The Latest!
Duke in Name Only is now available for pre-order. Is he the duke or the bastard? Does it matter in the end? Will he find himself in the American wilderness?
romance
Music To My Ears
The word from my editor about Duke in Name Only? “What an absolutely delightful story! … so vivid and the characters so real and three-dimensional.” That is lovely to hear, but I’m a bit terrified by, “There are very minimal edits.” I rely on a strong pair of professional eyes to keep me out of […]
A Woman’s Foolish Tears
If you read The Upright Son, you may recall Jeffrey Graham, the heroine’s brother. His story picks up a few months after The Upright Son ends, it is called, An Unlikely Duke. ***** The glittering throng parading about the Duchess of Winshire’s annual ball sported the finest silks money could buy. Jeffrey Graham should know. […]
Melancholia Takes Over
Did I mention I’ve been working on a novella for the Bluestocking Belles’ next annual collection? The projected release date is September. It features a group of soldiers returned from Waterloo on time for the village’s harvest festival. My hero is the village’s beloved physician whose scars are deep. There was no word for PTSD […]
Rough Justice
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 […]
MidWinter Madness
A few of you may have missed me lately. For a while I was focused on writing Duke in Name Only, and then… I’ve been very focused on Beloved who has been ill and spent 16 days in the hospital. I’m pleased to announce that he is home, feels better than he has since summer, […]
Mississippi Moonlight
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 […]
Crossing the Atlantic
…you could cross the Atlantic in a month in the Age of Sail? I read that Columbus took two months, and then again six weeks. Of course, he crossed the Atlantic more than once. The average trip was probably six weeks in the eighteenth century. By the beginning of the nineteenth century, sailings of three […]
So begins another…
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 […]
Drunken Georgians
…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 […]