I travel. Sometimes I travel by boat, plane, or automobile. Sometimes I travel by book. Sometimes I explore the real world. This week I visited Harrogate, the famous Yorkshire spa town, and wandered The Stray with Lady Dorothea Bigglesworth. The abundance of chalybeate, sulphur, and various mineral springs in the area have been drawing visitors seeking their medicinal benefits since the sixteenth century. For that reason hotels and inns about in both High and Low Harrogate. Lady Dorothea has found employment in one of them, a rather unusual and some would say scandalous occupation for a lady. Doro his grateful for the work and the funds she can send home to her stepmama and sisters who need it desperately. On a particularly lovely afternoon, she led me through The Stray, the long and lovely parkland linking various springs and wells. It is a remnant of John of Gaunt’s Forest of Knaresborough, preserved for the pleasure of townspeople and visitors. I had hoped she would introduce me to her young man while we strolled, but, alas, he was busy elsewhere.
About the Book: Desperate Daughters
Love Against the Odds
The Earl of Seahaven desperately wanted a son and heir but died leaving nine daughters and a fifth wife. Cruelly turned out by the new earl, they live hand-to-mouth in a small cottage.
The young dowager Countess’s one regret is that she cannot give Seahaven’s dear girls a chance at happiness.
When a cousin offers the use of her townhouse in York during the season, the Countess rallies her stepdaughters.
They will pool their resources so that the youngest marriageable daughters might make successful matches, thereby saving them all.
So start their adventures in York, amid a whirl of balls, lectures, and alfresco picnics. Is it possible each of them might find love by the time the York horse races bring the Season to a close?
Pre-order at special pricing now! It reverts to retail after its May 17 launch.
About Doro’s Story
Lady Dorothea’s Curate: by Caroline Warfield
Employed at a hotel, Lady Dorothea Bigglesworth, daughter of an earl, had no use for a title. It would only invite scorn, or, worse, pity. Plain Miss Doro Bigglesworth suited her fine. Ben Clarke dedicated his life to helping the neediest. It gave his life meaning. He tended to forget the younger son of a viscount went by “Honorable.” Neither saw the need to mention it to the other, until they were formally introduced— in a ballroom in York. Shocked.
