Casting A Marriage of Inconvenience...

Now that I've got another novel scheduled, it's time for another casting post! (Also known as an excuse to post pictures of some hot guys.)

The hero of A Marriage of Inconvenience is James Wright-Gordon, Viscount Selsley. He's young, just 24, but he inherited his title at 15 and came into full control of his fortune and a seat in the House of Lords at 21, so he takes power for granted and is confident he can control everything in the world that most matters to him.

James is an unusual romance hero insofar as he's a bit on the short side, but he's still quite the hottie. I imagined him with a lean and compact yet powerful body, something like Ichiro Suzuki (who at 5'10" is only short by baseball player standards, but still):



But my half-Scottish, half-English hero is obviously not going to look like Ichiro in the face. James has dark hair, blue eyes, and rugged features, a bit like Ian Somerhalder:



Somerhalder's eyes are too light a blue for James, and his nose isn't quite aquiline enough. (That's sort of a Thing with me--you can pretty much spot my heroes by finding the guy with the most prominent nose in the book. This may or may not ever be reflected in my cover art...and my money's on Not. Even if I write, say, a biography of the Duke of Wellington, they'll probably use the Goya portrait for the cover, which is a fine work of art but NSM a literal rendition of His Grace's bone structure.)

Lucy, my heroine, is a delicate, elegant brown-eyed brunette. A lot like Natalie Portman:



She's quiet and deceptively meek, but we learn over the course of the story that she's learned to hide her natural strength and spirit growing up as a poor relation in a difficult family.



James's sister Anna, the heroine of The Sergeant's Lady, also plays a prominent role in Marriage. It's a prequel, so we get to witness the beginning of Anna's misbegotten first marriage to Sebastian Arrington. Back when I did my Sergeant casting post in April, I had trouble finding a contemporary actress who looks like my image of Anna. I still can't find anyone recent, but I thought of a good Hollywood Golden Age Anna--Vivien Leigh.

And Sebastian himself, as mentioned in my April villains post, looks like Ralph Fiennes, but with lighter blond hair.



Only he'd also have a mustache, because such was the fashion among cavalry officers then. Though I admit to struggling to picture him that way.

Since Marriage is a prequel, Will Atkins, the hero of Sergeant, doesn't make an appearance except for a brief mention in an epilogue that may or may not make it into the published book. (The draft I'm working on now to return to my editor by the 21st includes a long comment with the pros and cons of the epilogue, pitching the ball into her court, because I just can't make up my mind.) But I like Will, and he looks like Nathan Fillion (Firefly-era), and you really can't have too many images of Mal Reynolds, now can you? So I'll close with this: