Cruising

I am knee deep in editing The Upright Son. There are two pieces of good news. Number one, it is on schedule and will be turned in to the publisher by the end of the week. Number two, I think I have a winner here. You’re going to like it. This and that department: I’ve […]

Glasgow and Beyond

I travel. Sometimes I travel by boat, plane, or automobile. Sometimes I travel by book. Sometimes I explore the real world. This week I rambled to a small estate and textile mills in and around Glasgow and then on to London and the stifling townhouse of the vile Duke of Auchen with my fellow bluestocking, […]

Heroines of the Great War

Highlighting the facts behind historical fiction with Cerise Deland who also writes as Jo Ann Powers. Decades ago I became fascinated by the American women who volunteered to go abroad to nurse American soldiers in France during World War One.  At the time, we lived in Washington D.C. and I was very familiar with the holdings […]

Has the Wind Died Down?

I’ve been blown hither and yon for the last several days and not just because the urban wilds of the east coast were hit with a major winter storm! I’ve been running all over social media. I have two more Facebook “takeovers” this week and two more guest blog posts, but they are all (at […]

Revolution in the Regency

Highlighting the facts behind the fiction with Elizabeth Ellen Carter The late Georgian period is known for its revolutions – most strikingly the American and French Revolutions. It was also the beginning a social revolution known today as the Enlightenment period. The turn of the 19th century marked the beginning of another revolution – the […]

Blessed Are Those Who Mourn

Highlighting the facts behind the fiction with Jude Knight on mourning in the Regency Era. In the novella I am currently writing, my duchess is coming to terms with being a widow and, at the same time, losing her job. So I’ve been checking up on mourning customs. As in so many things, we look […]

Ten Years and Still Learning

Last week was a little rough. Joyful, but rough I’ve been writing much of my life. I’ve been publishing for ten years. This year everything ratcheted up a notch. I recently read something from Virginia Heath. She said, “Being a professional writer, I always have a new story on the go and at least another […]

Rambling Through York

Various characters visit various parts of the city, and now York has moved very high up on my real life travel list. I long to wander through The Shambles, view the city from the top of the medieval Clifford’s Tower (and shudder over some of its darker history), gape in awe at York Minster, the […]

Marriage laws in Regency England

Highlighting facts behind Historical Romance with Jude Knight’s research into marriage laws. Most readers of Regency romance have a fair handle on what it was like to be a resident of Regency England, but some of what we think we know is the exception rather than the rule, and some is just plain wrong. Here’s […]

Weary and Sad

The week dawns with your author weary and sad. The end of last week and the weekend brought several phone calls about friends and associates in health crises, some of them covid-related, and the unrelenting drum beat of bad news from California, Louisiana, Haiti, and Afghanistan. It is down right debilitating! But I managed to […]