Georgian Gingerbread

 

Winter is a good time to make gingerbread. The eighteenth century had two kinds: hard or “card” gingerbread, what we call a cookie (or biscuit in the U.K.), and a cake. I recently made the latter for our local Jane Austen group tea in celebration of Jane’s 247^th birthday, using the recipe below. It makes our gingerbread look and taste anemic.

 Mrs. MacIver’s recipe from Cookery and Pastry, published 1783 and 1789, is strongly flavored, moist and dense. I made half a batch because two and a half pounds of flour would make far more than I needed for an 8 x 8 inch pan. I’ll give the amounts I used and cooking directions after the recipe. Be warned: you’ll need a scale.

 At the time this recipe was published, the letter “s” was often represented by something that looks like an “f”. No, I don’t know why. After a while, you get used to it.

 And cake pans were not a “thing” yet. Cakes were baked in a frame or hoop. I didn’t have a hoop so I sprayed my pan generously with cooking spray. When the cake was baked and cool, it turned out of the pan easily.

 To make fine Gingerbread . Take two pounds and a half of flour ; mix an ounce of beat ginger with it , and half a pound of brown fugar ; cut three quarters of a pound of orange peel and citron not too fmall ; mix all thefe together ; take a mutchkin and a half (1 ½  English pint) of good treacle , and melt it on the fire ; beat five eggs ; wet the flour with the treacle and eggs ; weigh half a pound of fresh butter , Scots weight ; melt it and pour it in amongst your other materials and cast them all well together ; butter a frame , and put it in the oven .

This gingerbread won't fire without frames . if it rifes in blifters when it is in the oven , run a fork through it . It makes very fine plain bread without the fruit , with a few caraway feeds . All these cakes must be fired in an oven neither too hot nor too cold . The way to know when the cakes are fired enough , is to run a clean knife down the middle of them ; if the knife comes out dry , they are enough ; if the leaft of it ſticks to the knife , put it into the oven again. Susanna MacIver, Cookery and Pastry, 1783, 1789

 Ingredients

 Flour: 20 ounces

Brown sugar: 4 oz.

Ginger: ½ oz.

Citron and (candied) orange peel but I used only citron): 6 oz. (the fruit is optional; you can use a few caraway seeds instead)

Treacle: 1 ½ cup (molasses; I used blackstrap molasses)

Eggs: about 3 ½ to 4  oz. of eggs*

Butter: 4 oz.

 *Eggs were smaller at the time. The recipe for pound cake called for a pound of eggs, which works out to eggs weighing about 1.33 ounces each. Ten percent of their weight is shell, so allow for that in the total.

 Directions:

 Preheat the oven to 350 degrees F. (176.667 Celsius).

 Combine the flour, sugar, ginger, and citron, or caraway seeds if you substitute those).

 Melt the butter and let it cool before adding it to the molasses and beaten eggs.

 Add the butter/molasses/eggs to the flour mixture and mix them thoroughly. If you have a kitchen maid with a strong arm, she can do it. I used a KitchenAid stand mixer. The batter will be thick.

 Spray the 8 x 8 inch pan (or a comparable size) with cooking spray. Dump the batter in and spread it around to fill the pan.

 Bake for approximately 30 to 35 minutes. Test with a toothpick or skewer. If it comes out with batter on it, cook a little longer and re-test.

 Let it cool and turn it out of the pan. Cut in small pieces. It’s quite rich and I liked it a lot.

 

Georgian Cats

 

As some of my readers may have guessed from the cover of A Peculiar Enchantment, I am extremely fond of cats. When I began writing Adelaide’s story, making a cat her only friend and confidante was irresistible, and my favorite cat, Meret, served as the inspiration for Tabby. Meret, like Adelaide’s Tabby, sucks on my chin.

 Most historical fiction set in the Georgian period concentrates on dogs and horses as the characters’ animal companions, giving the impression that cats were held in low esteem. But they were not without their human friends. 

Many paintings of domestic scenes include felines: cats with their prey, kittens being dressed by little girls, children playing with cats. Edward Bird depicted a woman taking tea with her cat, who is on the table and appears to have a saucer of milk. 

A 1747 - 1748 painting by J-B Perronneau shows a lady (possibly Marie Antoinette) holding a large blue (i.e. gray, like a Russian Blue cat) in her arms. 

Sometimes the portrait is of the cat, like Jean-Jacques Bachelier's 1761 painting of an Angora cat. 

 

James Boswell, in his Life of Samuel Johnson (1791) described Dr. Johnson’s fondness for one of his cats:

I never shall forget the indulgence with which he treated Hodge, his cat: for whom he himself used to go out and buy oysters, lest the servants having that trouble should take a dislike to the poor creature…I recollect him one day scrambling up Dr. Johnson's breast, apparently with much satisfaction, while my friend smiling and half-whistling, rubbed down his back, and pulled him by the tail; and when I  observed he was a fine cat, saying, “Why yes, Sir, but I have had cats whom I liked better than this;” and then as if perceiving Hodge to be out of countenance, adding, “but he is a very fine cat, a very fine cat indeed.” This reminds me of the ludicrous account which he gave…of the despicable state of a young Gentleman of good family. "Sir, when I heard of him last, he was running about town shooting cats." And then in a sort of kindly reverie, he bethought himself of his own favourite cat, and said, “But Hodge shan't be shot; no, no, Hodge shall not be shot.”

 The good doctor’s remarks to Hodge sound eerily like any modern cat devotee’s conversation when no other human is present. 

 Meret, please don’t suck on my chin while I’m typing. 

 

BÉESO DAH YINÍLJAA

 

Because I live in New Mexico and sometimes write about it, an article in the Albuquerque Journal in mid-August caught my eye.

BÉESO DAH YINÍLJAA

My accent marks are not quite right because I don’t have a Navajo keyboard and they’re not standard on the Alt code charts.

Here’s the translation: “A Fistful of Dollars”, which has been dubbed in Navajo through the efforts of the director of the Navajo Nation Museum, Manny Wheeler. This is one of the steps he’s taken to keep the language alive (there are no subtitles). Previously, “Star Wars” and “Finding Nemo” had been translated into Navajo.

The translators and voice actors were all Navajo. The challenge in translating is finding the right word, 
according to Wheeler: “…Native languages are more complex than the English language. With ‘Star Wars’, we had to translate lightsaber. We have many words that fit that translation. We had to pick the right one.”

For more examples of Navajo (Diné) language see: http://navajopeople.org/blog/my-mother-navajo-language-lesson/

Don’t expect to learn it. I’m told if you didn’t grow up around Navajo speakers, you’ll never get it quite right.  

Get free books for your autumn reading and maybe win nifty stuff

When was the last time you heard someone use "nifty" in a sentence (or anywhere else)? See  the Third Annual Fall into a Book giveaway event, below, for how you can enter

First, the free books: 

Two of my books will be available for free in The Must Read Historical Romance promo (9/15/2022 – 10/15/2022) if you subscribe to my newsletter on the signup form on Bookfunnel.

A Peculiar Enchantment (release date 12/6/2020; you'll be seeing it before the buying public):  https://dl.bookfunnel.com/gyfihfmvld

A Westminster Wedding:  https://dl.bookfunnel.com/qhj0tetblh

Both are also available on Booksirens in exchange for a review when you’ve read them.

A Peculiar Enchantment (release date 12/6/2020; you'll be seeing it before the buying public): https://booksirens.com/book/GN2ZF4D/YOJGY8S

A Westminster Wedding:  https://booksirens.com/book/FJUHJD6/P1H3US6

And don’t forget that entrants in  the Isn't It Romantic Book Club's Third Annual Fall into a Book giveaway event on Facebook can win loot.

 Over 200 authors are giving away...well, whatever they want to...to the winning entrants. Here’s how it works:

On Friday, September 23, go to facebook.com/groups/isntitromanticbookclub.

Each author will make one post: maybe there will be a game to play or a question to answer or whatever the author decides to do that will call for a response or comment of some sort. 

I plan to pose 4 easy (opinion) questions. My four winners will be able to choose which one of my seven published historical romances they want. Reader warning: none of them contain explicit sex scenes. Sometimes they contain mild bad language (i.e., not as bad as you’d hear on a middle-school playground, probably).

On Saturday, September 24, each author will choose their winner or winners and notify them by friending and tagging or messaging them. 

I'm looking forward to it.

Chance to win books or other swag

 Here's fun for readers of romance novels: chances to win books or cool stuff. Over 200 authors are participating and each will decide what prize they'll award. I'll be offering four of my entrants a choice of whichever one of my seven published works they'd like: An Unsuitable Duchess, Captain Easterday’s Bargain, A Masked Earl, A Duke’s Daughter, Portia & the Merchant of London, A Westminster Wedding, and Most Secret.

There's only one day to enter: September 23, 2022.

Enter to win a signed copy of A Westminster Wedding

 

I meant to write a longer post about this but I've spent the weekend checking galleys for A Peculiar Enchantment and I now need a nap.  

https://www.historicaltimes.org

 You can enter here from 8/14/22 to 8/21/22:   https://rfr.bz/M4im5s9

L𝗶𝗺𝗶𝘁𝗲𝗱 𝘁𝗼 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗨𝗦𝗔, 𝗖𝗮𝗻𝗮𝗱𝗮, 𝗔𝘂𝘀𝘁𝗿𝗮𝗹𝗶𝗮 𝗮𝗻𝗱 𝗨𝗞 𝗼𝗻𝗹𝘆.

Tagline: A new life...for a few more lies.

 

Where are the foods of yesteryear?

"Hard Times and Hardtack" was going to be the title of my article on Civil

War food for Historical Times Magazine. The title apparently failed to please but the magazine and the article will be out on August 1, 2022. 

https://online.1stflip.com/dssx/3jfn/  

I learned fascinating things while writing it. The following tidbits are among the 3,000 words I cut: 

 American cuisine did not spring into existence with the first colonists. They brought their cookbooks and their ideas of what food should be with them, whether they came from Great Britain, France, Spain, Holland (New York City was originally New Amsterdam, founded by the Dutch), or Africa (via the slave ships). 

The first American cookbook was published in 1796 and almost all of the recipes came from English cookbooks. In fact, even in the mid-nineteenth century, American breakfasts did not vary much from those suggested in the preeminent Victorian cookbook, Mrs. Beeton’s Book of Household Management (1861). Any cold meat from the larder “can do duty at the breakfast table”, Isabella Beeton advises, as can potted meat or fish and meat pies. For hot dishes she recommends fish, kidneys, mutton chops, rump-steaks, eggs, muffins, toast, marmalade, butter, etc. The only real distinguishing feature of an American breakfast was the occasional appearance of corn, rice, and sweet potatoes. 

Mutton ham used to be a common dish in this country, as it was in Great Britain. Potted meat, potted pig’s head, salt cod, and cold mush sliced and fried appeared regularly in cookbooks. So did corn fritters, oddly renamed hush puppies in the late nineteenth century.  

A letter from Alexis de Tocqueville to his father dated December 20, 1831, written at Memphis, Tennessee after a trek through the wilderness shows us how primitive frontier food could be: 

…we happened upon a log cabin with chinks on every side through which a big fire could be seen crackling…Picture a fireplace half the width of the room…a bed; a few chairs; a six-foot-long carbine; a hunter’s accoutrements hanging on the log wall and dancing in the draught…the [two or three] poor Blacks served us at his behest: one presented us glasses of whisky, and another corncakes and a plate of venison. The third was sent off to fetch more wood. 

 From https://hudsonreview.com/2013/03/letters-from-america/#.YkG5qOfMIdU, retrieved 3/28/2022.

I finally have a newsletter! Plus you get...

 I'm a techno-dinosaur, perhaps because my mind is so often in the 1740s. For several years I've known I needed a newsletter because every writer does. And every time I thought of it, I went and did something productive: wrote a novel, or ate dulce de leche ice cream, or cleaned the toilet. The thought of figuring out how to set up a newsletter gave me a megrim. 

Illustration for Pamela by Samuel Richardson

I tried twice, unsuccessfully. The house was getting really clean. But after working on it again for several days, I finally succeeded
and sent out my first one. Here I am, preparing to post the first issue. There are still a few bugs to iron out but I'll fix them eventually. And after I hit the magic button and sent my chatty little letter off, I set up a "welcome" letter.

The advice for producing a newsletter that wouldn't be annoying was to put an "unsubscribe" widget at the top, in addition to the one that  automatically appears at the bottom. I tried to do this, but unfortunately, the actual instructions were written by computer geeks for computer geeks. I did not (and still do not) know what a widget is or where to find one, much less how to insert one. One of my less refined characters would probably have a pithy comment about that.

So I jury-rigged one by adding a line at the top that said something like, "If you ever want to unsubscribe, there's a button at the bottom of the page (because I can't figure out how to put one up here...)."

 Surely it should be easier to do this stuff than it is?  Oh, and by the way, the subscription thing is at the bottom of my website "landing page": https://18thcenturyromance.com/. There must be a way to put a button (or widget?) someplace else, too, but that's something I haven't figured out yet.  

And because this is a short post and I happen to have a couple of short reviews, here they are: 

16 Souls by John J. Nance is as good as a disaster novel can be. Even better, it’s a perfect blend of disaster novel and courtroom thriller. The story gripped me and the characters were believable.  I had things to do and places to go yesterday and instead I immersed myself in it until well after bedtime. 

The Pied Wizard of Regis Towne by Laura Strickland is a delightful fairy tale. Who could fail to be enchanted by the story of a self-respecting Rat transmogrified into a Man very much against his will? It’s all the things I enjoyed about fairy tales when I was a child, but with more humor and depth. I spent a thoroughly enjoyable evening with it and will be looking for more by Ms. Strickland. 

  

Hard Times and Hardtack

 As some of you may have noticed, I occasionally write about Georgian era food. This is not solely because I write novels set in the mid-eighteenth century. My fascination with the history of food began when I was nine or ten.  

My father was an excellent and imaginative cook, and should probably have been a chef instead of a rate and tariff analyst. Even so, I might not have caught the culinary research bug but for two things. The first was that he began bringing home Gourmet Magazine. The other was that I loved to read and would read anything I could find. Read "above grade level"? Absolutely, including some books even I wouldn't recommend for children. My mother returned Fanny Hill to the friend who loaned it to her before I got very far into it. Just as well, perhaps. 

So of course I read Gourmet Magazine. At the time, it frequently ran articles on food history, which led to collecting old cookbooks which led to my volunteering to write about Civil War period food for Historical Times online magazine (https://www.historicaltimes.org/). That issue, Number 013 covering the Civil War, will be coming out in late autumn.

Mt. Harmon plantation kitchen at
World's End, Earleville, Maryland

Over the first six months of this year, I researched what people ate in the years leading up to and during the Civil War. Possibly I over-researched: Not only what they ate but why they ate it, how they cooked it, why a distinctive American cuisine took so long to develop, why maple syrup didn't really become a "thing" until after the Civil War, the effect of the Union blockade of Southern ports, and army logistics. 

I tried cooking a couple of the odder dishes. I studied dozens of nineteenth century cookbooks. Most were available on Google Play Books or from institutions for free, thank goodness. 

The first draft of  "Hard Times and Hardtack" ran to well over 5,000 words. The submitted version was down to 2,300, but nothing will be wasted. Some of the cut bits will be recycled as posts here or on my Facebook Page (https://www.facebook.com/anunsuitableduchess) or on Instagram (18thcenturyromance). 

And now that I'm no longer busy researching for the article, I plan to try making coconut pralines and a couple of other recipes I discovered, including one for sandwich cookies stuffed with coconut, pecans and raisins. 

Oh, and my eighth novel is in the editing stages. A Peculiar Enchantment is coming along faster than I expected. With luck maybe it will be released by the end of the year.

Love is the most peculiar enchantment.

.   

   

Fodder & Drincan: Anglo-Saxon Culinary History

 Because the history of food fascinates me, I'm looking forward to the publication in October of this year to a book about Anglo-Saxon food and drink. 

https://prospectbooks.co.uk/products-page/new-and-forthcoming-titles/fodder-drincan-anglo-saxon-culinary-history/?fbclid=IwAR3aWU3kgrYIkH2Muow-kjxzXZfqlrAMAuEhVQOBdvUMynoFPixwtBdScBo

Roman army medics and pecan pie

 

Recently I learned a new word: capsarius. All right, it’s not one likely to come up in casual conversation…unless one is talking about the Roman army. Maybe not then.

The legions had medical units (and wouldn’t that make an interesting TV series? Sort of a cross between M.A.S.H. and A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Forum) which set up about a quarter mile back from the front lines. But the capsarius, about one per eighty-eight legionaries, was in the thick of it, like a modern army medic.

Fun fact: the capsarius took his name from the leather satchel he carried, a capsa. And when he wasn’t stitching a wound, removing an arrow or sending an injured man back to the medical tents, he returned to fighting.

I gleaned all this from the ancient history issue of Historical Times, which also includes pieces on the fate of Cleopatra and Marc Anthony’s children, Hadrian’s Wall, and Bronze Age barrows, among others. It’s online, interactive, and each issue features a different period. You can find it at https://www.historicaltimes.org/.

Currently, I’m writing a piece on food at the time of the Civil War for an issue which will appear later this year. It’s not my usual period, but I’ve been interested in the history of food since I was a child. My research in far, far too many nineteenth century American cookbooks has turned up some astonishing things.

Did you know pecan pie is (relatively) modern? I couldn’t find it in a cookbook until 1910. The Karo® corn syrup that is an essential ingredient was first manufactured in 1902. Sadly, no one was eating pecan pie during the Civil War.  

What they might have eaten for breakfast as suggested in The Kentucky Housewife (1839) was “ham poddage”: eggs served on fried mashed potato cakes, with gravy. “Ham sandwicks” was another possibility: slices of ham seasoned with pepper, nutmeg and lemon, in flour batter, fried in lard, with a gravy of onions, parsley, pepper, flour and cream poured over the whole thing.

If you try either of those, please let me know how they turned out.

Memorial Day

 Many of us mostly think of Memorial Day as the unofficial beginning of summer. Sometimes it's good to be reminded of what it's really about, so this post is dedicated to Captain Benjamin L. Salomon, Surgeon, serving in the Marianas in the Second World War. The following is the citation from the Congressional Medal of Honor Society:

For conspicuous gallantry and intrepidity at the risk of his life above and beyond the call of duty. Captain Ben L. Salomon was serving at Saipan, in the Marianas Islands on July 7, 1944, as the Surgeon for the 2nd Battalion, 105th Infantry Regiment, 27th Infantry Division. The Regiment's 1st and 2nd Battalions were attacked by an overwhelming force estimated between 3,000 and 5,000 Japanese soldiers. It was one of the largest attacks attempted in the Pacific Theater during World War II. Although both units fought furiously, the enemy soon penetrated the Battalions' combined perimeter and inflicted overwhelming casualties. In the first minutes of the attack, approximately 30 wounded soldiers walked, crawled, or were carried into Captain Salomon's aid station, and the small tent soon filled with wounded men. As the perimeter began to be overrun, it became increasingly difficult for Captain Salomon to work on the wounded. He then saw a Japanese soldier bayoneting one of the wounded soldiers lying near the tent. Firing from a squatting position, Captain Salomon quickly killed the enemy soldier. Then, as he turned his attention back to the wounded, two more Japanese soldiers appeared in the front entrance of the tent. As these enemy soldiers were killed, four more crawled under the the tent walls. Rushing them, Captain Salomon kicked the knife out of the hand of one, shot another, and bayoneted a third. Captain Salomon butted the fourth enemy soldier in the stomach and a wounded comrade then shot and killed the enemy soldier. Realizing the gravity of the situation, Captain Salomon ordered the wounded to make their way as best they could back to the regimental aid station, while he attempted to hold off the enemy until they were clear. Captain Salomon then grabbed a rifle from one of the wounded and rushed out of the tent. After four men were killed while manning a machine gun, Captain Salomon took control of it. When his body was later found, 98 dead enemy soldiers were piled in front of his position. Captain Salomon's extraordinary heroism and devotion to duty are in keeping with the highest traditions of military service and reflect great credit upon himself his unit and the United States Army. 

The Devil in the Marshalsea by Antonia Hodgson

 

Antonia Hodgson’s novel, The Devil in the Marshalsea, is exactly the kind of historical mystery I enjoy. Most of the story takes place in the Marshalsea debtors’ prison, where a rakehelly parson’s son is imprisoned for a debt of £20. Doesn’t sound like much? At the time, a maidservant might earn only £5 a year. Conditions in the prison are worse than you can imagine. They’re worse than I could imagine in spite of being hardened to some of the less pleasant features of the eighteenth century. Trapped in a prison in which the protagonist, Thomas Hawkins, runs the risk of dying of gaol fever, murder, starvation, or mistreatment, his only chance of freeing himself is by solving the murder of another prisoner.

Good writing, fascinating characters, high stakes, and a denouement I didn’t see coming: these are all the things I hope for in fiction. But for me, the cherry on top is that Ms. Hodgson’s details and background are thoroughly researched and believable, not something I often see in this genre. My books are set a mere dozen years later than The Devil in the Marshalsea, so the period is familiar ground. I believe this is the only historical novel I’ve read in which the characters eat the foods that actually were eaten at the time. Some of you know that this is a pet peeve of mine. Yes, I’m picky.

And if you prefer to read in Chinese or German, it’s available in translation.  

I haven’t yet started the second book, The Last Confession of Thomas Hawkins, but it’s on my Kindle.

A Westminster Wedding Advance Reader Copy available

A Westminster Wedding

The Barding earldom may be doomed. A shocking suggestion might provide another potential heir.

Miles Halliwell, Barding’s man of business, owes everything to the earl. Does loyalty to his employer require him to deal with a known criminal and incite forgery? Unfortunately for Miles’s peace of mind, it may.

 To protect her family's reputation, Julia St. John, daughter of a baron, has given up everything to live in obscurity with an illegitimate son. She has no better future in sight, until Barding's man of business offers a possible solution and a new life…at the cost of a few more lies.

Back in January, I announced that my seventh novel would probably be out in a few months. The release date is June 20, 2022. As with all my historical romances, it's a little bit like some of my favorite authors, including Georgette Heyer and Jane Aiken Hodge, with a scintilla of Jane Austen, and maybe a soupçon of Philippa Lodge (her Châteaux and Shadows series). 

There's no sex. Yes, I know it's a disappointment, but not every novel needs or should have explicit sex scenes. 

But my books are not "sweet". Sometimes there's "language", quite often there is crime and malfeasance and bad manners.     

 The Advance Reader Copy (ARC) is available now (for free!) at https://booksirens.com/book/FJUHJD6/P1H3US6.

This is the first time I’ve offered an ARC. I never even wondered how a book could already have reader reviews on its release date; apparently I’m a slow learner. 

Ashton Hall by Lauren Belfer

Ashton Hall by Lauren Belfer is the perfect read for anyone who loves old books, centuries-old, rambling English houses, or England itself. I’m not going to re-hash the plot. Betrayal of trust, other kinds of loss, the challenge of juggling career and child care, unexpected romance, and a mystery all figure in the story. The characters and situation are interesting and Hannah Larson's stay at Ashton Hall is one most bibliophiles and old house buffs would kill for.                                                                                                         And it's a novel that leaves the reader pondering one's own idea of fulfillment.  

I thoroughly enjoyed the book and did not have to make any notes about grammatical fluffs, awkward word choice, errors of fact or the other things that put me off a book. Clearly, I need to read more of Ms. Belfer’s novels. 

I received an ARC for my unbiased review.

Review of DIE AROUND SUNDOWN by Mark Pryor

 Recently I've found myself writing a lot of book reviews. Probably I should be cleaning the house instead, or trying to grow something—anything without thorns!—in my front yard. The only things that are thriving there are an aggressive prickly pear cactus and a large, bad-tempered sweetbriar rose which clawed me when I tried to prune it a few days ago. 

Somehow, reviewing another book seemed like a good idea. 

Die Around Sundown by Mark Pryor is a thoroughly enjoyable story. Set in Paris soon after the 1940 German invasion, Inspector Henri LeFort is assigned at the invaders’ req—well, no, it’s not a request, it’s a demand—to investigate a murder without being permitted the ability to do so. How he does it and avoids being made the scapegoat for his anticipated failure would make an interesting tale all by itself. But it’s the atmosphere and the cast of fascinating characters that make Die Around Sundown stand out. Henri could be just another chain-smoking, cynical, middle-aged French detective. Instead he has as many layers as an onion and almost as many secrets. If you like twisty mysteries set in other periods, this book will catapult you back to occupied France and keep you reading. It’s due to be released August 16, 2022. I hope this is the beginning of a series.

I received an ARC for my fair review.   

 

Occasionally I review a book for NetGalley. I just re-read a review I wrote last fall, long before its release date (today), and thought I'd mention it here, in case there are other people who don't read the reviews on the bookseller sites.   

Resting Place by Camille Sten is a page-turner. A murder, a manor house deep 
in the Swedish countryside, longstanding family conflicts, and a blizzard provide plenty of atmosphere, questions and chills. Ms. Sten knows how to write an eerily compelling mystery. I read until I absolutely had to go to bed, and then bits of Resting Place intruded on my dreams. The surprising denouement will leave you pondering. I’m looking forward to another book by this author.

Note: I read a lot, and I’m a tough critic. I don’t recall a single typo, wrong word/bad word choice, or clunky bit in this book. This is so rare, I’m amazed.

I received an ARC for my fair review.

And then I thought, why not post a review of one that's not out yet? So here's what I wrote about And By Fire, a dual-time police procedural by Evie Hawtrey, which will come out on May 10, 2022.   

When dual time novels work well, they can be very good indeed. Because I am picky about historical detail, I am frequently not so much disappointed as annoyed. Even the best author may trip when writing about an earlier period through failure to do enough research or to understand just how much he or she does not know. Evie Hawtrey’s dual time police procedural/mystery And By Fire came as a pleasant surprise.

The modern day sections involve the hunt for a serial arsonist in London by a pair of detectives, male and female, who have a prior romantic history. That by itself makes a good story. The parts set in 1666 at the time of London’s Great Fire follow the efforts of a fireworks maker and a lady-in-waiting to solve the murder of a friend committed during that conflagration. The background is well researched and the characters are believable for that period. They are not 21^st century people in costume.

The two sets of characters’ methods and situations differ but some of their dilemmas are the same. Together the stories dovetail and reinforce each other. This was a thoroughly enjoyable read.

I received an ARC in return for my unbiased review of And By Fire.  

Note: Galley proofs come with the advisory that typographical errors will be corrected before publication. As I have seen many, many typos in books put out by major publishing houses, I tend to be cynical. In this case, I do hope the publisher corrected the use of  "alright" which was my only real criticism of this novel. No matter how many times you see “alright” appearing in professionally published books, it’s still not a real word. 

From https://www.grammarly.com/blog/alright-vs-all-right/ “People are often surprised to learn that alright is not an accepted spelling of all right. Although the one-word spelling of alright is seen in informal writing, teachers and editors will always consider it incorrect. To use the expression with impunity, it is best to spell it as two words: all right.”

   

TALES FROM THE HIGHLANDS by Martha Keyes

 

I should have written a glowing review of the first Martha Keyes novel I read, THE WIDOW AND THE HIGHLANDER. Maybe it’s just as well I waited, because now I‘ve finished all four of the TALES FROM THE HIGHLANDS and can praise them all in one review, a great saving of time. 

Here’s what I like about these traditional Georgian historical romances. They’re in the manner of Georgette Heyer, so there are no obligatory sex scenes, but with a Scottish accent. The characters face real, believable problems and dangers.

The setting, story, characters, and detail all feel authentic, which is rarer than one might wish in historical romance. 

The quality of the writing is good,  and the books kept me reading (I can’t guess how many other novels I’ve started, put down, and never picked up again because they just weren’t compelling enough). Now I’m reading Ms. Keyes’s OF LANDS HIGH AND LOW.

If you enjoy historical romance and don’t insist on the characters tearing each other’s clothing off every thirty pages, these are for you.  

The series:

THE WIDOW AND THE HIGHLANDER

THE ENEMY AND MISS INNES

THE INNKEEPER AND THE FUGITIVE

THE GENTLEMAN AND THE MAID

A Westminster Wedding

 It's been a long haul.

My sixth novel, Portia & the Merchant of London,  was released in February of last year. The seventh, A Westminster Wedding, should (I hope!) come out in the next two or three months. The delay was caused by the need to make some extensive revisions and then by scheduling issues. I believe I've got one more set of galleys to look at, but the cover and blurb are done. 

The title does not refer to a wedding at St. George's, Hanover Square. It's taken from N. Bailey's Universal Etymological English Dictionary, published in 1737:

Westminster-wedding, a Whore and a Rogue married together.

Sometimes I like to play with the tropes and conventions often found in historical romance. No, the heroine is not a prostitute, and the hero is not a rogue...strictly speaking. But there is an archrogue in a supporting role, and deceit galore.

The blurb:

The Barding earldom may be doomed. A shocking suggestion may provide another potential heir.

Miles Halliwell, Barding’s man of business, owes everything to the earl. Does loyalty to his employer require him to deal with a known criminal and incite forgery? Unfortunately for Miles’s peace of mind, it may.

To protect her family’s reputation, Julia St. John, daughter of a baron, has given up everything to live in obscurity with an illegitimate son and no better future in sight. The earl’s family offers a new life…at the cost of a few more lies. 

  

   

Why do you write?

 A while ago, Anna Faversham, whose books I always enjoy, posed a question on her Goodreads blog. 

The question was, "Why do you write?" She received half a dozen answers, which you can see  at 

https://www.goodreads.com/author/show/6905076.Anna_Faversham/blog. 

The answers were surprisingly varied, suggesting this is actually a more complex question than one might think. So I'm asking the same question of my blog, Facebook and other social media readers/followers:

If you write, why do you write? 

Inquiring minds want to know.