Brandy Smugglers

Highlighting Historical Romance with Barbara Monajem on Smuggling and her newest release. When I first read Georgette Heyer’s The Talisman Ring (eons ago, when I was in my teens), I was particularly taken with the brandy smugglers, who are vivid, rather charming secondary characters.  When I decided to write historical romances, a book about smuggling […]

Pregnancy in the 19th Century

Highlighting Historical Romance with Nancy Thorne with issues around childbirth and pregnancy. Childbirth in the 19th century was the most common cause of death in women. Still, it was expected as the norm that a married woman will bear children, and that they will be her life’s purpose … a woman’s place in society. In […]

Texas by Rail

Highlighting Historical Romance with Caroline Clemmons and her look into rail travel in Texas When I start researching a book, I can easily fall down the rabbit hole. I see something interesting and—even though the information doesn’t pertain to my book—there I go. By the time I reached MONK’S BRIDE, book 5 in the Kincaid […]

Gun Rights and Armed Retainers

Highlighting Historical Romance with Jude Knight on gun rights and constitutional law in the United Kingdom and the Commonwealth. I was researching English gun rights before the recent massacre in my peaceful little country. I wanted to know what English law said about armed retainers in the early nineteenth century, because I want my characters […]

Ten Miles per Station, Seven Stations per Day… and California Secession?

Highlighting Historical Romance with Lizzi Tremayne and the Pony Express Most people have heard of the Pony Express, but did you know it only ran for eighteen months? (and a large percentage of that time it wasn’t running because a large numbers of the stations through Utah were burnt down…) Although it only ran for […]

On Outlaws

Highlighting Historical Romance with Patricia Preston on that outlaw Frank James. I did a lot of research on the James-Younger gang for Almost an Outlaw and for this blog post I’m sharing the real-life romance of Frank James, Jesse’s older brother, and the love of his life, Ann Ralston. She was a schoolteacher.  A pretty brunette, […]