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That Is Juicy Story Material!
Passion’s Duty follows an Irish woodsman and a fiery officer’s daughter stranded in the wilderness of Mohawk Valley who, despite their carefully laid plans, find themselves drawn to each other. Why did you choose 1755 and the Mohawk Valley as the place to begin the Romance and the American Ranger series?
The French and Indian War/Seven Years War has always fascinated me because it shaped so much of what was to come in America. There were major shifts in people’s identities during this time—most importantly a sense of becoming American. And the Mohawk Valley of New York already had a richly diverse population with competing loyalties and a long, colorful history. Most importantly, nothing about the people—especially the valley’s most famous resident, William Johnson—was simple. That is juicy story material!
Faith understands finances, property, mills, medicine, and practical management, yet she lives in a society that continually undervalues those abilities. How did you approach balancing her historical circumstances with her independence?
It is really a case of how Faith balances her circumstances with her independence. She is smart and understands consequences, so she needs to balance her independence in the moment with how acting on it will impact her ability to meet her aims in the future. Reading history, it is easy to forget that women have always been capable and independent, even when social rules and laws didn’t give space for it. We tend to read about the rules from the perspective of those who made them, rather than those who were hemmed in by them. Today, we can hardly imagine being legally “covered” by a father, husband, or son, but that was reality for British women like Faith. A man like James, a former indentured servant with little education, had more legal freedom than Faith, despite her greater wealth, education, and status.
James and Faith begin admiring one another’s competence before either fully acknowledges the attraction between them. Why was mutual respect important to the foundation of their romance?
Competence is always attractive! And I love exploring relationships between equal partners and how they reach that place of true partnership. And, contrary to popular myth, America has always been very class conscious. It was nice not only to explore that but also to have Faith and James blow it up.
Because this is the first Romance and the American Ranger novel, which elements of Passion’s Duty are laying groundwork for the larger series?
I am so glad you asked! The series will follow the ranger company James raises throughout the course of the war. They are a found family, and in Passion’s Duty, you have met at least one main character for the next six books, and in some cases, you have already met both main characters. David’s book, Passion’s Claim, is the next in the series, and oh my goodness, it has been fun to write!
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New York Colony, 1755
Irishman James Carroll is hellbent on independence. In the wilderness of the Mohawk Valley, armed service to a powerful benefactor offers a rare opportunity for a once-indentured servant. But as hostility brews between the British and the French, a beautiful trespasser threatens to shatter James’s singular focus on his one path upward.
Faith Richmond was supposed to have been a son. A disappointment to her military father, despite her quick intellect and obvious talents, she chafes at being bartered to a wealthy officer to prop up her family’s fortunes. Stranded with a surly Irishman who risks his livelihood for her, she refuses to ignore the heat his gaze kindles.
War is coming. But the spark between them ignites into something neither can resist. And once they stop fighting it, there will be no protection from patron or family—even as it puts them directly in the path of French raiders bent on revenge.
Book One of the Romance and the American Ranger series, Passion’s Duty is a steamy, open-door historical romance of forbidden love and forced proximity, with a strong heroine and a hero who is worth the wait. Set at the outbreak of the French and Indian War.
Grab your copy to be swept up in their passionate journey today!
Passion’s Duty
Lizzie Jenks’s Passion’s Duty is a lively historical romance set in New York’s Mohawk Valley as the French and Indian War begins to gather force in 1755. James Carroll, an ambitious Irish immigrant working for William Johnson, hopes military service will earn him the status and security he’s never had. Faith Richmond arrives with her irresponsible officer father, expecting to manage his affairs and accept a practical marriage arranged around land, debt, and family obligation. When she’s injured and placed in James’s care, their attraction develops alongside escalating danger from French scouts, disputed territory, and an approaching military campaign.
The romance works because James and Faith admire each other’s abilities before either one fully understands their feelings. James is a skilled woodsman and natural leader, but he carries deep insecurity about his poverty, limited education, and Irish identity. Faith is intelligent, commercially minded, stubborn, and accustomed to doing work that the men around her barely notice. Their relationship gains momentum through action. He learns that she can think under pressure, gather intelligence, tend wounds, and keep moving through fear. She sees the loyalty and tenderness beneath his rough humor and ambition. Their conversations are often funny, and the supporting cast gives the story the comfortable energy of a close, argumentative family.
Jenks also gives the historical setting real weight. The wilderness is beautiful, inconvenient, and dangerous, while the political situation is complicated by competing British, French, colonial, and Indigenous interests. Mohawk characters such as David and Okwaho have their own knowledge, loyalties, and opinions, and they regularly challenge the assumptions of the British characters. The story moves between domestic concerns and military peril with surprising ease. Faith can be discussing mills and land use in one chapter, then escaping captivity or treating a gunshot wound in another. Some scenes linger on practical details, but those details create a convincing sense of how people traveled, communicated, fought, and survived.
Readers who enjoy Diana Gabaldon’s Outlander may recognize a similar blend of romance, danger, cultural conflict, and carefully researched eighteenth-century life. Jenks’s approach feels more compact and direct, with a stronger focus on frontier military networks and a hero whose central struggle is his hunger for belonging. Passion’s Duty is ultimately a warm, adventurous love story about two capable people realizing that duty doesn’t have to mean surrendering their own futures. James and Faith’s marriage feels earned because it grows from shared danger, mutual respect, and the discovery that each offers the other something deeper than protection or social advantage: a genuine home.
Pages: 289 | ASIN : B0F3W51LPM
