Emerging from Hibernation

Bears do it. Bees do it. Even little brown bats do it. Why shouldn’t people? Alas it just feels like I’m emerging from hibernation. It was a difficult winter marred by Beloved’s hospitalization and some forced lifestyle changes. (We are doing ***much*** better. Thanks to all who have expressed concern.)   In the meantime, Duke […]

Presented to Society-American Style

To the the Archers’ stunned disbelief they have been invited to a soiree at the governor’s mansion as Phillip’s guest. From Duke in Name Only, currently at with the editor. *** Nan, resplendent in crème and gold, descended on Luke’s arm. At Nate’s exclamation, they paused on the stairs. Candles from the crystal chandelier glittered […]

Rough Justice

When the Phillip, Duke of Glenmoor, gave his new friends the Archers his formal name with four Christian names, four titles, and a surname, they were highly amused. The Archers, a frontier family with its roots in the Appalachian mountains, have no truck with formality. The seized on the fourth of his names, Arthur, and […]

MidWinter Madness

A few of you may have missed me lately. For a while I was focused on writing Duke in Name Only, and then… I’ve been very focused on Beloved who has been ill and spent 16 days in the hospital. I’m pleased to announce that he is home, feels better than he has since summer, […]

Crossing the Atlantic

…you could cross the Atlantic in a month in the Age of Sail? I read that Columbus took two months, and then again six weeks. Of course, he crossed the Atlantic more than once. The average trip was probably six weeks in the eighteenth century. By the beginning of the nineteenth century, sailings of three […]

River Pirates

When Phillip feels well enough to talk, Nan begins to interrogate him about how he was injured. She’s worried that the river pirates and low-life rats that infest the Ohio River below Illinois may be moving their operations to the upper Mississippi, putting her tavern at risk. Phillip tells her about a supposed gentleman he […]

So begins another…

Working away at the hotel post Historical Romance Retreat. I’ve done a bit of character work, and finally got down the opening I envisioned for Duke in Name Only. When Phillip discovered that the title he held was acquired fraudulently, he wandered away to North America determined to create an independent fortune, success of his […]

Return from War

Lord Ethan lived on the streets of London with other homeless veterans for a year, too ashamed and weary to go home, before Lady Flora Landrum found him in an alley behind a tavern. Healing, slow though it may be, can happen. ***** His heart stuttered at the sight of Lady Flora Landrum turning her […]

Knee Deep in September

I hope you had a wonderful summer. I’m not sure where mine went! It certainly was a busy one. The garden and I battled lack of rain, and about broke even. The Upright Son, final book in The Ashmead Heirs came out June 28. Since then I completed another novel (Duke in All But Name […]

The War of the Roses

This is a bit from my novella for A Duke in Winter. The stories in the collection are all based on Shakespeare’s plays. Mine is tentatively entitled The Sixth Henry. You can guess the play. It features a beleaguered new duke and a longstanding feud between two families over roses. Mary is the duke’s sister. […]