Author’s Blog

What’s Old is New

Did you know that Christmas is celebrated to coincide with the return of the sun after the darkest days? Early Christians associated the coming of Christ with light, shining in the darkness and so chose a day in which many people celebrated the return of the sun for the feast. Roman Saturnalia celebrated that with […]

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 […]