Historical Romance
An Awkward Encounter
Here’s a bit from The Upright Son in which the heroine encounters her new neighbor, the very proper Earl of Clarion, in his woods. *** She had given in to her children and joined the hunt for frogspawn after Alfred, her eldest, announced he wished to set up a water barrel in the kitchen yard […]
Poaching as Organized Crime
Did you know that poaching could be a form of organized crime? The law made all game the property of the landowner. Poaching was theft pure and simple. Getting caught could result in transportation to the penal colonies down under. The idea that rich “toffs” cared only about sport has a grain of truth in […]
Sheriffs in England
Highlighting the facts behind Susan Varno’s newest novel. Thank you for this opportunity to share my research. In my newest release, Posing as a Princess, (The Shady Side of the Law, Book 2). Sheriff Weston Chandler is ordered to escort a German princess to a ceremony with the King. However, the woman who announces she’s […]
Fathers Know
The Upright Son is, as I said, off like a herd of turtles. Father and son encountered a group of children wading in a creek on the Clarion Estate. They turned out to be the new renters in the dower house. Neither father nor son could quite get the, er, unusual group out of their […]
A Herd of Turtles
To manage my new pace of releasing a novel every four months (thank you Dragonblade Publishing!!) I have to create a draft in two months. That pace requires that I write at least 2000 words a day (10,000 a week) for eight weeks. More or less. Those months are bracketed by a month of beta […]
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 […]
Naming the Enslaved
Did you know that: Slave registers were kept for the former British Colonial Dependencies between 1813-1834 The practice began as a result of the 1807 Abolition of the Slave Trade Act of 1807. That law outlawed trafficking in enslaved people between Africa and British colonies but considered those already in place to be “lawfully enslaved.” […]
Holidays Are Upon US
November is evaporating fast, and I, for one, am happy to see it go. My heart wants to welcome the season of joy and light! Hanukkah—one of those seasons—began last night, and Christmas looms over the horizon. We celebrated a lovely Thanksgiving last week. Issues involving older family members had us traveling and running about […]
Falmouth Harbor
Highlighting the facts behind the fiction with Penny Hampson. Most of the action in A Bachelor’s Pledge, the third book in my Gentlemen Series takes place in Falmouth, Cornwall. Now, if you don’t know, Falmouth is a small seaside town on the south western coast of England. I chose this location because, during the Napoleonic […]