At the Guild Hall

I travel. Sometimes I travel by boat, plane, or automobile. Sometimes I travel by book. Sometimes I explore the real world. This week I continued to ramble around York. I followed Doro Bigglesworth and Chloe Tavistock to a lecture at the ancient Guild Hall. They are good friends in as complicated a relationship as the […]

If its Tuesday it must be…

Back in the day there was a movie a few of you may be old enough to remember called If It Is Tuesday, This Must Be Belgium, about of group of strangers on a whirlwind tour of nine countries in eighteen days. It sums up how I’m feeling lately. Yes, I know it is Tuesday […]

Off to Knavesmire

I travel. Sometimes I travel by boat, plane, or automobile. Sometimes I travel by book. Sometimes I explore the real world. This week I continued to ramble around York. I let the Seahaven Diamonds, Ivy and Iris Bigglesworth, drag me off to the race track. York Races take place at Knavesmire, a common pasture belonging […]

An Unlikely Butler at Clifford’s Tower

I travel. Sometimes I travel by boat, plane, or automobile. Sometimes I travel by book. Sometimes I explore the real world. This week I rambled around York with three more of the Seahaven daughters. The Bigglesworths’ handsome and rather unusual butler accompanied Lady Bess (and my humble self, of course) when she escorted the younger […]

An Unexpected Visitor

***** The marchioness glanced around her drawing room. “It is… cozy.” “It suits. Now tell me again what you’re doing here. What is this business about talking sense into the Earl of Clarion?” “Danbury wants him for Home Secretary. The current government frets while unrest seethes and the Home Secretary either refuses to face it […]

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 […]

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.” […]