The Wedding Ceremony in Jane Austen’s World

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So you want to plan a regency era themed wedding ceremony> You might want to think about it a little more. The Wedding Ceremony Unlike weddings today,  the regency era wedding ceremony was not widely attended events. Obviously the bride and groom, along with their witnesses, usually the bridesmaid and groomsman and the clergyman were there. Close family might be there and possibly local close friends, but that was all. No huge guest lists or … Continue reading →

A most difficult and delicate issue

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Hard to spot and harder to stop, emotional abuse often slips under the radar. In Mistaking Her Character, I ended up tackling the issue of an emotionally abusive family relationship.  I say ‘ended up’ because I honestly can’t say I set out to deal with the topic when I started the book. The entire family dynamic I had envisioned when I started ended up turned upside down and a far darker, more complex one emerged … Continue reading →

Reason #65 Why writing takes so long

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#65 It’s Rude to Watch Someone Bathe     People ask all the time, how long does it take to write a book. I always reply it depends on a great deal of things–many of them things one would not expect might interfere–unless one has cats, and then it all makes sense. I mean, really, who else would bathe sitting on top of your desk? Who else but a cat would plop down in the middle of … Continue reading →

Don’t serve your coffee from a chocolate pot!

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What makes a chocolate pot different from a teapot or coffee pot? Because anything induced by chocolate MUST be a good idea, its time for another chocolate-induced dive down the research rabbit hole! Just to refresh your memory a bit, during the regency era, there were three particular luxury drinks: tea, coffee and chocolate. (I talked about tea recently, you can find that HERE. The first chocolate article is HERE.) They were in high demand, but expensive … Continue reading →

Camp followers in the long Georgian era

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I’d like to welcome Jude Knight today as she shares a fascinating article on the role of camp followers during the the Georgian and regency era. To our modern minds, it seems strange to think of civilians, including women and children, travelling into combat zones. Yet until the second half of the nineteenth century, civilians were an essential part of how armies worked. Collectively, anyone who followed the army that was not a soldier was called a … Continue reading →