Interview and Giveaway with Historical Fiction author Clarissa Harwood!
It’s release week for Fair as a Star, and I’m thrilled to share it with one of my favorite historical fiction authors, the brilliant Clarissa Harwood. Clarissa’s book Bear No Malice is being released this week in paperback. To celebrate, she’s here with a special interview and giveaway![…]Continue Reading
The Work of Art is a HOLT Medallion Winner!
I’m thrilled to announce that my Regency romance novel The Work of Art has won the HOLT Medallion Award for outstanding literary talent in the Historical category! The HOLT Medallion is a prestigious writing award bestowed by the Virginia Romance Writers’ chapter of Romance Writers of America, Many thanks to them for organizing the competition, and a huge congratulations to the other winners and finalists![…]Continue Reading
The Winter Companion is a USA Today bestseller!!
Dear Readers,
My new Victorian romance novel The Winter Companion is a USA Today Bestseller!! This is the fourth book in my Parish Orphans of Devon series to have made the list as a single title. What a great way to end the series! […]Continue Reading
Ether for Every Occasion: Wedding Nights, Frolics, and Flammable Binges
(Wellcome Images, CC BY 4.0)
Derived from ethyl alcohol, ether was a sweet-smelling, colorless liquid that came into medical prominence in the nineteenth century. When vaporized and inhaled, it produced varying degrees of unconsciousness. First employed as a general anesthetic by American doctors in the 1840s, its popularity quickly spread to Victorian England. But ether wasn’t only used during surgeries. It was also used recreationally, as well as to address myriad calamities of life in ways that ranged from the mundane to the outright creepy.[…]Continue Reading
The Girl with the 19th Century Curl: Hot Tongs, Setting Lotions, and False Hair
(Met Museum)
During much of the 1860s and 1870s, hair arranged in artfully placed curls and ringlets was all the rage. But for ladies with naturally straight hair, those curls weren’t always easy to achieve. Who can forget the scene in Louisa May Alcott’s Little Women when Jo burns off her sister Meg’s hair with a pair of hot tongs?[…]Continue Reading
