Category: Historical Romance

Welcome back... and a Cover Reveal for THE POSTMISTRESS

2/19/2019

It's been a long time since I last sat down to write a post (a whole year in fact!) ... and for that you can blame two contracts and four books to write! It doesn't leave much time for any other kind of writing.

However it is all coming to the pointy end now and I am delighted to reveal the cover for the first of my Australian Historical Romances... THE POSTMISTRESS.

It might surprise you to know the most nerve wracking part of the publishing process is the cover!
When you publish independently you have full creative control over what goes on the cover of your book (and even then it can be hit or miss!). However when your book is in the hands of a publisher, you have to trust that the design team (affectionately known as the 'cover fairies') are in tune with your vision.
Having poured a year of my life into writing THE POSTMISTRESS, it was with one eye half closed and my breath held, that I opened the email with the cover concept and I have to say the cover fairies have totally got it right! God bless them. I LOVE this cover... it captures the feel of the Australian bush in summer - that crackling dryness in a McCubbinesque manner and the girl... well, the girl, is Adelaide!
I hope you love the cover... and I hope you love the book...
It is not officially released until 1 July BUT you can preorder it now! Just click the button below and it will take you to a page with all your favourite digital stores AND the ability to preorder the print book too!
So get clicking and be among the first to have THE POSTMISTRESS drop on to your kindle or into your post box.
That's it from me for the moment. If you want to be the first to know my news then please subscribe to my newsletter. I promise you won't be bombarded - I only send it out when I have news (and you get a free book!)

SO HERE SHE IS...

Preorder NOW!

THE POSTMISTRESS (Australian Historical Romance)

To forge a new life she must first deal with her past…
1871. Adelaide Greaves and her young son have found sanctuary in the Australian town of Maiden’s Creek, where she works as a postmistress. The rough Victorian goldmining settlement is a hard place for a woman — especially as the other women in town don’t know what to make of her— but through force of will and sheer necessity, Adelaide carves out a role.
But her past is coming to find her, and the embittered and scarred Confederate soldier Caleb Hunt, in town in search of gold and not without a dark past of his own, might be the only one who can help. Can Adelaide trust him? Can she trust anyone?
When death and danger threaten — some from her past, some borne of the Australian bush —she must swallow her pride and turn to Caleb to join her in the fight, a fight she is determined to win…

#TimeTravel: The Graham Saga from Anna Belfrage

11/16/2017

If you are a fan of #timetravel fiction and have not yet discovered the Graham saga from Anna Belfrage, you are in for a treat.
Read on and go in the contest to win the complete set of the Graham books!

Please follow Anna Belfrage as her beloved Graham Saga series is blasted around the blogosphere!

About The Graham Saga Series

This is the story of Alex and Matthew, two people who should never have met - not when she was born three hundred years after him. It all began the day Alex Lind got caught in a thunderstorm. Not your ordinary storm, no this was the mother of all storms, causing a most unusual rift in the fabric of time. Alex was dragged three centuries backwards in time, landing more or less at the feet of a very surprised Matthew Graham. In a series of books we follow the life and adventures of the expanding Graham family, both in Scotland and in the New World - and let me tell you it is quite an exciting life, at times excessively so in Alex' opinion. Sometimes people ask me why Alex had to be born in the twentieth century, why not make her a woman born and bred in the seventeenth century where the story is set? The answer to that is I have no idea. Alex Lind is an insistent, vibrant character that sprung into my head one morning and simply wouldn't let go. Seductively she whispered about terrible thunderstorms, about a gorgeous man with magic, hazel eyes, about loss and sorrow, about love - always this love, for her man and her children, for the people she lives with. With a throaty chuckle she shared insights into a life very far removed from mine, now and then stopping to shake her head and tell me that it probably hadn't been easy for Matthew, to have such an outspoken, strange and independent woman at his side. At this point Matthew groaned into life. Nay, he sighed, this woman of his was at times far too obstinate, with no notion of how a wife should be, meek and dutiful. But, he added with a laugh, he wouldn't want her any different, for all that she was half heathen and a right hand-full. No, he said, stretching to his full length, if truth be told not a day went by without him offering fervent thanks for his marvelous wife, a gift from God no less, how else to explain the propitious circumstances that had her landing at his feet that long gone August day? Still, dear reader, it isn't always easy. At times Alex thinks he's an overbearing bastard, at others he's sorely tempted to belt her. But the moment their fingertips graze against each other, the moment their eyes meet, the electrical current that always buzzes between them peaks and surges, it rushes through their veins, it makes their breathing hitch and ... She is his woman, he is her man. That's how it is, that's how it always will be.

Graham Saga Titles

Book One: A Rip in the Veil Book Two: Like Chaff in the Wind Book Three: The Prodigal Son Book Four: A Newfound Land Book Five: Serpents in the Garden Book Six: Revenge & Retribution Book Seven: Whither Thou Goest Book Eight: To Catch a Falling Star Book Nine: There is Always a Tomorrow (November 2017)

About the Author

Anna was raised abroad, on a pungent mix of Latin American culture, English history and Swedish traditions. As a result she's multilingual and most of her reading is Anna Belfragehistorical- both non-fiction and fiction. Possessed of a lively imagination, she has drawers full of potential stories, all of them set in the past. She was always going to be a writer - or a historian, preferably both. Ideally, Anna aspired to becoming a pioneer time traveller, but science has as yet not advanced to the point of making that possible. Instead she ended up with a degree in Business and Finance, with very little time to spare for her most favourite pursuit. Still, one does as one must, and in between juggling a challenging career Anna raised her four children on a potent combination of invented stories, historical debates and masses of good food and homemade cakes. They seem to thrive… For years she combined a challenging career with four children and the odd snatched moment of writing. Nowadays Anna spends most of her spare time at her writing desk. The children are half grown, the house is at times eerily silent and she slips away into her imaginary world, with her imaginary characters. Every now and then the one and only man in her life pops his head in to ensure she's still there. For additional information regarding Anna, her characters, extra scenes, and teasers for her next books, have a look at Anna's website at: www.annabelfrage.com. You can also find her on Facebook or follow her on Twitter.

Book Blast Schedule

Monday, November 6 Pursuing Stacie The Reading Queen Locks, Hooks and Books Tuesday, November 7 T's Stuff Susan Heim on Writing Wednesday, November 8 Bookish So Many Books, So Little Time Thursday, November 9 Let Them Read Books Friday, November 10 History From a Woman's Perspective Myths, Legends, Books & Coffee Pots Saturday, November 11 A Holland Reads Sunday, November 12 A Chick Who Reads Monday, November 13 CelticLady's Reviews What Is That Book About Tuesday, November 14 A Literary Vacation Historical Fiction with Spirit Mello & June, It's a Book Thang! Wednesday, November 15 The Maiden's Court Adventures Thru Wonderland Thursday, November 16 Carole Rae's Random Ramblings Ms. Stuart Requests the Pleasure of Your Company Friday, November 17 Book Nerd Saturday, November 18 Passages to the Past The Book Junkie Reads Sunday, November 19 Books, Dreams, Life Monday, November 20 The Lit Bitch Jorie Loves a Story

Giveaway

During the Blog Tour we will be giving away Books #1-8 in paperback to one lucky winner! To enter, please enter via the Gleam form below. Giveaway Rules – Giveaway ends at 11:59pm EST on November 20th. You must be 18 or older to enter. – Giveaway is open INTERNATIONALLY. – Only one entry per household. – All giveaway entrants agree to be honest and not cheat the systems; any suspect of fraud is decided upon by blog/site owner and the sponsor, and entrants may be disqualified at our discretion. – Winner has 48 hours to claim prize or new winner is chosen.

#New Release: A RAGING MADNESS by Jude Knight

5/7/2017

Ooh... I've been looking forward to this one... a Regency Noir with shades of "Lamplight" with a wounded hero (my favourite trope) from the pen of the talented Jude Knight!

As I do with all my guests I have asked Ms. Knight to share a tidbit of interesting research she found while writing the book...

Chocolate - Regency Style

Thank you for inviting me to take tea with you, Mrs Stuart. It's a favourite drink of mine, and was one of the three great non-alcoholic beverages enjoyed by people in the Regency world I write about. Tea, coffee, and chocolate. And today I wanted to talk about chocolate.
Hot chocolate arrived in England in the seventeenth century, via Europe. Mrs Whites Chocolate House was founded in 1693, as a club for gentlemen. (It later moved to St James Street and dropped most of the name. You’ll know it as Whites.)
In 1808, chocolate is the preferred morning beverage of my heroine, Ella Melville. The chocolate she enjoyed came as a paste, to be made into a drink with milk, cream, sugar, and flavourings. It would be twenty years before a Dutch chemist would work out a process to separate the cacao butter from the solids, producing Dutch cocoa, which could be powdered. In another 20, Joseph Fry would add some of the melted cacao butter back in and make the world’s first chocolate bar.
But that was far in the future. In Ella’s day, as for thousands of years, chocolate was a drink made from a paste made by crushing fermented, dried and roasted cacao beans. The Mesoamericans, to whom it was a sacred and powerful drink, mixed it with water and flavoured it with chili peppers. The Spanish soon learned to add sugar or honey, to remove the bitterness.

Here’s how Miller, Ella’s maid, would have prepared her chocolate.
Put a pot of water on the heat and over it place a heat-proof mixing bowl. The bowl should not touch the water. Add a dollop of chocolate paste (you can use bittersweet chocolate, around 1.5 ounces) and a small splash of water. Melt the chocolate paste gently, stirring now and then.
Take one cup of milk and one cup of cream, and place in a pan over medium heat. Bring it to just under a boil. When it is steaming and hot to the touch, add one quarter of a cup of sugar and stir to dissolve.
Stir the milk into the melted chocolate a little at a time, and continue stirring until everything has mixed well. Add flavouring, such as vanilla or nutmeg (or chili, if you’re very brave).
Serve.

Chocolate was served from a tall pot that had a hole in the lid for the molinet, a kind of swizzle stick that was used to keep the chocolate well blended and frothed.

About A RAGING MADNESS

Their marriage is a fiction. Their enemies are all too real.

Ella survived an abusive and philandering husband, in-laws who hate her, and public scorn. But she’s not sure she will survive love. It is too late to guard her heart from the man forced to pretend he has married such a disreputable widow, but at least she will not burden him with feelings he can never return.
Alex understands his supposed wife never wishes to remarry. And if she had chosen to wed, it would not have been to him. He should have wooed her when he was whole, when he could have had her love, not her pity. But it is too late now. She looks at him and sees a broken man. Perhaps she will learn to bear him.
In their masquerade of a marriage, Ella and Alex soon discover they are more well-matched than they expected. But then the couple’s blossoming trust is ripped apart by a malicious enemy. Two lost souls must together face the demons of their past to save their lives and give their love a future.

Read an excerpt...

Kerridge was alone when she brought Ella’s evening dose of laudanum. Presumably Constance believed that Ella was still under the influence of the measure forced down her throat this morning, and would swallow Kerridge’s without offering a struggle.
Constance was nearly right.
Even though Ella had managed to dribble at least part of what she secreted in her cheeks onto the pillow without Constance noticing, she was still mazed. Another dose would take her under, but Kerridge resented being forced to a task so beneath her dignity as a dresser, and would do no more than make sure the liquid arrived in Ella’s mouth. She would not insist on waiting until Ella swallowed, would not pinch her nose and hold her jaw shut.
Being too meek would be suspicious. Ella turned her head away from the spoon, her teeth clenched shut, but yelped at Kerridge’s sharp pinch and the dresser immediately forced the spoon into Ella’s mouth.
Glaring sullenly, she stopped struggling, and the dresser withdrew the spoon, stretching her thin lips into a smug smile.
“There, Lady Melville. This would go more easily for you if you would just do as you are told,” she said.

Buy A RAGING MADNESS

About Jude Knight

Jude Knight’s writing goal is to transport readers to another time, another place, where they can enjoy adventure and romance, thrill to trials and challenges, uncover secrets and solve mysteries, delight in a happy ending, and return from their virtual holiday refreshed and ready for anything.
She writes historical novels, novellas, and short stories, mostly set in the early 19th Century. She writes strong determined heroines, heroes who can appreciate a clever capable woman, villains you’ll love to loathe, and all with a leavening of humour.
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#NewRelease DARK HEART: Elizabeth Ellen Carter

4/16/2017

I love Elizabeth Ellen Carter's ability to move between historical periods... her books to date have been set in the 18th and 19th century, but Elizabeth's passion is the Roman era. I am thrilled for her that the book of her heart... DARK HEART has found a publisher and will be released on 28 April (it is available for pre order NOW!)

I asked EEC to share with us a snippet of research (and I quail at the amount of research that went into writing this book!)...

Penthouse living... Roman style!

Today, living is a penthouse is seen as a pinnacle of luxury.
I can just hear Eva Gabor singing the line from Green Acres: “I just adore a penthouse view; darling I love you, but give me Park Avenue.”
But if you lived in Ancient Rome, the last place you wanted to be was on the top floor of an apartment building.
Quite remarkably, the population of Rome during the third century AD was one million – a feat reached by London only in 1810 and Manhattan in 1874.
Just like today, that caused a bit of a housing affordability crisis and again, like today, it was decided that the only way was up.
Apartment buildings (often named for their wealthy owner) were seen as the solution. These structures were up to seven storeys in height with the first two stories made of stone or concrete and the rest of the apartments made of wood.
And in a world without reticulated water, that meant carting water upstairs and, depending on the building, you might also be forbidden from cooking in your apartment. So the wealthy lived on the ground floor, the middle and working classes on the level above that and poor above that again.
These apartment buildings were called insulae – which is Latin for islands and indeed apartment living is just like being on an island in the middle of the city.
It has been suggested that one of the reasons why Nero fiddled while Rome burned was that he saw it as a great slum clearance and indeed after the fire he mandated insulae be no greater than seven storeys (70 feet), Emperor Trajan was even more strict, placing a six storey height limit on new construction.
But everything old is new again, with many cities returning to wood to construct high rise buildings - but this time using cross-laminated timber (CLT) — layers of wood, glued together under high pressure with the grain of each perpendicular to the one before. The end product is strong and rigid, unlike raw timber, which will warp and weave over time.
Norway currently boasts the tallest timber building with a 14-storey timber high rise called Treet. Canada hopes to eclipse that later this year with an 18-story timber dorm building at the University of British Columbia, soon to be followed by the 21-storey Haut building in Amsterdam.
It can be hard to imagine ancient apartments, so I’ve found this beautiful four minute architectural video showing what Insulae would have looked like.

About DARK HEART

Rome, 235AD
A series of ritual murders of young boys recalls memories of Rome’s most wicked Emperor. Magistrate Marcus Cornelius Drusus has discovered the cult extends to the very heart of Roman society.
Despite his personal wealth and authority, Marcus is a slave to his past – conflicted by his status as an adopted son, bitterly betrayed by his wife and forced to give up his child.
Kyna knows all about betrayal. Sold into slavery by her husband to pay a gambling debt, she found herself in Rome, far from her home in Britannia. Bought by a doctor, she is taught his trade and is about to gain her freedom when her mentor is murdered by the cult.
When the same group make an attempt on her life, Kyna is forced to give up her freedom and accept Marcus’s protection. With no one to trust but each other, mutual attraction ignites into passion but how far will Marcus go for vengeance when he learns the cult’s next victim is his son?

BUY DARK HEART

Read an excerpt from DARK HEART...

Marcus watched the captain of the guard come to attention as he entered the room. With a wave of Marcus’ hand, Janarius was at ease.
“Report.”
“A quiet night mostly. A couple of brawls to break up. The Praetorian Guard is making a nuisance of itself. I take it you’ve heard? On orders of the new emperor, Alexander Severus’ supporters are being taken in for questioning.”
Marcus nodded and took a seat on one of the two curule chairs. He had heard. The situation was why he was content to owe no man. He asked no favors and gave none in return. It had always been a sore point between himself and his former wife, Agrippina.
She had accepted her father’s arrangement of marriage to Marcus despite him being younger than her, and beneath her station, because he was seen as a rising star – an adopted Roman from the province of Judea who had been trained by the very best, destined to go far.
However, no sooner had the ink dried on the marriage contract than Marcus learned what kind of wife had been negotiated for him.
He shook off the bitter memory and returned his attention to Janarius.
“Bodies. Either inside or outside the city,” Marcus demanded crisply.
“None,” the captain said, but the hint of relief in his voice suggested he had misunderstood.
Marcus shook his head. “No, I don’t mean more boys.”
“Then who?”
“A woman. Short, slim build, red hair, not yet thirty years of age.”
Janarius blinked and examined the pair of wax tablets he held but until now had not referred to.
“A woman who might fit that description broke her neck after being thrown down the stairs by her husband at the Insula Ferox.”
Marcus shook his head. Janarius looked further at his lists.
“A fornix was raped and beaten under the arches at the Theatre of Pompey, but it says she was a blonde.”
“Not her.” Marcus shook his head.
“Then that’s all. Of all the females reported dead last night those are the only two which come close to fitting your description.”
Marcus was surprised at the tension that leached from his shoulders at the news.
“May I ask who I’m supposed to be looking for?” asked Janarius.
“The Greek doctor’s slave assistant, Kyna.”
Marcus watched the man, waiting for his expression to change. His brow creased in thought, his eyebrows came up in recognition of the name, and then his eyes widened as the significance occurred to him. Janarius’ thought process written as plainly on his features as the words scribed on the tablets.
“That’s who she was?” he hissed. He stepped in and leaned on the magistrate’s desk. “I swear to you, Marcus, I didn’t know.”

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#Bookontour MANSION ON THE MOON by C. Sablan Gault

4/6/2017

It is always exciting to find historical romance set in times and places outside the norm and I am very excited to host C. Sablan Gault's story of love across the cultural divide in Guam (now a small island protectorate of the United States).The US involvement in the affairs of Guam is a fascinating one.

I have a personal connection to Guam - in his oil industry days my husband had many visits to Guam, including one memorable one in our final week in Singapore when a cyclone had torn through Guam and he was despatched to cope with the ensuing crisis - leaving his wife (who had the flu) and two teenage sons to pack up the apartment and tie off the loose ends of our lives in Singapore. Needless to say he was not popular...

Historical Romance, Women’s Fiction

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Set in the tumultuous period of Guam history, between the Spanish-American War and World War II, the lives and loves of three Chamorro women unfold amid the changes and challenges around them. Sixteen-year old Amanda falls of a navy seaman who leaves her with child. Her daughter Sylvia grows up an illegitimate orphan. Yet she finds happiness with Tino Camacho, who loves her despite her scandalous background. Life teaches their daughter, the level-headed Vivian Camacho, that falling for an American navy man is futile, like reaching for the moon.

Cultural and racial prejudices increase the distance. Vivian avoids such futility until the handsome Philip Avery, an up-and-coming naval engineer, enters her life as an upstairs tenant newly assigned to Guam. Vivian falls in love with him but knows nothing can come of it. Philip is from a different world, one of wealth, rank, and privilege. Vivian is a simple island girl who lives under naval government rule. Philip is a man well beyond her reach. He is as distant from her world as the moon; he is the mansion there. Philip falls in love also, but his career comes first. Both deny their feelings for each other; their love cannot be. But love knows no distance, sees no differences.

About the Author

C. Sablan Gault, a native born Chamorro, began her writing career in advertising. She holds a BA in Anthropology and studied journalism. She worked as an advertising assistant, newspaper reporter, feature writer, and columnist. She then served as press secretary to a Guam governor, a legislator, and to Guam’s delegate to the U.S. House of Representatives. She also worked as a writer and researcher for a Guam political status education commission. She and her husband David, a Vietnam-era Seabee, live in Guam.

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