Saturday, July 8, 2017

THOSE NOTORIOUS AMERICANS! Money can buy anything! Anything but love!


Money can buy anything. Can't it?  

When American robber baron Killian Hanniford decides to expand his business empire, he sails to Europe in 1877 and takes his family with him. 

His two daughters—Lily and Ada—are beauties, accomplished and educated. They want for nothing, except a chance to find husbands who love them for themselves, not their dowries. 

His niece, Marianne, is also lovely, shy and a widow who wants for nothing…except perhaps an entertaining and impermanent lover. 

Killian’s son, Pierce, is young, impetuous and too ruthless, it seems, for any young woman to take on as a husband. 

Even Killian himself—without a wife for many years but increasingly bored by his mistress—is shocked to learn he can fall in love. 

Tragic, isn’t it, to learn that money can buy anything but love?

WILD LILY, Book 1, on pre-order August 30!


Wednesday, July 5, 2017

Brave women who enlisted in WWI! 22,000+ went to France! Pic you haven't seen before

Many of you know I am the curator for the U.S. National World War One Commission for ARMY NURSE COPRS.

Recently, I went to Fort Sam Houston here in San Antonio and took more pictures (most of them obscure and never before published) to show you just how marvelous these 22,000+ women were who traveled far from their homes to nurse wounded Doughboys and comfort the dying.

Please note the descriptions, many of them the originals on the photos. All are black and white and some have been reproduced over the century. But they show how courageous these women were to leave their homes, their towns and travel more than 3500 miles to serve their fellow Americans in need.

I hope you will read my novel, researched for decades, about them, HEROIC MEASURES. Find it here: http://amzn.to/1dWojVz



Monday, July 3, 2017

Do you see RED? Color in fashion in Regency romances! What great-great-grandma wore!

This charming number is dated approximately 1810
 and sits in the Victoria and Albert Museum in London
Creating fashion in our novels, we authors like to give stunning visuals. Sometimes, those require more research than we’d hope!

Recently on the Beau Monde RWA writers loop, we discussed the color red, the dyes and fabrics that could have existed at the time.

Here from one of my large references on fashion (let that read TOME), I thought it fun to list for you the very limited number of shades of red for that period! Note, too, that many come from the latter part of the period which is not officially the Regency, but indeed the late reign of George IV, once that notorious man, the Prince of Wales.

So this table reads as: the title of the color, the year the term was first used, the modern color description/name as per the British Color Council! (In alpha order!)

Aurora, 1809. Chilli.
Aurora, 1829.  Shell-Pink.
Eminence, 1829.  Crushed Strawberry.
Japanese Rose, 1826.  Crushed Strawberry.
Marsh Mallow, 1829. Crocus or Old Rose.
Morone, 1811. Peony Red.
Naccarat, 1800. Tangerine.
Terre D’Egypt, 1824. Brick Red.

What does this imply? That blood red, ruby red, cherry red and many more were not possible in this period. So when you read that your heroine wears a bright red gown to the ball, beware, she may not have been at all!