Hello! Happy Spring to You!

It's been a while since I posted to the blog -- my bad, but Spring sucks me out of the house, away from my PC and into the garden -- or what's left of it after a winter season has its way with it. Add to that a ton of rain in the past week or so, and the poor thing is under 6 inches of water!

Well, I'm taking a break for a bit from that project and back to working on "Lady Caro and the Count". If you recall, I left Romancing the Rogue in a bit of a cliffhanger with Caro fainting at the sight of Julien Alphonse Roberge, the man who tried to win her away from her second husband, the Count Roberge back in the early 1800s (you can find more details about that in the first book of The Merry Widow series, Snowbound Seductions).

Anyway, this romance will feature a country house party, a passel of young ladies seeking betrothals and Lady Caro and the Dowager Rutherford struggling to keep up with their new clients, Julien's nieces, and the Dowager's granddaughter. It should be great fun -- at least, that's my plan!

In the meantime, why not sign up for my newsletter to keep in touch with my progress (if any) and special sales that I post from time to time? Easy-peasy and I don't hammer you with a daily or weekly newsletter in your box -- that's my promise to you. Actually, you'll be happy to hear from me once a month, unless I run those specials.

Stay tuned for my next post where I'll include

some of my favorite historical romance authors in a

cute, easy to print bookmark.

HAPPY READING, MY FRIENDS!

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More Secondary Characters

As promised, I'm back with some tidbits of info on another favorite secondary character who has appeared in several of my Regency romances -- the Dowager Lady Rutherford. I needed a character who would balance out Lady Caro (see last week's blog entry), someone who was smart as a whip, tough and yet hiding a soft side. The dowager seemed to fit the bill for when she first appears in Snowbound Seductions , she's ornery, feared by all (even the duke) and willing to use her ebony cane like a Scottish claymore. So, the first British actress who visually inspired me, mostly for the dowager's physical attributes is Phyllida Law. If you're an Acorn TV or Brit Box fan, many of you will recognize Ms. Law. Phyllida Law She's appeared in so many series and movies, and is also known as Emma Thompson's mother. She is a wonderful actress and, to me, captures how I visualize the dowager. And in my work-in-progress, Wicked Wagers , we'll see a b...

Sources of Inspiration

I've been working on my first Regency romance novel and, although I've read most of Jane Austen and seen so many of the excellent BBC movie variations, one still needs a bit of inspiration when working through the writing. It's usually those small details, descriptive of the landscape or the manor house, that gives a work that added level of veracity, of impact for the reader. Why else would readers want historical romance? I have to think that it's the time period that intrigues, a bit like a time tunnel. Go ahead, pick your period -- there's probably a romance set in each one. That's why I love Pinterest. If you can control the time spent on the great "P" -- and that's a big "if" -- there's so much out there to help spark those imaginative ideas or get a writer over the hurdle of writer's block. Here's a few that I chose to help keep me churning out those words: Image captured from Pinterest Wouldn't thi...

Threads of Feeling

In "Captive for Christmas" (just released last week; see Books above), I wrote a brief scene between Felicity Drummond and Chandler Rhys in which she shows him a one-hundred year old scrapbook that her grandmothers and mother kept of the orphans who came to live at the family estate over the years. This is based on true fact, and that is what I love about historical fiction -- using facts and events to create a world more rich for the reader. archives, Foundling Hospital Museum sample fragment left with a female child The Founding Hospital was founded by Thomas Coram who wanted to give abandoned children a decent life. The hospital opened its doors in 1741, and children were accepted anonymously so women were not publicly shamed into abandoning their babies elsewhere. The mothers were encouraged to leave a small token, which was then added to the admission books with the details of the child. The tokens include ribbons, fabric scraps and baby clothes...

Claire Hadleigh

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