Support for Ukraine~and Then Coffee

Last week ended with me delivering the final Ashmead Heirs book, The Upright Son to Dragonblade Publishing. This week began with work on an exciting new series. I should have more information for you soon. Meanwhile I’ve been buried in promotional opportunities including an Easter egg hunt and not one but two big Booksweeps. By […]

Rambling Through Harrogate

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 […]

Valentine Greetings and Opportunities

First a blessed Valentine’s Day, however you observe it. I wish each of you a moment with a good book and beverage of choice! Second, this is a terrific week for romance readers. Here are some opportunities: Valentines from Bath has been reduced to 99 cents at least until Wednesday-probably all week. https://bluestockingbelles.net/belles-joint-projects/valentines-from-bath/ The Wayward […]

January Woes

Let’s begin with the good news: The Forgotten Daughter is available for pre-order and on schedule for a January 27 release. Please do pre-order. It is only 99 cents now, but it will revert to full retail price on after launch. The candles came out of the windows the day after Epiphany. In the Regency […]

An Awkward Encounter

Here’s a bit from The Upright Son in which the heroine encounters her new neighbor, the very proper Earl of Clarion, in his woods. *** She had given in to her children and joined the hunt for frogspawn after Alfred, her eldest, announced he wished to set up a water barrel in the kitchen yard […]

A Herd of Turtles

To manage my new pace of releasing a novel every four months (thank you Dragonblade Publishing!!) I have to create a draft in two months. That pace requires that I write at least 2000 words a day (10,000 a week) for eight weeks. More or less. Those months are bracketed by a month of beta […]

Teasing the Hero

I’m making good progress on The Forgotten Daughter. Eli has determined to protect Fanny, who is visiting London and who has had at least one frightening encounter. The ladies, both Fanny and Eli’s ornery sister-in-law Lucy are a bit weary of over-protective males and lack of privacy. They’ve decided to test his diligence with a […]

A Private Moment

Overwhelmed by opinions and advice from family about her future, Fanny is relieved when Eli pulls her aside. For Eli’s part, it is job to make a recommendation to the earl about what assistance the estate can give her. She refers to her young siblings as “the duckings” by the way. *** Eli led Fanny […]

An Arrow of Righteousness

My current focus is on The Forgotten Daughter. Deadlines loom—Yikes! This one begins with a shop clerk in Manchester on the brink of ruin. *** Frances Hancock—Fanny to those who cared—always knew she was a bastard. Her mother’s husband made sure of that. She didn’t know her father was an earl until her mother died. […]

Weary and Sad

The week dawns with your author weary and sad. The end of last week and the weekend brought several phone calls about friends and associates in health crises, some of them covid-related, and the unrelenting drum beat of bad news from California, Louisiana, Haiti, and Afghanistan. It is down right debilitating! But I managed to […]