The Winter Companion Release Day: Blog Tour, Giveaway, & More!
It’s release day for The Winter Companion (Parish Orphan of Devon, Book 4)! To celebrate, I’ll be embarking on a virtual book tour this week, complete with interviews, reviews, and a giveaway. You can also find me at Frolic with an exclusive excerpt, at Reading is My Super Power for their Kissing Books spotlight and giveaway, and tomorrow, I’ll be over at Fresh Fiction with a special Winter Companion-themed Valentine’s Day recipe (and another giveaway!). To top it all off, the eBook price of The Winter Companion is reduced to just $2.99 for the entire week![…]Continue Reading
A Holiday By Gaslight Audiobook!
I’m super excited to announce that my Victorian Christmas romance A Holiday By Gaslight is now available on audiobook! The audiobook is performed by British actor Alex Wyndham, who might be familiar to some of you from his work in the 2008 mini-series Little Dorrit, as well as in HBO’s Rome and BBC’s The Crimson Field. Alex does an absolutely brilliant job of bringing the characters of Sophie and Ned to life. I especially enjoy how he voices the working class accents of Ned’s parents and the blustering tones of Sophie’s unreasonable baronet father.[…]Continue Reading
A Halloween Tea Party for Unmarried Victorian Ladies
In the Victorian era, Halloween parties were rife with games designed to help young ladies see into their marital futures. These games were generally played at co-ed Halloween celebrations. There were even some which could be played by gentlemen. The bulk of these games, however, were geared toward marriage-minded females. It is therefore not surprising to find descriptions of Halloween parties—or Halloween Teas—that were strictly for women.[…]Continue Reading
The Etiquette of Broken Betrothals: Victorian Advice on Ending an Engagement
(Philadelphia Museum of Art)
In the Victorian era, a broken engagement was no small matter. If a gentleman jilted his fiancée, he risked doing untold damage to both her reputation and his own. Even so, if an engaged couple discovered that they were incompatible, Victorian era marriage manuals and books on etiquette strongly advised breaking the engagement rather than embarking on what would surely be a miserable marriage. As The New York Fashion Bazar Book of Etiquette (1887) explains:[…]Continue Reading
Victorian Valentine's Day Verses for Rejecting Unwanted Suitors
(Met Museum)
Published in 1875, The Lover’s Poetic Companion and Valentine Writer is a book intended for Victorian ladies and gentlemen “who wish to address those they love in suitable terms.” It contains a variety of Valentine verses, ranging from the sweet to the satirical. The book promises that these “Love Lyrics” are harmless and that even the more comical lines do not descend into vulgarity. But what these verses lack in vulgarity, they more than make up for in unkindness and—in some instances—outright cruelty.[…]Continue Reading
