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For the Love of the Bard

To go for it or not to go for it? That is the question when two former high school flames return to their Shakespeare-obsessed hometown for a summer of theater and unexpected romance, in a laugh-out-loud rom-com from debut author Jessica Martin.

Literary agent and writer Miranda Barnes rolls into her hometown of Bard’s Rest with one goal in mind: to spend the summer finally finishing her YA novel, the next installment in her bestselling fantasy series. Yet Miranda’s mother, deep in the planning stages for the centennial of the town’s beloved annual Shakespeare festival, has other ideas.

Before you can say “all’s fair in love and war,” Miranda is cornered into directing Twelfth Night–while simultaneously scrambling to finish her book, navigating a family health scare, and doing her best to avoid the guy who broke her heart on prom night.

When it comes to Adam, the veterinarian with a talent for set design and an infuriating knack for winning over Miranda’s dog, the lady doth protest too much. As any Shakespeare lovers knows, the course of true love never did run smooth, and soon Miranda realizes she’ll have to decide whether to trust Adam with her heart again.

In 1838 Frederic Chopin, George Sand and her children travel to a monastery in Mallorca. They are there to create and to convalesce, to live a simple life after the wildness of their Paris days.

Witness to this tumultuous arrival is Blanca, the ghost of a teenage girl who has been at the monastery for over three hundred years. Blanca’s was a life cut short and she is outraged. Having lived in a world full, according to her mother, of ‘beautiful men’, she has found that in death it is the women she falls for, their beauty she cannot turn away from, and it is the women and girls who, over her centuries in the village and at the monastery, she has sought to protect from the attentions of men with what little power she has. And then George Sand arrives, this beautiful woman in a man’s clothes, and Blanca is in love.

But the rest of the village is suspicious of the newcomers, and as winter sets in, as George tries to keep her family and herself from falling apart, as Chopin writes prelude after prelude in despair on his tuneless piano, their stay looks likely to end in disaster . . .

Heady with the delicious scent of the Mediterranean, richly witty, and utterly compulsive, Briefly, A Delicious Life is a story about convention and breaking convention, about love – yearning, secret, forbidden, unrequited – and about men and women and the cruelty they mete out to one another

1910, Mexico. As the country’s revolution spreads, Dolores, the daughter of a wealthy banker, must flee her comfortable life in Durango or risk death. Her family settles in Mexico City, where, at sixteen, she marries the worldly Jaime del Río. But in a twist of fate, at a party she meets an influential American director who recognizes in her a natural performer. He invites her to Hollywood, and practically overnight, the famous Miss del Río is born.

Dolores’s star quickly rises, and her days become a whirlwind of moviemaking and glamorous events. Swept up in L.A.’s glitzy inner circle, she takes her place among film royalty such as Marlene Dietrich and Orson Welles. But as her career soars, her personal life becomes increasingly complicated, with family tragedy, divorce, and real heartache. And when she’s labeled box office poison amid growing prejudice before WWII, Dolores must decide what price she’s willing to pay to achieve her dreams and if her heart and future instead lie where it all began…in Mexico.

Spanning half a century and narrated by Dolores’s fictional hairdresser and longtime friend, Miss del Río traces the life of a trailblazing woman whose legacy in Hollywood and in Mexico still shines bright today.

“[Penrose] mixes well thought out mysteries, early forensic science, great details of the era and a slow burning attraction creating a compulsive read.” –The New York Public Library

Charlotte, now the Countess of Wrexford, would like nothing more than a summer of peace and quiet with her new husband and their unconventional family and friends. Still, some social obligations must be honored, especially with the grand Peace Celebrations unfolding throughout London to honor victory over Napoleon.

But when Wrexford and their two young wards, Raven and Hawk, discover a body floating in Hyde Park’s famous lake, that newfound peace looks to be at risk. The late Jeremiah Willis was the engineering genius behind a new design for a top-secret weapon, and the prototype is missing from the Royal Armory’s laboratory. Wrexford is tasked with retrieving it before it falls into the wrong hands. But there are unsettling complications to the case–including a family connection.

Soon, old secrets are tangling with new betrayals, and as Charlotte and Wrexford spin through a web of international intrigue and sumptuous parties, they must race against time to save their loved ones from harm–and keep the weapon from igniting a new war . . .

The Heiress

In this gorgeously written and spellbinding historical novel based on Pride and Prejudice, the author of The Clergyman’s Wife combines the knowing eye of Jane Austen with the eroticism and Gothic intrigue of Sarah Waters to reimagine the life of the mysterious Anne de Bourgh.

As a fussy baby, Anne de Bourgh was prescribed laudanum to quiet her, and now the young woman must take the opium-heavy tincture every day. Growing up sheltered and confined, removed from sunshine and fresh air, the pale and overly slender Anne grew up with few companions except her cousins, including Fitzwilliam Darcy. Throughout their childhoods, it was understood that Darcy and Anne would marry and combine their vast estates of Pemberley and Rosings. But Darcy does not love Anne or want her.

After her father dies unexpectedly, leaving her his vast fortune, Anne has a moment of clarity: what if her life of fragility and illness isn’t truly real? What if she could free herself from the medicine that clouds her sharp mind and leaves her body weak and lethargic? Might there be a better life without the medicine she has been told she cannot live without?

In a frenzy of desperation, Anne discards her laudanum and flees to the London home of her cousin, Colonel John Fitzwilliam, who helps her through her painful recovery. Yet once she returns to health, new challenges await. Shy and utterly inexperienced, the wealthy heiress must forge a new identity for herself, learning to navigate a “season” in society and the complexities of love and passion. The once wan, passive Anne gives way to a braver woman with a keen edge–leading to a powerful reckoning with the domineering mother determined to control Anne’s fortune . . . and her life.

An extraordinary tale of one woman’s liberation, The Heiress reveals both the darkness and light in Austen’s world, with wit, sensuality, and a deeply compassionate understanding of the human heart.

Compromised Into a Scandalous Marriage

Escape to the Caribbean in this tension-filled compromised-into-marriage story!

From island scandal

To dutiful vows!

When heiress Paulina Despradel is banished from the family quinta in a storm, she seeks shelter with her dashing new neighbor, Sebastian Linares. Their attraction may be as electrifying as the lightning outside, but the night they spend together is totally innocent. Barely more than strangers, they must now marry. But left alone with their simmering chemistry, can they build a true union from the ashes of scandal?

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It’s been a long time since we had a Heroine of the Weekend post!  Since the Battle of Hastings took place October 14, 1066, I thought we’d do a way-back Heroine and take a look at Queen Matilda of Flanders, wife of William the Conquerer.

She was born in 1031, to Count Baldwin V of Flanders and Adela of France (Flanders had great importance in that time, being a sort of “stepping stone” between England and the Continent), and she was descended from Charlemagne.  At first, the couple was not allowed to marry, as William was illigitimate, and they were third cousins once removed, but they did wed 1051/2, when she was about 20 and he was a few years older.    She became Duchess of Normandy and later Queen of England, mother of about 10 children who lived to adulthood (including two kings, William II and Henry I, an abbess, and a duchess.  It appears to have been an affectionate and successful marriage, and William had no known mistresses or bastard children.  Matilda was intelligent and shrewd, interested in education, politics, and ecclesiastical matters.  She rarely came to England after her husband became king there, living most of her life in Normandy and serving as Regent there at least six times.  During those days, there was no unrest or uprisings, she sponsored many new schools, monasteries, and churches, and assisted her brother’s Flemish interests.  She was often caught in the middle of disputes with her husband and sons, and was well-known as a soothing, peaceful presence.  She died aged 52 in 1083, and her family couldn’t maintain their peaceful relationships without her to mediate for them.

A few good sources:

Tracy Borman–Matilda: Wife of the Conquerer, First Queen of England (2011)

Paul Hilliam–William the Conquerer: First Norman King of England

M. Morris–The Norman Conquest (2012)

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 It’s Friday, yay!!!  What are your weekend plans?  (I hope to seek out a pumpkin patch…)  And a reader sent me the best surprise this week–a Chou-Chou dog to help solve any mysteries that might pop up around here…

The “Magpie Murders” adaptation is coming to PBS!  (I loved this show, and Lesley Manville…

You and your dog probably have the same personality

Angela Lansbury “shimmered through the decades”

The 10 best hats in crime movies

A corgi parade!!!

7 chic ways to dress like a French woman

2022 National Book Award finalists

Celebrating our friendships

The coronation is set for May 6!

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Happy first day of October!!!  This is my very favorite month of the year.  To get us started, here’s some fun reading for the week…

The coronation of Queen Mary I (on this day in 1553)

A student bought an illuminated manuscript for $75…

Best Halloween candies, ranked

Florence’s little wine windows

You can own one of the French crown jewels

Forgotten archive of medieval books and manuscripts

Scenes from a marriage: Watching “Thin Man”

The Reith Lectures of Hilary Mantel (RIP)

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The first in a new Victorian series, Flora Flowerdew and the Mystery of the Duke’s Diamonds.  This one was a long time in the making, inspired by a friend’s very adorable and rather uncanny Pomeranian puppy!  And Flora is one of my very favorite heroines to meet, er, write.  Fun, stubborn, smart, independent, stylish…

London 1888

Flora Flowerdew has a secret. The former Florrie Gubbins, music hall dancer, is now Madame Flowerdew, one of London’s most renowned spirit mediums. But it’s actually her beloved Pomeranian dog, Chou-Chou, who can see the ghosts.

One of her most lucrative seances, for the wealthy Petrie family whose daughter is about to marry a handsome young duke, goes chaotically awry. The duke’s late, and very irate, grandfather demands Flora and his grandson Benedict find the long-missing family diamonds—even the search becomes littered with mayhem and murder! Can Flora discover the jewels before she loses her career, her sanity—and her heart?

Sparks fly as Flora, Benedict, and Chou-Chou pursue the truth of the diamonds’ disappearance in this lighthearted, cozy historical mystery set in foggy, gas-lit London

I’m looking forward to more instalments in this exciting new series.”

Ruins and Reading Reviews

Order link

The next is a re-issue, and I love seeing this book get a new lease on life! The first in my “Daughters of Erin” trilogy about 3 sisters set around the events of 1797, it’s loosely based on some of my own family lore, and a lovely friends-to enemies-to lovers tale. (it was a RITA Nominee for Best Historical back in it’s first day…) Look for other two titles in the coming months!

As children, Eliza Blacknall and William Denton ran wild over the fields of southern Ireland and swore they would be friends forever. Then fate took Will away to England, while Eliza stayed behind to become a proper Irish countess.

Years later, Will finally makes his way home-as an English soldier sent to crush the Irish uprising. When he spies the lovely Eliza, he is captivated by the passionate woman she has become. But Eliza’s passions have led her to join the Irish rebel cause, and Will and Eliza now find themselves on opposite sides of a dangerous conflict.

When Ireland explodes in bloody rebellion, Will’s regiment is ordered to the front lines, and he is forced to choose between his duty to the English king and his love for Eliza and their Irish homeland.

Order link

Last of all, two pre-orders!!!  If you’re in the mood for a Christmas tale, my dear friend Kathy L Wheeler and I have our Gaming Hell Christmas: Volume Two !!!  It was so much fun to write these tales together, the scandalous debs of Miss Greensley’s School for the the Comportment of Proper Young Ladies, and the newest, most exclusive club in Town…where they all find love and danger and mistletoe….

Order link (special price!)

Last of all, a book that is very special to me, as it combines three of my very favorite things–Paris and jazz music and the 1920s! No cover yet, but it will be out in March 2023, and I hope you love Jack and Rose as much as I did…

A Manhattan Heiress in Paris, pre-order link

Whew!!! That’s it for now. Watch this space for a new giveaway this week, and I am hoping to get back to my Heroine of the weekend posts very soon, they were so much fun to research…

Happy September, everyone!

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London 1888

Flora Flowerdew has a secret. The former Florrie Gubbins, music hall dancer, is now Madame Flowerdew, one of London’s most renowned spirit mediums. But it’s actually her beloved Pomeranian dog, Chou-Chou, who can see the ghosts.

One of her most lucrative seances, for the wealthy Petrie family whose daughter is about to marry a handsome young duke, goes chaotically awry. The duke’s late, and very irate, grandfather demands Flora and his grandson Benedict find the long-missing family diamonds—even the search becomes littered with mayhem and murder! Can Flora discover the jewels before she loses her career, her sanity—and her heart?

Sparks fly as Flora, Benedict, and Chou-Chou pursue the truth of the diamonds’ disappearance in this lighthearted, cozy historical mystery set in foggy, gas-lit London

Order Here!

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 It’s almost time for Flora Flowerdew to step out into the world!!!

Read all about Flora and her magical Pomeranian Chou-Chou today

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Homes of Romantic Age Poets

The Symbolic Survival of The Master and Margarita

A Ukrainian Ballet Corps Stranded in Paris

The Health Benefits of Reading Before Bed

New Movie About Catherine Parr

Queen Elizabeth is looking for someone to run a pub at Sandringham!  (Pick me!)

Vikings in North America

The wedding dress of 1928 (Museum of London)

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