Author’s Blog

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 Rose War Part Two

I’ve written a novella based on one of Shakespeare’s plays for the A Duke in Winter anthology. I chose Henry VI Part 1 to be silly at first but discovered I liked my idea. The novella actually has parts 1, 2 and 3. In it, Henry Bradley, sixth of that name, has been raised to […]

Drunken Georgians

…that the late Georgians were notoriously heavy drinkers? But the upper classes inclined more toward wine than distilled spirits. In 1838, by one estimate, consumption of distilled spirits in England was a mere .53 gallon per capita annually. Contrast that with Scotland at 2.46 and Australia at 5.02. While gentlemen might start their day with […]

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. […]

Regency Folk Loved Roses

…that the Empress Josephine influenced the popularity of rose cultivation in the late Georgian era? Napoleon’s beloved first wife assembled the largest number of varieties of roses every assembled in a single place. She also fostered the breeding of new types. Throughout the entire Georgian period including the Regency, rose growing was a passion. Roses […]