Little stories. Loads of fun. Christmas dangly bits!

 ❤️Merry Belles, a Bluestocking Belles Collection with Friends



Just in time for the holidays, seven charming stories of romance from award-winning and best-selling authors:



· A murder brings a lady and her lost love together, just close enough to heal old wounds.



· A young lady must foil a friend’s betrayal to have her Yuletide wish for love come true.



· A widowed lord’s new housekeeper tames his rowdy boys and pierces his lonely heart.



· A lady determined to find her wayward young son finds herself stranded with the persistent earl determined to woo her out of widowhood.



· Will restoring a family manor together help two people acknowledge a secret attraction and claim a future together?



· A soldier’s wife is determined to find her missing husband, even if she must walk the length and breadth of England with her children in a wheelbarrow



· Home from the wars, a soldier is shocked to learn that his fiancée plans to wed someone else. Can he reach her in time to prevent the nuptials?
https://www.amazon.com/stores/Cerise-DeLand/author/B0089DS2N2

How heroic are you? American women traveled thousands of miles from their garden gates to save wounded soldiers during WWI! 99 cents for Veterans Day!

 

How heroic are you?
    Would you volunteer to travel thousands of miles from home with others you don’t know to live in tents, wash your hair in your helmet and work 12-24 hours each day?
    In the Great War, thousands of women did.
    For nurse Gwen Spencer, fighting battles is nothing new. An orphan sent to live with a vengeful aunt, Gwen picked coal and scrubbed floors to earn a living. But when she decides to become a nurse, she steps outside the boundaries of her aunt’s demands…and into a world of her own making.
    Leaving her hometown for France, she helps doctors mend thousands of brutally injured Doughboys under primitive conditions. Amid the chaos, she volunteers to go ever forward to the front lines. Braving bombings and the madness of men crazed by the hell of war, she is stunned to discover one man she can love. A man she can share her life with.
    But in the insanity and bloodshed she learns the measures of her own desires. Dare she attempt to become a woman of accomplishment? Or has looking into the face of war and death given her the courage to live her life to the fullest?

The story of their courage is 99 cents on sale for Veterans day!

*****

Excerpt: Copyright, Jo-Ann Power, 2013. All rights reserved.
When she did return to the tent, she had Colonel Scott in tow. She’d told him nothing except their German was now awake, aware and spoke English. She thought it best to let the officer discern the veracity of the man.
“Nurse Spencer tells me you speak our language. Might I ask you where you learned it?”
“At my mother’s knee, Colonel. I am Captain Adam Fairleigh, His Majesty’s Forces. Forgive me, sir, I would greet you appropriately but our erstwhile nurse has strapped me to the bed.”
“Then you must need restraining,” Scott replied. “What the hell is this that you say you’re with the Brits?”
“I am, sir. I am attached to General Pershing’s staff, Chaumont.”
“As what? How do you speak Hun so well and why in God’s name are you in one of their uniforms?”
Fairleigh arched both brows, looking at the short American down his very elegant straight nose. “Liaison to the American Commander, sir. Since December. I speak excellent German because my maternal grandmother came from Saxe-Coburg, the same principality as our late Prince Albert. I speak German, sir, as well as I do English. Before the war, that was no crime, but an asset.”
“I see. And how do you come by this uniform?”
Their patient was no longer so quick or cocky. “I took it off a dead man.”
Gwen swallowed hard at the savage image of this man removing clothing from a corpse.
“I had managed to crawl across a zone where they were not shelling. I thought if I could reach one of their forward trench lines, then I—”
“Preposterous. How did you get that far in your own uniform?”
“I went in peasants’ rags. Our lines abut an old village where only a few huts still stand.”
“Why discard your rags for a German captain’s uniform?”
“Well, sir, he was not only dead but conveniently my size.”
That shut the man up.
Gwen could only marvel at this creature in the bed.
“When I came upon their trench, I could hear their conversation below. Luck was with me. That bunker was a communications center. If I could get in there, I might learn quite enough to make my mission worthwhile. Of course, I couldn’t do that, couldn’t speak German to them and have them believe I was one of them if I wore French farmer’s culottes, could I? So I crept around…among their dead whose bodies they had not retrieved.” He stared at the American with blank eyes. “I happened upon the captain who seemed my height. Then I waited until night fell and—”
He halted, regarding Gwen once more. “I buried my rags and crawled into their trench. They accepted my story. I was privy to their orders that were to move their gun emplacements. Then, as you can expect, I was stuck with them, considered one of them. I had to run with them. I had no opportunity to escape until two nights later when the French opened a barrage in our sector.”
He lifted a hand, let it drop to the sheets. “I managed to hang back when they retreated with their line. I set out to No Man’s Land and prayed to Christ I’d find my way across to French lines. This took me…I’m not clear. A night. Two?” He shrugged. “Here I am.”
“Who is your American liaison in Pershing’s staff?”
“Colonel Samuel Rustings.”
Scott nodded, a hint of a smile curling his lips. “I see.”
“I gather you know him.”
“Same class at West Point.”
“Well, then. If you telegraph him, he will verify who I am and my mission. He knew I went out, you see.”
“A man from headquarters is already on his way here.”
“Splendid.”
“We thought we had ourselves a Heinie.”
The man’s mouth quirked in bitterness. “Sorry to disappoint you.”
“Oh, you’ll do, sir. What did you say your name was?”
Gwen noticed that Scott had not addressed him by his rank.
“Fairleigh.”
“We’ll see what our man from Chaumont has to say about you. In the meantime, my private is outside the tent.”
Fairleigh inclined his head in acknowledgement of his warder.
“Nurse. Finish up here. Untie him. ”
“Thank you, Sir.”
“Good day, then.”
When Scott had departed, Fairleigh regarded her with appraising eyes. “What is your name?”
“Spencer.”
“Nice name. Spencer.”
“Thank you.” She pulled her cart closer to his bed. No matter who he was, he was to be made whole as efficiently as she could.
“I am sorry, Spencer, for being an ass.”
She saw on his face honest contrition. Unaccustomed to apologies from those who insulted her, she had no reason to trust the value of his. Yet she gave him credit for the courtesy of it. He had done such a brave act. What kind of man would do as he had done? A fool. An opportunist. A man who saw this was work which he and he alone was best suited for? Was that hubris? Cunning? Or duty? If indeed, he had done it. If he hadn’t lied.
“Spencer, I am grateful for your help. Please do patch me up. I’d hate to lose my hands because I lacked good manners.”
He was making conversation to heal their rift. She picked through her gauze looking for the needle she had misplaced when she had left him. Brusqueness served her where experience did not. “Lie back then and be good.”
“Chilly. Do you they teach you to be frosty like that in America?”
“Yes.”
He feigned a shiver.
She fought a smile. “Put that spoon between your teeth. This needle will hurt.”
“I wager it will hurt less than your German. You should have warned me that it was so bad.”
“Careful.” Fingering her needle, she began to thread the eye. “You need me to be gentle as I sew. Besides,”—she could taunt him now that he was rational and at her mercy—“I doubt I’ll ever sing with you again.”
“I will endeavor to ensure you do.”
His attempt to charm her flattered her. She would do well to ignore it. “This is war, sir. Neither of us has the time.”
“Then sing to me instead.”
“When I put my needle in your skin, I will hear you sing and off key, too.” She threatened him, hiding all the humor his compliment inspired. “The spoon, sir. Now!”

HEROIC MEASURES BUY links:  https://books2read.com/u/bzgaKn

Real history is not for the faint of heart

 I am soon to begin a series of short videos on a subject dear to my heart. History. The real stuff. The unhappy bits. The necessary turn of events that no one saw coming which make a mark in the human story.

Knowing many wish to see, for example,
the issue of slavery in this country as a more positive series of events and choices than many can agree upon, I will take a look at various points in American and western hemisphere thinking in which a look on the bright side occurred and many disputed its value.

Understanding too that history contains so many movable parts (human impressions, popularity, resources old and new, and more, I will discuss what serves as sound historical factual background now as opposed to fifty years ago or even twenty.

Times have changed. Resources are constantly being 'unearthed' or made more accessible. People change, too. So does education. So even do the reading levels of general populations.

What do people read if they find they enjoy a simpler sentence structure rather than one composed of compound sentences? What do they choose to read if they crave quick action, bold plotting and mysteries or fantastical worlds?

This and more in short videos soon to come! 

 

 

 

A highwayman to steal your heart! 5 STARS for new box set!

🍒A highwayman to steal your heart! One box set, one plot, one highwayman stealing all sorts of things...money, hearts, time...and leaving ladies in the dust! The Bluestocking Belles have done it again and created a fun romp through the English countryside! 

Many 5 STAR reviews for this adventure 

in Regency romance!

https://www.theromancestudio.com/loves-perilous-road-featuring-rue-allyn-and-cerise-deland/

Do you abdicate after trying to poison yourself?

Front entrance to Fontainebleau

Travel is a wonderful way to do historical research for novels. Time-consuming, it is an intriguing way to put drama into your day...as you eat and drink you way around your chosen paths!

   My biggest kicks come from standing in the very spots that others infinitely more interesting than I have stood. Reflecting on how they must have felt at certain points in their lives—or seeing what has become of those places long after they have passed sends ripples of ennui down my spine.

Napoleon abdicating in Fontainebleau

The room where he took poison the night before he abdicated!

The Golden Courtyard where Napoleon's troops would have heard his farewell in April 1814 before he departed for Elba. Here you have the view Napoleon had as he addressed his troops. My picture.

Greeting many of his generals and troops who were gathered in the courtyard below, he bid them farewell from the main steps. He boarded a coach, escorted by a small French retinue and a few Englishmen to assure his departure, and left for Elba. He arrived there May 30, 1814.

To read a fast-paced romance about two lovers who must escape Napoleon’s return, do read BECAUSE OF YOU and my SCARLETT AFFAIRS series!

BECAUSE OF YOU, Book 2, Matrimony! 

BUY LINK: https://books2read.com/BecauseofYou

SCARLETT AFFAIRS series.

BUY LINK: https://amzn.to/4clTGvi

Spying can be dangerous when you are also falling in love! Who would do it?

Book 4 Releases 10.24.25

Spies!

THIS ENTIRE SERIES STARS SPIES! Women. Men. Disappearing. Returning. 

And falling in love.

PLUS, each story is rich in historical accuracy.

How?

1802: British go to Paris because of the truce. A great time to establish a spy network!

1803: Tensions between French and British rise! Bonaparte is getting ambitious and argues with the British envoy!

1804: Bony abducts the heir to the Bourbon throne. Yeah. The Last heir.

1805: Bony puts 200,000 soldiers on coast to invade southern England.

How do you get romances about of those headlines????

1802: You send a team of spies to Paris. One must help a lady whose friend has fled because…yeah, Bony thinks she’s a spy!

1803: One agent’s job is to find that lady who went missing in Book #1. Guess what? They fall in love and she cannot stay with him. Why?

Ah.

Book 6 Coming soon!

1803-4: An agent is dumbfounded when he sees a lady he loved impersonating another. Go away, she says. She has a mystery to solve!

1804: Bony absorbs other countries! A Crown Princess must save her family and flee!

BUY LINK: https://amzn.to/4clTGvi

Napoleon, food, REST, ideas in the shower and love! A collection of ideas on ideas!

Do you truly rest on Sundays?

I do give it a go. I cook. I sit and stare into space, usually on my patio when the sun is shining. But often, I get my best rest in the shower!

My life is driven by research and writing with deadlines ever present in my thinking. So my shower is an intriguing break from it all.

But my characters follow me in there.

You see, I have my next novel to plan so love is on my mind.

Who are these people? What is the heroine's challenge? His? How do they intersect to become a functioning unit for ever and ever? (And there they are—in my shower! I am naked. They are not yet fully formed so it is rather okay.)

My current series, SCARLETT AFFAIRS, addresses the conflict between France from the peace of Amiens in 1802 when Napoleon was one of three Consuls to the Second Restoration in 1816, after he had lost, gone to St. Helena, and the Allies occupied France.

I do take one issue, one tidbit of history and build around it the attempts of France to rule the world—and British and Allied attempts to defeat that.

But ideas come slowly...and when light bulbs go off, the result is a Happy Camper. Me!

Rest ensures I come up with good stuff. But REST is tough to find when you are driven to have that plot right now, please!

REST is a wonderful book which has been my friend for years after hubbie gave it to me for Christmas. Full of stories of writers, inventors and government officials and more who took time to allow their brains to think of nothing. And yet, what they discovered were the answers to their challenges!

A man who steals kisses is a poor girl's ruin and rich one's prize! LOVE'S PERILOUS ROAD, box set in continuity by Bluestocking Belles!

A highwayman is attacking travelers on a dark deserted road!

Who is he? Does he really want what he steals? If so, why does he seem to give it away...or take things he can never return?

And what happens when one robber waylays one special carriage and insists that one woman step down...only to steal a kiss?

What dastardly, delicious creature would do that, eh?

Love's road is surely perilous this autumn in LOVE'S PERILOUS ROAD, a box set by the incomparable Bluestocking Belles!

BUY LINK: https://www.amazon.com/Merry-Belles-Bluestocking-Collection-Friends-ebook/dp/B0FTQVYSKG

***

And what of that fellow who steals only kisses?

In Cerise DeLand's STOLEN KISSES, he is a charmer.

***

When Lance Winters first kissed Emma Tomkins pretending to be a highwayman years ago, she was ruined. Retiring to the country for succumbing to one delightful embrace, she endured society’s sting. 

But things have changed. Now she has money—a fortune of 8,000 pounds a year, and she’s determined to live a rich and full life. Alone. 

But men know of her new status, and seek her out like lemmings to the sea.

As a lowly cousin of a viscount and a captain in the Army Engineers, Lancelot Winters never had anything to his name. No right to claim a lady. Only a future fighting in Spain and France—and sent abroad to Canada soon after. Yet now Lance has a inherited an noble title and an estate to make his life comfortable. But he can’t and won’t do it alone. One woman is his answer.

When he appears in London to begin to court her, she refuses him. But he is not one to be put off. Not by society’s rules and not by her. So he disguises himself as the same highwayman of years ago and tracks Emma in her carriage one day on her way to Brighton. He grabs her off the coach—and in front of amused passengers and her niece, he kisses her.

Oh, yes. She remembers his lips. His voice. His rakish charm. But he ruined her once and she’s determined it won’t happen again. After all, she has rehabilitated herself…plus she intends to be a respectable wealthy grumpy spinster.

But the man is persistent. He shows up at the Old Ship Hotel on the Marine Parade in Brighton and makes a point to be everywhere! In The Lanes, in Aria Rocatti’s modiste shop, at the sea bathing rental post along the coast, and finally at the ball hosted by Lord Peter Summerville at his home at the conclusion of his house party. 

Each time they meet, they befall a few…um…mishaps. Lance thinks Emma’s his angel. She thinks he’s a delightful, star-struck fool. If only Emma’s niece weren’t trying to become his lady love too!

Lancelot might be his first name, but chivalry is his middle. He can’t live without her. And she can’t imagine marrying anyone else.

Their biggest problem?

A Bow Street Runner shows up at the Summerville Ball to arrest Lance as the highwayman who’s plagued the south shore of England.

What’s a woman to do if she now is in love with a highwayman?

D-Day Invasion, Bonaparte's style! He tried to invade Britain...and here's what happened!

Society for Nautical Research, Napoleon's armada

The D-Day invasion of Normandy was a valiant endeavor by a combined force of allies to defeat an enemy.

But that event—made up of convoys of ships, submarines, air defense and airmen, soliders and marines—was not the first such invasion concieved by one country. 

Napoleon ordered an invasion of England’s southern coast in the summer of 1805. Preparing for air, land and sea assault, he had all kinds of weaponry made. Hot air balloons, tunnnel digging machinery and a flotilla of amphibious landing gear similar to what you see in film of D-Day soldiers on flat-bottom boats evacuating into the open waves.

The French emperor had wanted such an invasion for many years. He encouraged his admirals to strike British shipping, naval and commercial. But he was met with defeat many times. 

Bemoaning his admirals’ “whining and delays”, he pushed them into conflicts they could not win. For a show of strength, he assembled 200,000 soldiers of his Grand Army in Boulogne along the Normandy coast and held maneuvers with soldiers shouting and chanting, taunting their enemy across the waves. 

The noise carried across the Channel and sent thousands of English residents fleeing with their possessions.

Against this reality, my next release (coming in September), LORD CARLISLE’S ENTICING LURE in my SCARLETT AFFAIRS series highlights this threatened invasion—amidst a romance that will thrill you with its charm and torment.

Widow Madame Giselle Laurant has fled France and the police who would throw her in La Force for her arrogance. She has a talent, a rare one. She draws landscapes to scale—and she draws them in such a way that a trained naval expert can make calculations from them.

Giselle is about to finish her set of drawings of English coastal seascapes when she meets a man she cannot resist. Clive Davenport, Marquess of Carlisle, is an advisor to the Foreign Office for naval affairs—and his desire for the lady who draws so well enflames him with a need to make her his. When he discovers that her drawings bear a certain odd characteristic, he questions if Giselle is friend or foe. 

Her drawings tell him she lies. Her kisses declare she truly

loves him. Can he find proof she is a French agent? If he has Giselle arrested, can he live with himself? Worse, can he live without her?

I hope you are reading my series, all of which feature hot-to the-touch romantic suspense action-adventure love stories with guaranteed happily-ever-afters. 

FIND THEM HERE: https://amzn.to/4clTGvi

The truth behind the scenes in LORD CARLISLE'S ENTICING LURE!

When writing historical romance, the key to success lies in giving the reader a hearty slice of yesterday.

I do that every time.

Here in LURE, you will see the reasons the British feared the invasion of Napoleon's Grand Army! 

You will meet that very famous artist, Elizabeth Le Brun who painted, among others, Marie Antoinette.

You will stroll on the beach in Brighton...and realize what problems you may have!

You will fall in love with a man who catches spies and who has every reason to suspect that the lady he is falling in love with is one!

Pre-order is up now. Remember it is 99 cents for only 2 weeks!

BUY LINK: https://amzn.to/3KkQCa7

Lord Carlisle's Enticing Lure, Book 5, stars a heroine who is on a mission...and a hero who suspects she may be one of the spies he searches for!

I hope you are reading my series, all of which feature hot-to the-touch romantic suspense action-adventure love stories with guaranteed happily-ever-afters. 

FIND THEM HERE: https://amzn.to/4clTGvi

Spicy romance and real history! Eloquence, too, say my readers! Book 5 on pre-order!

In the summer of 1805, Napoleon's Grand Army of 200,000 stood on the coast of France, ready to invade Britain.

The French had the largest, most well equipped army in the world...and their leader was willing to use it to conquer his long-term foe.

He sent agents into England, especially along the southern coast to spy on English defenses, their militias, their leaders and their people.

They wanted a glimpse of what they would need to land on the beaches and take the British within hours.

The British knew all of this. But they had their own plans. Many of them as devious as their enemy. They had to be creative to win against such a well-armed foe.

In ENTICING LURE, you will read of a few such British plans...and one in particular that sounds ever-so-familiar, rather like the D-Day Invasion of Normandy!

I hope you are reading my series, all of which feature hot-to the-touch romantic suspense action-adventure love stories with guaranteed happily-ever-afters. 

FIND THEM HERE: https://amzn.to/4clTGvi