Across the Cotswolds with Lady Kitty Stocke

Goodness, but this ramble was a rush! When Lady Kitty’s brother-in-law’s game keeper fled their home with villains on his heels, the impulsive young woman pursued him into the hills. Longford Court, a stately old home in West Gloustershire, had every comfort a young lady of good family might want. What might provoke a young […]

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. […]

Sunshine, Joy, and Energy

Spring is finally popping here in the urban wilds of eastern Pennsylvania. After days of cold rain, yesterday bloomed bright, sunny, and warm. Leaves are just coming out on many trees, but the early flowering trees have blossomed. When we moved here I expected a concrete jungle, it being a very urban environment. Our township, […]

Visiting Upper Upton

    After a hiatus in my travels, I was delighted this week to find myself in the quaint English village of Upper Upton. It has all the things one might expect: flower boxes, crooked lanes, gossips, mischievous children, a Easter week assembly to rival any ton ball, prominent local families, a vicarage, and marriage […]

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 […]

Emerging from Hibernation

Bears do it. Bees do it. Even little brown bats do it. Why shouldn’t people? Alas it just feels like I’m emerging from hibernation. It was a difficult winter marred by Beloved’s hospitalization and some forced lifestyle changes. (We are doing ***much*** better. Thanks to all who have expressed concern.)   In the meantime, Duke […]

Lewis and Clark

Did you know… …that Lewis and Clark settled in Saint Louis after their return from their Expedition? Meriwether Lewis was the first governor of The Louisiana Territory in 1807. William Clark was appointed general of the territorial militia with primary responsibility for Indian Affairs. Lewis died two years later. During the War of 1812, in […]

Clocks and Curios

Highlighting the facts behind the history with my fellow Bluestocking Belle, Elizabeth Ellen Carter. A special clock features front and center in my new novel, A Curio for the Count, which comes out on 19 January. It’s a statuette clock with a fancy pendulum. In my research for the novel (twenty minutes research for every […]

Do Clothes Make the Duke?

I’m working so hard to catch up, I haven’t had much time for blog posts lately! This one is easy though. Our duke has been living on the edges of civilization along the Mississippi after being beaten, robbed and left for dead. The miscreants have been caught and he’s to testify. The prosecutor is determined […]

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 […]