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A Regency Dream

A Regency Dream

I started writing a regency some years ago when I got tired of writing sex scenes. I know that might sound a little odd, but after quite a few stories the scenes do all end up sounding rather alike. I needed a break. So I forced myself to write a traditional regency, just a kiss or two at most. Once I had all that research though its more like 3 books all set in the period. The clothes, the manners, the war, the decadence of the nobility, the restrictions of the lower cla

Creating new worlds

Creating new worlds

It's not at easy as it sounds creating new worlds, and I am usually very faithful to history, but a few places just sprang to life. Kapheira, its a world that doesn't exist. Creating a fantasy world anything can happen, anything at all. But to fit a country into our own that doesn't exist with all the histories, peoples, trouble, that people know so well. It takes more work than it sounds like. Kapheira sits in the Aegean off the coast of Turkey. Acquired by a British Co

Language of the Fan

Language of the Fan

The sixteenth century English writer, Joseph Addison, stated: "Men have the sword, women have the fan and the fan is probably as effective a weapon!" It was said even a plain woman could be attractive if she used her fan well. With chaperones always about how exactly were lovers to communicate and in a time when there was no air conditioning every woman carried a fan with her to keep cool. The fan proved ideal for communication purposes. Even from the earliest times they s

Murder beside the Salish Sea

Murder beside the Salish Sea

Ever want something exciting to happen in your town, that's just what I did writing Murder beside the Salish Sea. Not that Bellingham, WA isn't close to sea and mountains, a boat ride from the San Juan Islands, good shopping, great restaurants, but its slogan is the city of Subdued Excitement. Sitting here in the mist of winter I dreamed of more happening here. Bellingham really did have an Army Airfield that shuttled planes to Russia through the lend lease program and th

Ancient Greek Fashion

Ancient Greek Fashion

In my story The Mountaintop set in ancient Greece, there were so many things to research, but as far as clothing goes the Greeks made it an easy time. The Ancient Greeks were not fussy about their clothing. Ancient Greek clothing was typically homemade and the same piece of homespun fabric that was used as a type of garment, or blanket. The garments they wore were made for function, and they were made simply. For every member of the family, except for infants who often wore n

Cocktails of the Speakeasies

Cocktails of the Speakeasies

I'm working on a rewrite of a story I wrote years ago called A Speakeasy called Hell and I've been living the 1920's. I thought I'd share a little of the Bright Young Things world. Time for cocktails. Originally, the term meant only those drinks that contained bitters, but now has come to mean any mixed drink. Cocktails have been around since the early 1800's, with the Sazerac one of the first known by name in the 1820’s. But with the advent of cheaply made illegal alcoho

A Hater's Guide to Absinthe

A Hater's Guide to Absinthe

I should love it, I know. People for decades, centuries even have waxed profoundly on the Green Fairy. It has literary cache. The muse of legendary writers, all the great artist imbibed it, not to mention it's the bad boy of alcohol, among so many was banned. Was it the THC that drove men mad or a bad grape harvest putting the wine-makers up in arms at lost sales? Whatever the reason, for decades people forgot about it as the demon of the alcohol world. It was a world of the

Food History

Food History

A well-dressed couple enters a handsomely decorated house for a bit of dinner and entertainment. The setting and clothes don't matter, what do they eat? Food is one of the necessities of life and yet thousands of years of cuisine are only theories. Paintings, sculpture, archeology can tell what the ingredients were, but really how did the ancients or even the not so ancients eat? With cooking a largely mundane task, recipes were passed orally, few getting around to actually w

Cookbooks, how to make a world to really come to life

Cookbooks, how to make a world to really come to life

Your characters are dressed in the latest fashions, they're moving in a world of politics and intrigue, walking through the halls of grand architecture or escaping stifling hovels, they dance with abandon. But they sit down to eat a sumptuous feast or a meager breakfast and you don't know what the king ate, or the jester drooled over. My husband asks periodically just why I have so many cookbooks when I don't cook that much. My first stop at a used bookstore is either the

The Oregon Trail

The Oregon Trail

2,000 miles across the great American desert, 15 miles a day (on a good day), I take a bit of offense to that I'm from Kansas, but at the time, that's what it was. This huge expanse of nothing to cross to get to the rich fertile farm lands of Oregon and the gold fields of California. The 6 month trips started in 1842 though a handful of people made it across in the two years previous. This was several years after Narcissa Whitman and her husband made the trip to found a mi