Happy birthday, Captain Easterday

Today my third historical romance novel is out. You might think that by now, this would be a “ho-hum” event for me. It isn’t. The publication of every book, for me, at least, is like the birth of a child. Unfortunately, I’m better at researching and writing than I am at promotion. In an attempt to improve, I’ve been thinking about key words. You probably know what those are, if you’ve ever done a search on the Web: type in “night soil”, for which your results would include the definition, articles like  “Before There Was Plumbing, These Men Discreetly Got Rid of Human Waste” and “The Stink About Human Poop As Fertilizer - Modern Farmer”.

If you write historical romances like mine, you might assign the following key words: historical romance, Georgian romance (because my books are set in the Georgian period—the 18^th century—rather than the Regency, from 1810 to 1820), clean romance (i.e., no explicit sex), like Georgette Heyer, and like Jane Aiken Hodge (because the stories I write are more like Georgette Heyer’s and Jane Aiken Hodge’s than (for example) Jo Beverley’s or Mary Balogh’s—both of whose books I enjoy very much, though unlike mine, they’re definitely steamy.  

I should define what I mean by “clean romance”, because you hear that term, and “clean and wholesome”, and “sweet”, and it isn’t easy to determine exactly what’s meant by each. I specifically mean there are no explicit sex scenes. Male characters may admire a lady’s ankles or cleavage, female characters may feel yearnings, and there is the occasional embrace and kiss. There is occasional language, like “Rot my guts”, “Damme”, or “Damn my eyes”. There’s mention of night soil, harlots, and murder, among other things.

And because I began by talking about Captain Easterday’s Bargain, here’s a sample from Captain Easterday's Bargain:

Two days before they were to start for London, Mariah did not come down to breakfast.

“Such a slugabed!” her aunt Henrietta remarked. “That maid of hers is not in the habit of waking her because of the late nights in Town, but after almost two weeks, she should know one rises earlier in the country. Even if the chit doesn’t ring for her.” When she sent Mariah’s hatchet-faced maid to wake her, the woman returned precipitately to report that her bed was empty.

Mistress Easterday was a sensible lady and had four boys, ranging from newly come of age down to fifteen years, but she had only one daughter, a placid child of twelve. While the others were wondering where Mariah could be and Marcus Easterday frowned with a presentiment of trouble, his sister-in-law quietly instructed the maid to return to the bedchamber to see if she could find any clue to her whereabouts. Might she have dressed and gone out for an early walk? If her dressing gown and slippers were gone, mayhap she had wandered into some part of the rambling house which the maids had not yet visited.

 Mariah’s maid returned, white-faced. “Two of her gowns and shifts are gone, ma’am. And her cloak, and some other things.” At this point she was overcome and had to be revived with sal volatile. Mistress Easterday then sent her to lie down. “Wherever can she have gone?”

Little Sophie observed, “I expect she took them because she would need a change of clothing, wouldn’t she?”

After a pregnant pause, Mistress Easterday asked, “Dear, are you suggesting that Mistress Mariah has run away? Why would you think such a thing?”

“Mariah likes Mr. Beresford.”

Ellis Beresford was staying with the family of Sir Manfred Knott, a baronet with several daughters and a pimply son who had completed his first year at Oxford. The Easterdays had traded several visits with the Knotts and dined at each other’s homes twice, with the second turning into an impromptu dance. New faces, rare in the neighborhood, always led to a spate of entertainments. Marcus Easterday had not paid much attention to Beresford, beyond noticing the blond youth possessed pleasing manners, if a little too lively. Still, a lad of one-and-twenty cannot be expected to be as serious as a man of six-and-thirty.

“What is that to the point, child?” her papa asked. He knew even less about young ladies than his wife.

Sophia wriggled. “He likes her, too. You can tell by how they look at each other.” She cast an apologetic glance toward Marcus. “I know it sounds silly, Mama…but Mariah is rather like Alice, isn’t she?”

“Oh, Alice.” Mistress Easterday sniffed. “Sir Manfred’s youngest daughter. I’m afraid she reads novels of the most foolish sort.” The men at the table gazed at her, Geoffrey Easterday and his sons blankly, Marcus with growing disquiet.

“Sophia,” he said quietly, “do you think Mariah may have gone away with Mr. Beresford?”

Nigel, seventeen, snorted. “She doesn’t know anything. She’s still in the schoolroom.”

“I know Alice is always talking about how romantic it would be to go to Gretna Green with a gentleman who was handsome and titled. Mariah and Mr. Beresford talked together when Sir Manfred and his family came and we ate our supper down by the river. They stood looking at the river, and she sighed several times, and he patted her hand. I suppose it was very affecting, if one likes that kind of thing. It was like something out of one of Alice’s books.”

“Sickly stuff,” the youngest boy said.

“But Beresford has no title.” Mariah settle for a mere gentleman, when she had been determined to marry a duke?

At the same moment, his sister-in-law demanded, “Sophia Easterday, do you mean to tell me that you read Alice Knott’s foolish novels?”

“Only when she will lend them to me, Mama,” Sophie admitted in a small voice, “which is not very often.”

Mistress Easterday frowned at her daughter, and returned to the main issue. 

“Marcus, the boy became Viscount Franley’s heir a year or two since, when his brother died. We think of him as the boy who introduced frogs into the children’s beds and who once tied walnut shells onto the cat’s paws and released her into the uncarpeted hall in the middle of the night.”

“I think I had best ride over to see Beresford.” Marcus stood up and inclined his head to his sister-in-law, and added, “Thank you, Sophie. What an observant girl you are.”

“I wish it weren’t so, Uncle Marcus. It’s exciting to read of such things, but one wouldn’t wish to actually do them.”

He managed a wry smile at her, as his brother said, “I’ll go with you.”

The baronet’s home, too, was in turmoil. Beresford had left a note on his unused bed. “Gone to visit a friend. Back in a week or so.” He had taken a portmanteau but left most of his clothing. Ralph, the baronet’s heir, could tell them little more than that Ellis liked to ride out by himself most days. The previous day he had taken his sketch pad and gone to draw some scenic vista or other and had not returned for hours. After finding his note, inquiry of the head groom revealed that Beresford’s groom was gone, as well as their horses. “Seemin’ly they left in t’neet, wi’out mekkin’ a sound.”

Geoffrey Easterday drew Sir Manfred aside to apprise him of Mariah Saltstall’s absence.

“Stap me!” Sir Manfred rapped out. “They’ll not have gone far with Mistress Mariah riding pillion. They would hire a coach in Preston or take the stage. The border—and Gretna Green—is not much more than a hundred miles. Two days’ coach travel, mayhap, unless there’s rain. I’ve a speedy horse, Captain, which you are welcome to borrow. I will follow by coach, for I ride too heavy for such a race.”

“Thank you, Sir Manfred. I accept your offer.”

The baronet shouted to one of his grooms to saddle Lightning and be d—d quick about it. The groom ran to obey. Word would be through the stable and the house, too, without doubt. Next it would be the neighborhood.

Captain Marcus Easterday could not recall when he had last been so furious.

My books:

 https://www.thewildrosepress.com/books/captain-easterdays-bargain

 https://www.thewildrosepress.com/books/most-secret

 https://www.thewildrosepress.com/books/an-unsuitable-duchess

Captain Easterday's Bargain: "It just never ------- stops, does it?"

The cover art* and blurb were recently approved for my third historical romance (and no, there are no half-clad men in this one, either). The Wild Rose Press hasn’t given me a publication date yet, but I expect it will be within the next several months.  

Captain Easterday's Bargain resulted from research on shipping in the Pool of London for a previous novel, which brought to mind my own family connection to the shipping industry. My paternal grandfather worked for Railway Express throughout the Great Depression, until his retirement in the 1960s. My father worked for the Alaska Railroad from the end of World War II until he retired in the 1970s. I worked for two years as a security officer on Seattle's waterfront early in this century. Most of us never think about how fruit gets to our supermarket in the winter, or that we can buy specialty items from half the world away and they arrive, sometimes now in a matter of days rather than months. But even with motor freight, shipping containers, and computerized tracking, some things haven't changed much since the days of sailing ships and freight wagons. As one of the managers at the marine terminal where I was stationed put it, after a long, difficult day, "It just never ------- stops, does it?"

Blurb:

London's cutthroat shipping trade is no place for a lady, although Olivia Cantarell has secretly acted as her father's assistant for years. Now she has inherited his company, she has no mind to give up control over it—and herself—by marrying, however flattering it is to be sought after for the first time in her life. In spite of threats and intimidation, she will fight to keep her business.

Careful, responsible, and twice jilted, Captain Marcus Easterday has no heart to attempt marriage a third time. But he cannot stand by and see a woman cheated of her livelihood by Ambrose Hawkins, rumored to be a former pirate, a man whose name is known and feared in ports from the West Indies to China.

Courted by the ruthless Hawkins while relying on the scrupulous Easterday's help, Olivia must conceal the identity of one of her clerks and protect her company and employees. Who can she trust?

*No, I don't know what kind of ship that is on the cover. Seems awfully high and ornate in the stern. If you recognize it, please let me know—I looked at a lot of pictures of sailing ships when I was writing Most Secret, but never came across one like this.

On the other hand, it conveys the maritime theme and the moon hints at romance. Works for me.

18th Century Chocolate Cream

Huzzah!

Most Secret, my historical romance set in the days leading up to the 1745 Jacobite Rebellion, recently won Third Place in the Historical division of the Oklahoma Romance Writers of America International Digital Awards.

In celebration whereof, I’m sharing one of the very, very few 18^th century recipes that use chocolate. They drank chocolate, of course, but they seldom used it otherwise: no one ate bon-bons or devil’s food cake or chocolate chip cookies in the 18^th century or indeed, well into the 19^th century. What made our chocolate candy and cake possible was the invention in 1828 of the Dutch process for treating cacao beans, which greatly facilitated the use of chocolate by reducing the acidity of the beans and increasing solubility.  

Chocolate-Cream

From The Compleat Confectioner, by Mrs. Eales, Confectioner to King William and Queen Ann, Third Edition, 1742

Take a quarter pound of chocolate, breaking it into a quarter of a pint of boiling water; mill (i.e., beat) it and boil it until all the chocolate is dissolved; then put to it a pint of cream and two eggs well beaten; let it boil, milling it all the while; when it is cold, mill it again, that it may go up with a froth.

The chocolate used must have been “drinking chocolate”, sold in tablets, introduced in England in 1674, consisting of roasted, shelled, crushed cacao beans which were ground to a gritty powder, to which were added sugar and spices. 

The closest I could come to 18^th century chocolate tablets was Mexican chocolate tablets sold to make Mexican-style hot chocolate. They contain sugar and cinnamon and are much more brittle than our baking chocolate.

I used two large eggs; 18^th century eggs would have been smaller; a little smaller than our “Small” eggs, which are supposed to average out to 1.5 ounces. Going by the traditional pound cake recipe dating at least to the 18^th century of one pound each of flour, sugar and eggs, eggs of the period must have averaged about 1.33 ounces each.

The result was softer than modern mousse, possibly because of the larger eggs, or maybe because I don’t have a kitchen maid to beat the mixture for an extended period. I may not have boiled it as long as I should, either. But it was quite tasty. When I try it again, I’ll address those issues.

Halloween and Dia de los Muertos in New Mexico

Halloween in New Mexico is a little different. For one thing, art is in the air and water here. You can’t avoid it, and it’s catching. I have never done much decorating for Halloween, and previously limited myself to handing out enough candy to trick-or-treaters to delight dentists for months to come.

Since moving to Albuquerque, I’ve gone a little crazy. My personal best, Halloween division, was dressing a 5 foot tall, almost anatomically correct plastic skeleton for Halloween. We got it at Costco, and three considerations struck me: 1) this is the Southwest, 2) Halloween comes immediately before Día de los Muertos, and 3) this articulated, posable skeleton was just slightly shorter than the average Conquistador. You can see where this is going. So I dressed him  in a 16^th century linen shirt, trunk hose (a/k/a pumpkin pants), a matching jerkin, and black velvet flat cap, and sat him in a rustic wooden arm chair, right in front of the door, with sword. Much more elegant than a warty witch on a broomstick or an inflatable plastic pumpkin. 

This year, one of our local supermarkets has an articulated, five foot (stretched out full length, I assume) plastic stegosaurus skeleton in their Halloween aisle. It’s already come down in price. I’m hoping that if it’s there the day after Halloween, it will be more steeply discounted yet. My housemate has already bought a large, hairy spider—No! not a real one!—which we will position on the porch overhang. Let me be honest, here: I will be the one on the ladder. 

Halloween is followed by Dia de los Muertos, the Day of the Dead, which celebrates loved ones who have died. And “celebrates” is an appropriate word: this is not a morbid or even solemn festival. Tradition calls for the construction of an ofrenda (offering), a sort of altar. According to Remezcla at http://remezcla.com/features/culture/how-to-build-your-own-altar-ofrenda/, while the ofrenda may contain all kinds of things—a photograph and some object of significance to the person (like a baseball for a baseball player or a toy for a child), it should also contain things that “represent the four elements: fire (candles), wind (papel picado), earth (food), and water.” Sugar skulls, marigolds and incense are also traditional.

My housemate and I set up an ofrenda on the sideboard every year. We drape it with lace panels, hang a string of papel picado and often little LED lights, and put out photographs of deceased family members, interspersed with little pumpkins, autumn flowers, candy or other treats they liked, water, and battery-operated candles. We also include symbols of heroes: a model space shuttle, a miniature fireman’s helmet and a police car for first responders, pictures of people we admire who have died within the past year.

The traditional food is pan de muerto, bread of the dead. It’s a slightly sweet Mexican bread, made in a round loaf, with dough formed into “bones” crossed on top. The supermarket where we buy a loaf or two every year sells them in a couple of different sizes, “medium bread of death” and “large bread of death”, and they’re covered in very vividly colored sugar. Last year we got the deep purple ones, rather than the Dayglo pink or yellow-orange.    

Dia de los Muertos is actually celebrated over several days, from October 31 to November 2. Here in Albuquerque, the Open Space Visitor Center puts up an ofrenda honoring deceased “Heroes of the Environment”, the South Valley neighborhood holds a Dia de los Muertos Celebration and Marigold Parade, and the National Hispanic Cultural Center is holding an exhibition, community offrenda and screening of the Disney/Pixar movie, Coco. And those are just a few of the activities.

Travel in New Mexico

For my holiday mailing several years ago, I intended to do lyrics based on the Bonny Banks of Loch Lomond (Ye’ll tak’ the high road and I’ll tak’ the low road/And I’ll be in Taos afore ye …, which would actually have some relevance, because there is a High Road to Taos, and I’ve been lost on it. On the low road, too.    

For Thanksgiving that year, a friend and I were driving up to her stepson and stepdaughter-in-law’s new home in Truchas, New Mexico. Truchas is an old town in the mountains about half-way between Santa Fé and Taos, so it’s about 90 miles from Albuquerque. We hadn’t been off the beaten track much in north central New Mexico, and one tends to forget that not everything is right off the freeway, as it would be in the I-5 corridor. 

Our host had emailed directions, which seemed straightforward. Take exit such-and-such, and when you pass Chimayó, turn onto Highway and-so-forth. Except he omitted to mention that you have to take the turn-off TO Chimayó and pass the actual town, rather than passing the turn-off, though he did remember to warn us of the possible presence of loose dogs and horses in Truchas. So we drove on through some beautiful scenery and the road became less and less a main road.

Eventually we came to a town called Cundiyo, the pavement ended and the road became more of a lane. Old adobe houses sat at odd angles to it: here the side of a house, there the corner. Not a person was stirring. It was like the first five minutes of a horror film, right before the zombies show up. 

We drove on, and pavement resumed. We drove through a town with no name a few miles on. No open business in sight, no human presence detectable. By then I was expecting to see plague victims stretched lifeless by the side of the road. Or black helicopters. Having moved to New Mexico from the I-5 corridor, I’m not used to seeing towns with no sign of life either human or mercantile.

Finally we came to a crossroad with the state route number we were looking for. After that, it was easy to find Truchas, although we overshot the turn-off to our friends’ house and made an unintended detour that took us onto a narrow, muddy road (it had begun to rain and then snow). We seemed to be heading into more mountains. Fortunately, while we were turning around (the truck has 4-wheel drive, which my friend actually got to use), an old pickup truck coming from the other direction stopped to see if we needed help. The driver and passenger were able to tell us where we’d gone wrong, and we made it to our destination.

Perhaps I should also mention one oddity about New Mexico. The highway or road name on the sign is not necessarily the same that’s shown on your map, or on the online directions. Sometimes the signage will give both. Sometimes not. That’s why we missed the correct turn. Intuition is important when driving in this state, and mine was not working that day.

The Magic of New Mexico, Part I

Over the 4^th of July weekend in 2009 I took a University of New Mexico Continuing Education excursion to the Mescalero Apache ceremonial near Ruidoso for the girls’ puberty ceremony. The whole thing takes 12 days to perform and years for the girls’ families to prepare for, but four days of it were scheduled to coincide with the annual ceremonial at which the Mountain Gods dance.

            There was a midway, of course, with “fair”-type food to buy and souvenirs, umbrellas (for the sun), jewelry and art, and an open space where traditional dances and songs were performed all day, with bleachers and room to set up folding camp chairs around the edge.  Apaches and Native Americans had come from all over. People camped in tents set up outside the meeting grounds. The families of the girls going through the ritual prepared mammoth amounts of food to feed anyone who showed up at meal time. Fry bread, always. Other stuff, sometimes traditional, sometimes not. What appeared to be green beans cooked in some kind of broth, salad, meat cooked in sauce (which was excellent).

            When we arrived on the 4^th, there didn’t seem to be a lot of people in attendance, though more drifted in throughout the afternoon. Since it’s up in the mountains, it wasn’t as blazingly hot as it might have been, and even so, when the wind died down, it must have been nearly 90^o. Evening came on and they built the bonfire around which the four Mountain Gods would dance. Night fell, and the Gods began to dance: several different sets of Mountain Gods, doing a succession of dances which relate an important Apache myth. There are four sets of Gods because there are sixteen dances, and each group does four, so the groups have time to recuperate before they’re on again. The dancing continues until 1:00 or 2:00 in the morning. 

           The moon, almost full, came up, and on the other side of the mountain range, which seemed to rise right on the other side of the highway, flashes of light began. We initially thought it was fireworks. Instead it was lightning beyond the range, far enough away that we didn’t hear thunder.  While the Mountain Gods danced, the four girls were in a teepee at the edge of the dancing ground, its opening facing east. The girls were carrying on their own ceremonies, dancing and singing under the supervision of medicine men.  When we left at about 10:00 p.m., I think we were all surprised to find that suddenly there were two or three times as many spectators as there had been earlier. They must have drifted in like fog, to fill the bleachers and set up their own chairs around the field.

            The moon, lightning, fire and social dancing (with a great ring of spectators dancing around the edge, circling the Mountain Gods) will stick in my mind for a long time. But the best memory is of a young Apache woman in fatigues, first watching in a dignified manner, then dancing in place while chatting with a friend, and finally, as darkness came down, joining the dance line when someone lent her a dance shawl.  The Apaches have a high regard for their warriors; at the entrance to the grounds, military flags flew with the U.S. flag. In the Apaches’ casino, Inn of the Mountain Gods, a few miles away, a plaque (a big one) lists all the Apache veterans who have died while serving, from U.S. Cavalry Indian scouts to losses in Iraq.

            When we got out to the highway about half a mile from the ceremonial grounds, we found it had poured.  But not on the ceremonial. Not a drop.

Some days I think I'd rather trim a quill pen

Anyone who knows me knows I am not a computer geek. However, I am generally on civil terms with my computer. It lets me type fiction and the occasional letter, email, blog post or book review, and enables me to buy stuff: old spinning wheel parts, books, medieval-style buttons, clothing, imitation musk flavoring for 16^th century biscotti.

My printer and I do not have a cordial relationship. I’m on my third in ten years.

Admittedly, the first was bought, along with the computer, when I moved to Albuquerque. My Seattle computer was pretty old, as was the printer, and it didn’t make sense to bring it with me. The Pod I rented was full. I had no room in the car (the PT Cruiser was filled with clothing, things I’d been using until I actually walked out the door, and a 40 inch by 19 inch stained glass panel, among other things).

The second was purchased when the first died after about four years—needless to say, right before I needed to print some handouts with color pictures of 16^th century clothing. I will say for it that it had printed one book-length manuscript, and very nicely, too.

I liked that second printer. Granted, it was big and heavy, but it printed well, and it was multi-function. It produced a couple of book-length manuscripts. It also scanned, faxed and printed photographs, and it offered to give me a massage and a permanent wave, but I declined. Which may be why several months ago it began to spray ink in a random manner. I messed around with it, following directions I found online and on YouTube, and it sort of stopped. That is, it would fling ink around only intermittently.

Then it stopped printing black ink.  No, it wasn’t because that cartridge was empty; this printer would refuse to print at all, in any color, if one cartridge was empty. But that was all right. Some people may have wondered why I was printing letters and address labels in red or green. That’s why. 

Finally, one day as the paper began to feed I heard what sounded like SNAP! CRACKLE! POP! And it stopped feeding. Clearing the jam did no good. Neither did turning it off. Restarting the computer—because sometimes that seems to have magical properties—did not make it stop claiming to be jammed. As I had researched fixing the ink problem online, I already knew that sending it for repair would cost more than a new printer.

Enter Printer #3.  It was inexpensive, got as good reviews as any other printer sold on Amazon, and was favorably rated on a site that rates printers.

I liked it … for the first couple of months. Specifically, until the first time it jammed. The manual was no help, as the illustrations were so lacking in detail it was impossible to figure out what you were supposed to do. YouTube showed the jam-clearing procedure clearly but only for a jam where the sheet was easily accessible, either from the top or from the bottom, with the paper tray removed. My sheet had vanished into the printer’s bowels and was not visible anywhere. Forty minutes later, it was unjammed. Something I did caused the paper to move enough that I was finally able to get hold of it.

Since then, I’ve also cleared a paper jam by pulling a sheet out from the bottom. What the instructions don’t tell you is that you will probably not be able to do it without tilting the printer’s front end up, holding it up with your head, and pulling the paper out with both hands. Good thing it’s lightweight.

I’m not optimistic about this printer’s life expectancy.  Thank goodness manuscripts are now submitted by email.