Christmas in the Regency

Jude Knight Highlights Christmas romance and reminds us how it was celebrated in the Regency With Christmas just around the corner, I’ve been wrapping presents, decorating the house, and making lists of ingredients for Christmas baking. I’ve been writing and reading Christmas stories set in the Regency, and thinking about the differences between then and […]

1916

Welcome Time Travelers. You have landed in 1916, and we’re wondering how you got here—as well as what years you’ve already visited. Perhaps you can tell us in comments. Roses in Picardy, by Caroline Warfield—the final story in the Bluestocking Belles’ Never Too Late anthology—takes place this year, but we hope 1916 is not your […]

Black Friday and Cyber Monday—Regency Style

Julia Justiss highlights shopping! The frenetic pre-Christmas shopping rush used to be typified by US residents leaving their Thanksgiving Thursday dinners to camp out at midnight, the better to score early-bird shopping bargains on Black Friday morning. With the advent of technology, the madness expanded to the on-line shopping bonanza of Cyber Monday. Skipping over […]

Believeable Reasons For a Virgin Hero

Highlighting Monica Burns and her thoughts on her unique trope, the virgin hero. (And don’t forget she offers a FREE book for subscribers) My September 25th reissue, PLEASURE ME, has a virgin hero. When I decided to write Garrick as a virgin, I was faced with a tough question. What reason does a virile, alpha […]

Never Too Late at Vauxhall Gardens

Highlighting Susana Ellis’s love of Vauxhall Gardens.   Vauxhall Gardens has become a bit of an obsession with me. I even visited there last September, even though it has become little more than a small grassy area between the Vauxhall Underground station, Kennington Lane, and the busy Vauxhall Bridge. The Orchestra building being long gone, […]

A Hero, A Barrister, An Escape

Highlighting Linda McLaughlin’s hero, Stephen Chaplin, a barrister. I recently visited Stephen Chaplin, Esquire at his offices in London’s Lincoln’s Inn to interview him. LM: Mr. Chaplin, thank you so much for agreeing to meet with me. Can you tell me a bit about yourself? For instance, are you originally from the London area? SC: […]

Cattle, Horses, and a Cowhand

Highlighting Ana Morgan’s research about cowhands and their universe. I had lots of first-hand experience to draw on, when I started writing Stormy Hawkins. I knew homesteading. I’d been chased out of a pasture by the neighbor’s Jersey bull. (It had nasty horns and knew exactly how to use them.) I lived near the fictional […]

American Heiresses/ English Dukes

This week Donna MacMeans shares her research with us. One of the things I love about writing is how everything you’ve done, every place you visit, inspires stories. The stories might not be immediate, but they percolate in the brain until they fit with the perfect storyline. That’s the way it worked for me with […]

A Viscount, Irish History, and Plumbing

Alina K. Field joins us this week Thank you for having me as your guest today, Caroline! I love historical romance that draws on the current events of the story world. (Your most recent novel, The Reluctant Bride, does that beautifully!) So when I came up with the idea for a series about the children […]

The Fate of Prisoners

Research about Fortune’s Foe from Michele Stegman Ever since I visited El Castillo, the fort in St. Augustine, Florida, and saw the small space where 20 English captives were held in 1740, I wondered what happened to those men. Apparently, no one made any effort to rescue or help them during that awful war between the […]