Love is worth the risk
Once again, the Bluestocking Belles bring you a gift, a bit of holiday fiction, some information about the holiday, and a recipe, as we will every week until January. Today Susan Ellis presents an epilogue to Valuing Vanessa, from the Bluestocking Belles’ 2016 holiday collection, Holly and Hopeful Hearts The daughter of the house awaits […]
Highlighting Historical Romance with Sandra Schwab This summer I re-released my Gothic romance (well, at least it was intended to be a Gothic romance) Castle of the Wolf, in which my English heroine unexpectedly inherits a mysterious castle in the Black Forest, but, alas, finds it inhabited by the grumpiest man imaginable (but he’s kind […]
Highlighting Historical Fiction: Jude Knight brings us her research on English and French cuisine for one of her two stories in Holly and Hopeful Hearts, the Bluestocking Belles’ 2016 Holiday Anthology. In the kitchens of Hollystone Hall, in my story A Suitable Husband, we see one battle in the grand war of cuisines that consumed […]
Highlighting Historical Romance: A ghostly change of pace from Anita Philmar Every family has traditions. The things they do that define them as a family, a unit that stands together to face both the good times and bad. Some look at the holiday traditions of food and decoration as the symbol of how they come […]
It is pure joy to reveal this lovely cover. I’m dancing in my blue stockings with glee. This year’s offering is packed with super stories, eight original novellas, over 500 pages of diverse characters, complex plots and plenty of happily-ever-after, all centered on the Duchess of Haverford’s charity ball. Because her favorite charity—and ours—is education […]
Highlighting Historical Romance: Josie Riviera introduces the fascinating culture of the Romany, or Gypsies. “Gadje Gadjensa, Rom Romensa.” This is a Romany (Gypsy) saying that means “Gadje with Gadje, Rom with Rom.” So what is a gadje? A gadje in the Romany language means “not one of us.” Many Rom prefer to not allow outsiders (us) […]
Highlighting Historical Romance: Adrienne deWolfe In Devil in Texas, my romantic, Western Whodunit, I yearned to give cool spy gadgets to Sadie, my Lady Pinkerton, so she could outwit sinister masterminds. The trouble was, I figured readers would scoff at my outlandish ideas: “A smoke bomb that functions as a button? A mini gun hidden […]
Highlighting Historical Romance: Dorothy A Bell We’re pleased to present an interview with the author. CW: Please tell us about the historical background for your book. Baker City and Sumpter, Oregon experienced a big gold rush after the Civil War years. The famous lost Blue Bucket mine is in the Blue Mountains somewhere waiting to […]
Starting a new story feels like priming a pump that just doesn’t want to flow. I pour in a little ‘water’ in the form of characters and some vague idea of the inciting incident or opening disturbance and then pump and pump, but the words drip out one by one and I’m left waiting for […]
You’ve probably heard me talk about The Bluestocking Belles. Jude Knight wrote this excellent history and explanation of the name we’ve chosen as our own. Readers of historical romances, especially those set in Georgian and Regency England, are familiar with the term ‘bluestocking’. A woman described as a bluestocking will be clever, fond of reading, […]