Review of An Offer for a Spinster by Dorothy Sheldon

An Offer for a Spinster (Book 1 of Willoughby) by Dorothy Sheldon caught my eye out of a bunch of similar books  because the last name of my best friend in grade school and junior high was Sheldon. I previewed the first page and found nothing to put me off  so I bought it and I’m glad I did. The Regency romance genre in the age of self-publishing is a very mixed bag.

Sheldon is the real deal. No flubs that I noticed except a word or two  (“surreal” for one) that were not in use at that time and no grammatical infelicities. An Offer for a Spinster is clean and sweet without being icky, if you know what I mean and I think you do. It’s the kind of historical romance I remember fondly from the nineties, before so many of them had obligatory sex scenes every thirty pages or so.

I won’t rehash the plot; it was not unbelievable and I’m sure many compulsive readers will sympathize with the main characters’ problems with their families. Before I was halfway through the book, I bought the next in the series, and now I find that she has written several other romances as well. Binge read time!  

 

A question and news

 How do you feel about the current fad for authors to crank out multiple novels per year? I notice it most in the romance community but maybe it’s penetrated other genres as well.

Some of my favorite authors are doing this, and I think it’s a pity. To write fast, the books must be shorter and less complex. They’re dessert rather than the entrée. Personally, if I’m hungry for a book, I like a main course rather than a bon-bon.

In the case of historical romances, research sometimes becomes a casualty. I recently read a Regency romance in which someone wears a bowler hat, headgear not invented until 1849. The author must know this as she has written many, many Regency novels and bowler hats have not appeared in them previously. This is the kind of error that occurs when writing quickly.

Please let me know what you think: do you prefer more books per year or one every year or so that’s longer and meatier?     

 

It’s been a while since I’ve written a post. Old news: my ninth novel, By Sword and Fan (as in, “Sometimes the fan is more useful than the sword”) came out last November.

In December I submitted my tenth, Hidden Treasures. Its release date is September 16, 2024.

Also in December, the audiobook version of A Peculiar Enchantment came out on Amazon and Audible and more recently “went wide” so it’s available on a number of other sites as well.

A brief excerpt:

Lying on his side, he breathed in the rosemary scent of his bride’s hair. It was almost in his nose as she was lying with her back to him. They need not rise quite yet, but if he woke her now…No. She was deeply asleep. He would like to take the credit, but most likely yesterday’s travel and perhaps nervous exhaustion accounted for it. He could look forward to tonight and the following night and a string of others. He would indulge himself by putting his arm around her. 

He reached over her side in search of her warm, soft …fur?

 His eyes popped open to meet round green eyes in a black-furred face. He and Tabby regarded each other across Adelaide’s slumbering form. The cat uttered an irritable word.

 “I beg your pardon.” Am I apologizing to a cat for taking a liberty with her? Ducane supposed he was.

 She exhaled irritably and, after staring at him a moment longer, turned her back and jumped off the bed.

PS: The above is as steamy as it gets, and there is no fantasy or paranormal element. Love is the most peculiar enchantment.

Censored Angel by Joan Koster: review

 It’s rare to review a novel as disquietingly relevant to our current problems as Censored Angel by Joan Koster. The central figure, Ida Craddock, was a writer, proponent of birth control, and mystic. Her opposition to Anthony Comstock, a postal inspector from 1873 to 1907, who used his position to prosecute anyone who published, advertised or sent through the mail anything he considered obscene, is the central theme of Koster's well-researched novel.

A religious zealot, he censored any mention of abortion, birth control, prostitution, gambling, free love, prevention of venereal disease, and gambling, among others. He was responsible for some 4,000 arrests and proud of having caused fifteen people to kill themselves by his persecution.  

Ida Craddock was forceful, brilliant, well-educated, and odd. It’s hard not to think of her as a 19^th century Joan of Arc. Needless to say, she and Comstock were natural enemies. Censored Angel is a fascinating read that should alarm all of us in the current drive by Comstock’s modern-day heirs to censor anything they disapprove of and remove books from libraries.

The last of the Comstock Laws was not repealed until 1971. Think about that as you read this book.  

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Writing Regency England: my new favorite research source

 I don’t usually review non-fiction but as Writing Regency England by Jayne Davis and Gail Eastwood (two of my favorite romance authors) is such a useful resource, I’m going to plug it.

 I’ve been doing research for my mid-eighteenth century books since 2013 and when I beta-read Writing Regency England, I knew I was going to buy a copy as soon as it came out.

I read a lot of historical romance and it’s a rare read that doesn’t make me grit my teeth, even when I love the story. Granted, not everyone is as compulsive about research as I am (except, apparently, Davis and Eastwood), but getting the basics of Regency life wrong (like noblemen’s titles) is just…wrong.

This book belongs on the research shelf of anyone who writes Regency period novels. A lot of it is equally useful for those of us who write in the Georgian period, and some would be relevant well into the nineteenth century.

Did you know skunks are not native to Great Britain? Neither did I.

It's Out!

 

By Sword and Fan is now officially out and I'm just as thrilled as I was at the worldwide release of the previous eight. Maybe even a little more, because this one took longer to write and revise. Like the others, it's set in mid-eighteenth century England. 

 Here's a brief excerpt:

“Gone!” Archbold’s low, furious voice left Margaret in no doubt that he would have cursed if he had been alone or only with a man. She rode forward to join him.Two ponies with sidesaddles were loosely tethered in a little clear space between the trees and the foot of the rise. Ackerley’s hack was missing.

Campbell said, “I’ll be having a look at the road.”

The children had been abducted. No one needed to say it aloud.

The Scots groom was back in a trice. “No sign of them. Horses stood a whiles. Sh—droppin’s. A few spilt aits.”

And here's an excerpt from The Historical Fiction Company's review:

"[T]hat the characters are older and have experienced life more than many characters in romance novels makes them much more realistic...Buckley does a fantastic job developing characters and using a character-driven plot to engage readers and evoke emotions within the reader...“By Sword and Fan” by Kathleen Buckley receives four stars from The Historical Fiction Company."   The Historical Fiction Company  https://www.thehistoricalfictioncompany.com/post/a-delightful-historical-romance-an-editorial-review-of-by-sword-and-fan

Yikes! my 9th traditional historical romance is available for pre-order

 By Sword and Fan, my ninth novel (can it really be the ninth?) is up on Amazon (release date is 10/18/23) for $3.99. Somehow that makes it real. This novel was a particularly hard slog for me.

Despite the slightly Freudian cover, your twelve-year-old or your great-grandmother could read this without embarrassment. 

Meanwhile, I'm about 5,000 words from completing the first draft of  Hidden Treasures. Then I've got a novella (I think) with a Christmas theme in progress.

After that, I have an idea for a mystery with one of the minor characters from By Sword and Fan, a magistrate, as the main character. Magistrates had a good deal of leeway in the 18th century. 

 How do you plan a road trip in mid-eighteenth-century England? If it’s to take place on the Great North Road, it’s not difficult, as that was the main road running north, and the modern A1 motorway parallels it. But if your characters venture elsewhere, it’s more complicated. For A Peculiar Enchantment, I needed to trace Adelaide and Gervase’s route from London to Northumberland in detail and it couldn’t be by way of the Great North Road (for fear of pursuit).

Searching 21^st century maps for eighteenth century routes is seldom helpful. The Tradesman’s Guide; or The Chapman’s and Traveller’s Best Companion by Charles Pickman (1727), lists the towns between London and the traveller’s destination (if it was a market town or held a fair), mileage, and places where coach routes cross. With that information, I was able to work out where my characters might stop for the night and how long the journey might take.  

At Carlisle, they went east on the Stanegate, the old Roman road running east-west south of Hadrian’s Wall, and turned north at Corbridge. The Roman roads crisscrossing England were better built than those built later with less engineering skill and are easy to research online.  

I made use of the extensive network of Roman roads in my upcoming novel, By Sword and Fan (worldwide release date 10/18/2023). 

Sometimes the fan is more useful than the sword.