mistake of her life—without destroying both their hearts in the process?

Introducing Victoria & Elijah

Brief physical description

Victoria Donnelly: With a stutter that drives potential suitors away after two minutes of conversation and five years of failed courtships, Victoria can’t find a positive thing to say about herself. She’s too tall compared to her petite mother and sister, her hair is too dark, she has a jaw that’s a square as a bucket, and her nose sticks out like a ship’s rudder. There is nothing dainty or feminine about her.

Elijah Cummings: With eyes the color of a stormy sea, maybe it’s fitting that Elijah has started a volunteer life-saving team to rescue people on wrecked ships. He learned to sail and fish at his father’s side, and now that he’s taken over the family fishing business, he uses his large size, strength, and frontier upbringing to fight storms when he goes out on rescues.

Resembles… 

Victoria: Olivia Wilde

Elijah: Chris Hemsworth

Strengths and weaknesses

Victoria: No matter how hard she tries to be a lady and make her parents proud, she fails every single time. And if Elijah tells her that she shouldn’t allow herself to be pushed around? To be prodded into a marriage that resembles a business partnership rather than a husband and wife relationship? Well, she’s not sure her own desires matter that much. It seems the best thing to do with her future is use it to please her parents. But what if her parents ask too much of her? What if all the henpecking she endures teaches her to set her stutter aside and finally stand up for herself?

Elijah: Elijah wants to establish an official life-saving station for Eagle Harbor rather than a volunteer service like he runs now, and he’s not going to let anyone stop him. Surely his determination is a strength, right? He’s risking his life so that others can live. But could his determination become a weakness for him, especially if it makes him too proud to listen to others?

Quirk (if any)

Victoria: Stutter

Your inspiration for the character

Elijah: My inspiration for the character of Elijah was Joshua James. James is known as the Father of the United States Life-Saving Service. James witnessed the deaths of his mother and baby sister when he was ten and helped with his first ship-wreck rescue at the age of fifteen. He went on to save over 200 lives. I took several elements of James’s life and work in Massachusetts and used them for Elijah and his work on Lake Superior.

Victoria: Victoria didn’t have a specific inspiration, per se. Elijah was a strong hero who was fighting to save lives. Part of that involved him fighting over the land he wanted for the life-saving station with his rich childhood nemesis. So if he was going to fight over land with his enemy, then he might as well fight over a woman as well. I originally wrote the first hundred pages of Love’s Every Whisper without giving Victoria a stutter, but Victoria needed a valid reason to struggle with her low confidence, so that’s when her stutter arrived.

Lake Superior at sunset

Background to the story 

My inspiration for Love’s Every Whisper comes from living in a town on Lake Superior and witnessing how sudden and violent the storms here can be. I felt compelled to tell a story about the struggles of settlers on Lake Superior and how they dealt with the extreme weather as well as isolated conditions. When I visited a maritime museum and Marquette, Michigan and read about several life-saving rescues, I knew I had to tell a story of my own.

Thanks Naomi!

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