Impetuous and Scandalous

Highlighting Historical Romance presents Kelly McClymer Hi, I’m Kelly McClymer and I want to thank Caroline for giving me a chance to talk about my favorite intersection of topics — history and women. You may have heard that women in the past couldn’t do many things that men could do. While that is true, it […]

Seven Holiday Gifts: Week Seven

For seven weeks the Bluestocking Belles have brought you a gift or givewaway, a bit of holiday fiction, some information about the holiday, and a recipe. This week we bring the series to a close with Jessica Cale’s epilogue to her story Artemis, one of the eight novellas featured in the Bluestocking Belles’ 2016 holiday […]

Seven Holiday Gifts: Week Five

Once again, the Bluestocking Belles bring you a  gift, a bit of holiday fiction, some information about the holiday, and a recipe, as we will every week until January. Today Susan Ellis presents an epilogue to Valuing Vanessa, from the Bluestocking Belles’ 2016 holiday collection, Holly and Hopeful Hearts The daughter of the house awaits […]

Castles, Mice & Evil Bishops: Travels on the Rhine

Highlighting Historical Romance with Sandra Schwab This summer I re-released my Gothic romance (well, at least it was intended to be a Gothic romance) Castle of the Wolf, in which my English heroine unexpectedly inherits a mysterious castle in the Black Forest, but, alas, finds it inhabited by the grumpiest man imaginable (but he’s kind […]

Clash of Cuisines

Highlighting Historical Fiction: Jude Knight brings us her research on English and French cuisine for one of her two stories in Holly and Hopeful Hearts, the Bluestocking Belles’ 2016 Holiday Anthology. In the kitchens of Hollystone Hall, in my story A Suitable Husband, we see one battle in the grand war of cuisines that consumed […]

The Family Guardian

Highlighting Historical Romance: A ghostly change of pace from Anita Philmar Every family has traditions. The things they do that define them as a family, a unit that stands together to face both the good times and bad. Some look at the holiday traditions of food and decoration as the symbol of how they come […]

The 2016 Bluestocking Belles Holiday Anthology is Here

It is pure joy to reveal this lovely cover. I’m dancing in my blue stockings with glee. This year’s offering is packed with super stories, eight original novellas, over 500 pages of diverse characters, complex plots and plenty of happily-ever-after, all centered on the Duchess of Haverford’s charity ball. Because her favorite charity—and ours—is education […]

Exploring Romany Culture

Highlighting Historical Romance: Josie Riviera introduces the fascinating culture of the Romany, or Gypsies. “Gadje Gadjensa, Rom Romensa.” This is a Romany (Gypsy) saying that means “Gadje with Gadje, Rom with Rom.” So what is a gadje? A gadje in the Romany language means “not one of us.” Many Rom prefer to not allow outsiders (us) […]

Victorian Spy Gadgets: What Every Lady Pinkerton Needs

Highlighting Historical Romance: Adrienne deWolfe In Devil in Texas, my romantic, Western Whodunit, I yearned to give cool spy gadgets to Sadie, my Lady Pinkerton, so she could outwit sinister masterminds. The trouble was, I figured readers would scoff at my outlandish ideas: “A smoke bomb that functions as a button? A mini gun hidden […]

A Recluse and a Refugee

Highlighting Historical Romance: Dorothy A Bell We’re pleased to present an interview with the author. CW: Please tell us about the historical background for your book. Baker City and Sumpter, Oregon experienced a big gold rush after the Civil War years. The famous lost Blue Bucket mine is in the Blue Mountains somewhere waiting to […]