Love is worth the risk
Did you know… …that Lewis and Clark settled in Saint Louis after their return from their Expedition? Meriwether Lewis was the first governor of The Louisiana Territory in 1807. William Clark was appointed general of the territorial militia with primary responsibility for Indian Affairs. Lewis died two years later. During the War of 1812, in […]
Highlighting the facts behind the history with my fellow Bluestocking Belle, Elizabeth Ellen Carter. A special clock features front and center in my new novel, A Curio for the Count, which comes out on 19 January. It’s a statuette clock with a fancy pendulum. In my research for the novel (twenty minutes research for every […]
I’m working so hard to catch up, I haven’t had much time for blog posts lately! This one is easy though. Our duke has been living on the edges of civilization along the Mississippi after being beaten, robbed and left for dead. The miscreants have been caught and he’s to testify. The prosecutor is determined […]
When the Phillip, Duke of Glenmoor, gave his new friends the Archers his formal name with four Christian names, four titles, and a surname, they were highly amused. The Archers, a frontier family with its roots in the Appalachian mountains, have no truck with formality. The seized on the fourth of his names, Arthur, and […]
This is from Duke in Name Only (April 2023). Phillip plans to go upriver with Nan’s brother to search for jewelry or pawn shops in Saint Louis that might have word about his missing signet ring. He hasn’t told either of them he’s also studying commerce along the river, looking for investment opportunities. He’s determined […]
When Phillip feels well enough to talk, Nan begins to interrogate him about how he was injured. She’s worried that the river pirates and low-life rats that infest the Ohio River below Illinois may be moving their operations to the upper Mississippi, putting her tavern at risk. Phillip tells her about a supposed gentleman he […]
…that it took approximately 10,000 acres to yield an income of 10,000 pounds to a landowning aristocrat in the Regency Era? As you can imagine, it took a pile of money to pay all those servants, maintain a townhouse in addition to the country manor, and keep a stable of good horses and carriages. No […]
Working away at the hotel post Historical Romance Retreat. I’ve done a bit of character work, and finally got down the opening I envisioned for Duke in Name Only. When Phillip discovered that the title he held was acquired fraudulently, he wandered away to North America determined to create an independent fortune, success of his […]
…that the late Georgians were notoriously heavy drinkers? But the upper classes inclined more toward wine than distilled spirits. In 1838, by one estimate, consumption of distilled spirits in England was a mere .53 gallon per capita annually. Contrast that with Scotland at 2.46 and Australia at 5.02. While gentlemen might start their day with […]
This is a bit from my novella for A Duke in Winter. The stories in the collection are all based on Shakespeare’s plays. Mine is tentatively entitled The Sixth Henry. You can guess the play. It features a beleaguered new duke and a longstanding feud between two families over roses. Mary is the duke’s sister. […]