Hello everyone, and welcome to my blog! I’ve done a round-up of some of my own favorite posts over the years (both here and when I’ve guested at other blogs), for people who are visiting for the first time:
[Last updated: 2/28/16]
Lively St. Lemeston: State of the Borough. 2/17/16. What’s next for the Lively St. Lemeston series.
Cakes and Ale holiday recipe linkspam. 1/11/16. At the Facebook party I threw for the release of Listen to the Moon, I asked everyone their favorite holiday food. Then I had to make a recipe compilation.
Being a servant is not a great job. 1/1/16. A guest post at All About Romance about the realities of being a servant in Regency England.
Scholarly Covers 3: the Search for Spock. Way back in 2013 I noticed that Booklikes was using the wrong cover for Cecilia Grant’s A Gentleman Undone: a Polish-language scholarly book on medieval history with a distinctly scholarly-book cover. A meme was born: re-cover romance novels to look like academic works. I’ve recovered all my own books and a lot of other people’s too!
Toogood Shabbos. 12/4/15. In which I do something nice for myself that John might do for Sukey: I try putting rose petals in my bath.
tl;dr: I know in my heart Thomas Jefferson had this journalist killed. 10/26/15. The mysterious death of James Callender and all the circumstantial evidence pointing at Jefferson’s involvement.
Plot bunnies free to a good home: Jewish Regency edition. 8/24/15. Bodysnatchers, boxers, and Brighton, oh my!
To prove the world was round? REALLY? Who writes this stuff? 6/22/2015. Apocryphal history repeated as fact, and Rothschild TOTALLY NOT buying up the Bank of England after Waterloo, that DID NOT HAPPEN.
That which we call a historical romance hero by any other name would smell like sandalwood and MAN. 5/25/2015. Favorite resources for naming characters, plus some favorite REAL ACTUAL NAMES used by REAL ACTUAL PEOPLE (meet the Page-Turner family!!!) and some favorite family crests.
“‘Pickles’ left behind”. 4/27/15. Regency single-purpose serving dishes: epergnes (originally designed for pickles!), ice cream pails, turtle soup tureens, and pineapple stands…with bonus link to an amazing video of a Solomon’s Temple pudding jiggling!
It’s Ash Wednesday! 2/18/15. I wrote 8 mini-stories in response to reader prompts about the Lively St. Lemeston characters.
“Good starter romances” masterlist. 2/4/15. Have a friend you think would love romance, but when you think about where to start recommending, your mind goes blank? This is my own shortlist of proven starter romances, plus I asked for recommendations on Twitter and compiled the answers here.
A pair of living turtle doves on a little bed of roses. 12/8/14. Dr. James Graham, “wizard showman flourishing in the lubricious twilight world of sex aids”, and his 1780 Celestial Bed, designed and advertised as a fertility aid.
Leveragérables: There’s a new world for the winning. 10/9/14. A Leverage/Les Mis mashup with Photoshopped illustrations.
EXT. PARIS – SUNSET. 9/8/14. A lot of people have asked me whether I’ll ever write a story about what happens in a certain m/m secondary romance after the end of A Lily Among Thorns. The truth is, I probably won’t, because there’s no doubt in my mind that their next meeting will go something like this…
The “Dead First Husband” interview series. April 2014. As part of my blog tour for Sweet Disorder, I wrote a guest post at Heroes and Heartbreakers about the tradition of widows and dead first husbands in historical romance. For that post, I interviewed the authors of some of my favorite historicals with widow heroines, and I got back such awesome, detailed answers that I ended up posting them all.
I will bring him to Paris in an iron cage! 3/4/2014. “Something I have always found hilarious is how, when Napoleon escaped from Elba, Marshal Ney declared, ‘I will bring him to Paris in an iron cage!’ and then, as soon as he actually saw Napoleon, he basically fell on his neck and became his right-hand man again.”
This makes the Bridegroom a Voter therefore never see my face if they are not married. 4/8/2013. On women’s electoral privileges in Regency England. (Yes, they had them!)
Remington Steele AU. A tumblr image set: “What if Pepper Potts was a private investigator with an imaginary boss and Tony Stark was a charming, neurotic con artist looking to make a change?”
Getting your money at the best and Oliver is in town, 8/20 and 10/1/2012. A two-part post of my favorite entries from James Hardy Vaux’s dictionary of Regency criminal slang.
Wilt thou yet confess? 5/7/2012. On sightings of murder victims’ ghosts in Regency England.
The de’il’s awa wi’ the Exciseman. 4/16/2012. On romanticizing smugglers, and the brutality of actual smuggling gangs.
Bitches, man. 3/24/2012. What I learned at a rather biased Shelley exhibit at the New York Public Library. (“In theatrical posters and reviews of Frankenstein, the Creature was referred to using dashes or dots: ‘The Role of (***) by So-and-So.'”)
“Where they lived in an expensive manner.” 2/13/2012. A glimpse of a real-life Regency con artist, Sarah Boxall.
Rodney for ever. 12/12/2011. Regency novelty mugs!
Ten Tips on Writing Characters with Accents. 10/24/2011. Probably my most popular post ever, at Kat Latham’s blog for the Lily tour.
Well-rounded villains. 10/4/2011. A guest post for Smitten by Books during my Lily blog tour. In which I talk about Tom Hiddleston, Draco Malfoy, and lopsided universes.
You Need a Thneed! 9/21/2011. On the continuity of character types I have loved over the course of my life, e.g. tracing a straight line between the Onceler and my future husband Lex Luthor.
Lucius Malfoy, Secret Sadsack. 7/16/2011. “DRACO: Dad, why don’t I ever see you bullying other adults? LUCIUS: For some reason, they aren’t as intimidated by my snake-cane and sweet hairdo.”
I’m nobody special. 6/24/2011. The first Captain America movie (which I loved), and problems with how movies and TV do romance plotlines.
It’s open for discussion. 2/10/2011. “To me, the reader’s freedom to react is part of the romance of writing, its mystique and its beauty. I put a part of myself on paper and then I give it away.”
Just call me the Marlon-Brando-in-”The-Wild-Ones” of teen soap viewers. 6/9/2010. On being a contrary reader and which characters I will side with in a story.
Angry heroines, part 1 of 2. 4/1/2010. On villainesses and anti-heroines, and women expressing anger.
Writer Inspiration post. 3/1/2010. A guest post at Musetracks for my Penny tour, about my mother’s death and how it affected my writing.
My September 2009 trip to the UK. Not a blog post, but a flickr album with commentary.
“Is it true, the dreadful story about you and Currer Bell?” 6/17/2009. Charlotte Bronte and Thackeray may have been the inspiration for Georgette Heyer’s Sylvester: or, the Wicked Uncle.
Rhinestones are a girl’s best friend. 4/30/2009. Barbara Cartland’s author photo and hilariously staged cookbook. Read about Beef Wellington: England’s greatest General who defeated Napoleon and a plate worthy of his name in the Battle of Love!