The Perfect Victorian Christmas

Sara Bennett joins us this week with her novella, Lord Ravenhill Comes For Christmas, and the facts behind a perfect Victorian Christmas. I have written a Christmas novella! I have always craved a white Christmas so I wrote one, and dived into the sort of Christmas traditions that became so popular during the Victorian era. […]

A Lion in the Museum

Courtney McCaskill joins us to day to give us surprising facts from her novel One Bed for the Bluestocking Kit emitted a high-pitched scream as the Upper Museum’s most popular resident strolled over to greet them. He grabbed Nathaniel’s arm, pulling him toward the door. “Mr. Sterling! Run! There’s a lion!”   While researching the University […]

Widows’ Pensions during the Napoleonic Wars

The heroine of “Charred Hope” in Love’s Perilous Road lives on a widow’s pension. What does that mean in fact? I assumed her pension would be small and barely enough to live on. I wasn’t wrong. In the Napoleonic era the widow of a British officer was entitled to a pension, and as the widow […]

To Be Jewish and Wealthy in Regency London

Welcome Sara Adrien who brings the facts about Jewish families in the upper society of the Regency Era as they appear in her book, Margins of Love. If you’ve read even a handful of Regency romances, you know the world well: Ballrooms—Dukes—Family names that carry centuries of entitlement. But what if I told you some […]

Back to Work

I’m back at my desk, rested and energetic. If you read my newsletter that went out yesterday, you will have read that I feel like my writing picked up speed this summer until it is almost back to normal. Since I got back I did a final edit on Well Done, Harry for the Winter […]

Jewish Jewelers to the Crown?

The UK Crown Jeweler couldn’t be a Jew–or could he? Join Sara Adrien to speculate about what might have been and the secret history behind Instead of Harmony It sounds like fantasy: a Jewish man rising to the title of Crown Jeweler in Regency England. But peel back the layers of fiction, and you’ll find […]

Telegraph, a Victorian Marvel.

Join Ramona Elmes as she describes the impact the telegraph had on Victorian life and on her novel The Intimate Words of a Liberated Lady. Today, I’m excited to share details about the telegraph, a Victorian marvel. In my book, The Intimate Words of a Liberated Lady, a lord and a widow are blackmailed to […]

Moonlight Sonata?

This week let me share with you the challenges in writing about composers in the early 19th century In the opening passage of “Music in the Night” my vision was that Annie would be playing the Moonlight Sonata. The story takes place in 1820, and Owen heard her play it seven years before, in 1813. […]

The Cefn Flight or Fourteen Locks

Please join Misty Urban for the facts about the Monmouthshire Canal and the Cefn Flight, the setting for her novel The Knight Falls First. Something that drew me to 1799 Newport, Wales, for the setting of my books Viscount Overboard and its sequel, The Knight Falls First, were the enormous changes overtaking the area at […]

Hitting Milestones

One down and one to go in my parade of novellas. “Well Done, Harry” went to the editor Friday. To get it there I had to consolidate comments from my beta readers***, edit it, add an author’s note and my bio, and proof it word by word. For that last step, I’m now using the […]