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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

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 […]

Blessed Are Those Who Mourn

Highlighting the facts behind the fiction with Jude Knight on mourning in the Regency Era. In the novella I am currently writing, my duchess is coming to terms with being a widow and, at the same time, losing her job. So I’ve been checking up on mourning customs. As in so many things, we look […]

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 […]

Ten Years and Still Learning

Last week was a little rough. Joyful, but rough I’ve been writing much of my life. I’ve been publishing for ten years. This year everything ratcheted up a notch. I recently read something from Virginia Heath. She said, “Being a professional writer, I always have a new story on the go and at least another […]

Rambling Through York

Various characters visit various parts of the city, and now York has moved very high up on my real life travel list. I long to wander through The Shambles, view the city from the top of the medieval Clifford’s Tower (and shudder over some of its darker history), gape in awe at York Minster, the […]

Rambling in Chester

Eli had legal business with the bishop. I stopped to enjoy the medieval cathedral. Its construction dates to the eleventh century, the sort of date that makes my American jaw drop. It was built by the Benedictines and survived the dissolution of the monastery by being promoted to cathedral in 1541. Goodness. It also survived […]