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.” […]

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 […]

Lifting the Fallen Women

Highlighting the facts behind Historical Romance with Jude Knight. In Georgian and Regency England, women who had sex out of wedlock were regarded as ‘fallen’. (Unlike men who had sex out of wedlock, who were only doing what came naturally, according to the opinions of the time.) It’s hard to know how many of those […]

Her Own Little World

I’ve been working on my story for the Bluestocking Belles’ next collection. Here’s a tidbit for WIP Wednesday, grabbed at random from my choppy draft. It appears right after the riot at a lecture on Habeas Corpus. #amwritinghonest *** Doro you idiot. You should have let him accompany you to find Chloe. You should have […]

Into the Slums with Aldridge

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 through the worst sections of London with the Marquis of Aldridge. I wouldn’t normally dare go to St. Giles, Seven Dials, the Devil’s Acre etc., the lairs of thieves, murderers, […]

The Horned God and the Lake District

Highlighting Historical Romance with Barbara Monajem and the facts behind her newest release. I like to put little tidbits of historical detail in my stories—perhaps because that’s the sort of detail I enjoy reading, too. My new release, Lady Rosamund and the Horned God, takes place in the Lake District in England. I’ve been there […]