Regency Weather

“Everybody talks about the weather, but nobody does anything about it.”

MARK TWAIN, editorial in the Hartford Courant, Aug. 24, 1897

Whether or not this quote is accurate, and there’s some doubt about its validity, the weather confounds us all.

Love it or hate it, the weather is always with us. My Regency comedy novellas, An Inheritance for the Birds, A Similar Taste in Books and A Mutual Interest in Numbers are all set in 1818 England. Rainy, chilly England. Cold, damp England.

Well, not necessarily.

England's climate is both colder and warmer than that of the United States. The warm Gulf Stream crosses the Atlantic from North America to brush the southern and western coasts of the island, creating milder weather than in New England, where I live. Palm trees grow in Cornwall, England’s southwestern most county. According to Jen Black ( author of Fair Border Bride), who lives in Northumberland, the palm trees grow in protected areas. But I think that any palm tree that can survive outdoors at 50 degrees North latitude is doing pretty good.

Snow is rare in England, especially in the south, as are blazing hot temperatures. In 1818 London, according to the Royal Society’s Meteorological Journal, the temperature range for the year was 24 degrees F to 80 degrees F. Compare that to the Boston Massachusetts range of  4 F to 102 F from February 2012 through January 2013.

But where there is weather, there are extremes. The summer of 1818 in England was one of the hottest on record to that time, with June and July the warmest. According to the Royal Society’s observations, the average London temperature for June was 66.1F, with a high of 78 F and a low of 57 F. For July, the average was 68.9F (high 80 F, low 61 F). Compare those readings, again according to the Royal Society’s London records, to the more typical year of 1817: June range 81 F - 47 F, average 62.8 F, and July range 70 F - 54 F, average 60.8 F.

The summer of 1818 was not pleasant in London. The River Thames, which for all practical purposes was an open sewer, reeked more than usual. The streets, full of horses and their manure as well as other effluvia from man and beast, reeked as well. With no air-conditioning, deodorants or running water, the people, dressed in their year-round woolens, did, too. The ever-present pall of coal smoke from thousands of chimneys added to the miasma.

In An Inheritance for the Birds, my hero, Kit, abides in noxious London when he receives the letter from his late great aunt's solicitor informing him of a possible inheritance. In order to win her estate in Somersetshire, he must compete with her former companion. Their task: Make her pet ducks happy.

Idiotic the contest may be, but the prospect of a sizeable inheritance is enough to make him accept. Another lure is the trip to the country, where, although the temperatures may not be lower, at least the air will be cleaner.

A Similar Taste in Books and A Mutual Interest in Numbers (Books 1 and 2 of Love and the Library) both take place in London during the miserably hot summer of 1818. The characters don't escape to the country, but when you find your true love, why would you want to?

An Inheritance for the Birds, available from The Wild Rose Press, Amazon, Barnes and Noble, All Romance Ebooks and other places where ebooks are sold.

A Similar Taste in Books and A Mutual Interest in Numbers available at Amazon, Amazon UK, Smashwords, Barnes and Noble and other places where ebooks are sold.

Thank you all,

Linda

The painting is The Vale of Dedham (1828) by John Constable

Review: A LITTLE NIGHT MISCHIEF by Emily Greenwood

A Little Night Mischief by Emily Greenwood is a light-hearted Regency romp with serious undertones about the misadventures of two very determined people who clash on their journey to love.

Felicity considers Tethering, the estate where she grew up, her home, even though the place belongs to her uncle. When her uncle loses the property to James in a card game and then dies, Felicity believes she has every right to take the place back. Specifically, by some ghostly and other mischief designed to convince James the holding is more trouble than it’s worth.

James wants to clear his family name tarnished by his brother and buy back his own debt-ridden family home. He needs the money from the sale of Tethering to do both. If he can only stop Felicity from undermining his efforts.

A Little Night Mischief is full of laughs as Felicity concocts one hare-brained scheme after another in her increasingly desperate and futile attempts to dislodge James from her life. She is charming, if a little too stubborn, in her insistence that Tethering is rightfully hers, even as she admits her growing attraction to and liking for James.

James is equally charming even if he’s a little too certain he always knows what’s best, and especially when he keeps vital information from Felicity as he grows to care for her.

And while A Little Night Mischief is a romance, the story is also a parable on the folly of blindly holding onto something too tightly when the object of your desire may no longer meet your needs.

There are also several appealing secondary characters, like James’s Aunt Miranda, and Crispin, the village vicar. I liked Crispin very much, and would like to see how his story continues.

A Little Night Mischief is a fun romance. Enjoy.

Thank you all,
Linda
ARC provided by Sourcebooks

Review: TAINTED ANGEL by Anne Cleeland

Double and triple talk, threats and counter threats, plots and counterplots. Games of cat-and-mouse, crosses and double-crosses, lies, lies and more lies. Nothing is as it seems in Tainted Angel by Anne Cleeland, a complex tale of spy and counterspy in Regency England.

Vidia is no stranger to the double-dealing, underhandedness and betrayal of the espionage world. As a so-called angel, her job is to use her considerable beauty and charm to ferret out secrets from powerful men. But now, someone has fingered her as a possible traitor, and her own organization is out to trap her. She also harbors secrets of her own that she doesn’t want her employers to discover.

Lucien, also a spy, has been Vidia’s partner on occasion and has always been stunned by her beauty. Recently widowed, he can now pursue her. Or can he? He has secrets, too, ones that can tear him apart.

Tainted Angel is that welcome rarity, a Regency adventure story. Ms. Cleeland’s page-turner grips you from the start and yanks you along at breakneck speed into a maze of dizzying twists and turns where nothing and no one are what they seem. The surprises keep coming right to the end as the author reveals bit by tantalizing bit the secrets everyone in this novel protect.

I love adventure and spy stories, but most of them focus on the man, who does all the heroics, with the woman as an afterthought. Not here. Vidia is smart, sharp, beholden to no one and fights back. She takes care of herself, and is a match for anyone. I like her very much. I would love to see more heroines like her.

I also like Lucien. He operates under as deep a load of secrets as Vidia, but manages to navigate through them as he does his job and also helps her. A true hero. And he’s blond. I do like my blond heroes.

I stayed up well into the night reading this book. You will, too.

Thank you all,
Linda
ARC provided by Sourcebooks

A MUTUAL INTEREST IN NUMBERS is here!

A Mutual Interest in Numbers, Book 2 in my Love and the Library series is now available!

Love and the Library--A celebration of the beginnings of love wherein four Regency gentlemen meet their matches over a copy of Pride and Prejudice at the library.

A Mutual Interest in Numbers
BLURB:
Love and the Library Book 2: Ellen and Laurence

Lightning doesn’t strike in the same place twice. Does it?

Regency gentleman Mr. Laurence Coffey doesn’t care for libraries and novels. His interests run to steam engines and mathematics. But his friend found the lady of his dreams at the library over a copy of Pride and Prejudice. Laurence yearns for a lady of his own, one of wit and cleverness as well as beauty. And while he doesn’t expect his friend’s luck, visiting the library can’t hurt.

Miss Ellen Palmer enjoys mathematics, but, unfortunately, many men frown on bluestockings. She loves the library and its mathematics books as well as its novels, especially her favorite, Pride and Prejudice. How she would like to find her own Mr. Darcy. Perhaps someday, somewhere, she can discover a man who wants an intelligent woman.

At the library, they both reach for a copy of Pride and Prejudice at the same time. Can their mutual interest in numbers--and this particular novel--make their dreams come true?

A sweet, traditional Regency romance. With a duck. Quack.

EXCERPT:
Laurence pushed aside a copy of Byron’s The Corsair and then curled his lip at a volume of sermons. Gads, sermons on Sunday were enough for anyone.

He set the sermons aside to reveal the book beneath. Pride and Prejudice. The novel that had brought his friend his lady.

Could this book somehow help a man find his love? He extended his hand toward the tome...

A gloved feminine hand, also reaching for the novel, bumped into his. “Oh, I beg your pardon.” The voice was soft and musical.

He jerked upright. “No, I beg your pardon.” The same extraordinary blue eyes that had almost knocked him flat a moment ago threatened to do so again. And he wouldn’t even care.

As if he were under the effect of Mr. Mesmer’s animal magnetism, he waved in the general direction of the book. “Please, be my guest.” Take the book. Take me.

A Mutual Interest in Numbers at Amazon, Amazon UK, Smashwords, and Barnes and Noble

And if you want to start with A Similar Taste in Books, Part 1 of Love and the Library, the blurb, excerpt and buy links are here.

Thank you all,
Linda

Noblesse Oblige or Regency Duty

Duty was the watchword in the Georgian and Regency eras. Everyone had his or her place, and every place had its duties. Even noble families were not exempt. A nobleman’s duty was to his line, his country and his church. His sons fulfilled these obligations.

The duty of the first son, the heir, was to his family. His obligation was to protect and increase the estate and to marry and produce a legitimate male successor who would inherit everything. All those Regencies that have the heir buying an army commission and going off to war are anachronisms. The social pressure for the heir to join the armed forces has existed for only about the past one hundred years. Two hundred years ago and earlier, the first son’s duty to continue the line made him too valuable to waste on a battlefield where life was cheap. His obligation was to survive and procreate.

The second son fulfilled the family’s duty to the country. He joined the army, usually as an officer by buying a commission. While some second sons bought places in the militia and served in Britain where there was little chance of dying, others lost their lives on various battlefields. I always wondered why a nobleman would go to great lengths to assure an heir and a spare, and then earmark the spare for such a perilous occupation. Regency England was already a dangerous place. In a world with poor sanitation, no antibiotics, few painkillers, and no understanding of germs, an infected cut could kill you. Why court death in war? As an example, albeit fictional and somewhat later, Dorothy L. Sayers's detective Lord Peter Wimsey, second son of the Duke of Denver, served as a major in the army in World War I. He almost died in an artillery shelling that buried him alive. Into the 21st century, Prince Harry served in Afghanistan as a helicopter pilot.

A nobleman also had a duty to the church, which the third son fulfilled by joining the clergy. A man did not necessarily have to be religious to become a clergyman. If this son’s family was rich and titled, his father likely controlled several livings, and he could give them all to his son. (Note, the giving of multiple livings to one clergyman would be declared illegal later in the nineteenth century). The son could hire curates to do the actual work, and he could take the money from the livings and do as he chose. If the spare died in battle, the third son, with a relatively safe profession, was the spare spare, and could inherit. But only if there was a third son and the heir had no sons.

Of course, there were always exceptions. As an example of both the standard and the exception, we have Earl Spencer, ancestor of Diana, Princess of Wales. He made his heir enter Parliament, sent his next two sons into the navy, and the fourth became a clergyman. Why the navy? Earl Spencer was Secretary of the Navy. None of the boys had any choice. The second son hated the navy, but the fourth son at least was bookish. The second son in Mansfield Park became a clergyman, and many younger sons entered politics, especially if their fathers had money and connections.

Any more sons were superfluous and were on their own. Their father may or may not have given them allowances. If not, they were likely on the lookout to marry heiresses. If they couldn’t snag one, or were modern and forward-looking, they sought that dreaded of all things to a gentleman–work.

While the Regency was still a bastion of tradition, the era was also the time when our modern world began. Not every son played the game according to the rules. In my Regency comedy, An Inheritance for the Birds, the hero, Kit, is the second son of a baronet. He loves the land, and wants to work as a land steward. He worked with his father’s steward, and plans to take over when the older man retires. But at the old steward’s retirement, Kit’s father, a traditionalist, hires a new one and cuts off Kit’s allowance, thinking to force him to join the army. Instead, Kit’s older brother, who had wanted him as steward, finds him a job as a nobleman’s secretary. That job sounds fairly good until Kit finds out what he has to do. And then he receives the letter informing him about his chance to win his great-aunt’s estate. Maybe he can still fulfill his dream of caring for the land.

In A Similar Taste in Books, the hero, Justin, is the third son of a gentleman. The church holds no allure for him, so he studied law at Oxford. Finance appeals to him, so he works in a bank.

In Gifts Gone Astray, hero Stephen, a baron's third son, lost his job as a teacher at Cambridge. He secures another (awful!) job as tutor to an earl's bratty son. But he won't suffer for long!

An Inheritance for the Birds,  Blurb and excerpt here.
Available at The Wild Rose Press, Amazon, Barnes and Noble, All Romance Ebooks and other places where ebooks are sold.

A Similar Taste in Books, Book 1 of Love and the Library (Book 2, A Mutual Interest in Numbers, coming soon!) Blurb and excerpt here. 

Available at Smashwords, Amazon, Barnes and Noble and other places where ebooks are sold.

Gifts Gone Astray, blurb and excerpt here. Available at The Wild Rose Press, Amazon, Barnes and Noble, All Romance Ebooks and other places where ebooks are sold.

Thank you all,

Linda

What Did Regency People Name Their Pet Ducks?

In my Regency comedy romance, An Inheritance for the Birds, the "birds" in the title are mallard ducks.

Why ducks? Well, I like ducks. They're very pretty birds and they're large enough to see easily. I selected mallards because they're the most widespread ducks in the northern hemisphere and would be common in Regency England. Also, I feel sorry for them. We take mallards for granted because they're all over, but they're among the best looking of the ducks. And I like their "quack".

An Inheritance for the Birds is a variation on the theme of the elderly lady willing her possessions to her cats. Duck nut that I am, I substituted ducks. In my twist on the story, the hero and heroine must compete to win an inheritance. Their task: make the deceased lady's pet ducks happy.

There are fourteen ducks in the story.

The drakes are:
Thaddeus, Theodore, Ulrick, Busick, Bamber, Obadiah, Ethelred and Alwyne

The hens are:
Felizarda, Albina, Esmeralda, Horatia, Urania and Dulcibella

Note that there are eight drakes and six hens. Among the brightly colored ducks in the wild, the spectacular-looking drakes are more plentiful than the drab brown hens. Just think, all those avian hotties competing for the erstwhile hens' attention. A female heaven.

I took most of the names from Regency historical romance author Jo Beverley's list of names common in the Georgian and Regency eras (http://www.jobev.com/regname.html). The names may have been common then, but they sound a little odd to our ears.

To introduce the ducks a little more, Ulrick and Urania are mates, Thaddeus and Theodore are brothers, and the heroine beans Felizarda with a piece of bread (accidentally, of course) when she feeds them.

The duck stars are Obadiah, who likes the hero, and Esmeralda, who doesn't. The others add their quacking chorus to the comedy.

I love my ducks. What do you think of the names I selected?

An Inheritance for the Birds, available at The Wild Rose Press, Amazon, Barnes and Noble, All Romance Ebooks and other places where ebooks are sold.

BLURB:

Make the ducks happy and win an estate!

Mr. Christopher "Kit" Winnington can't believe the letter from his late great-aunt's solicitor. In order to inherit her estate, he must win a contest against her companion, Miss Angela Stratton. Whoever makes his great-aunt's pet ducks happy wins.

A contest: What a cork-brained idea. This Miss Stratton is probably a sly spinster who camouflaged her grasping nature from his good-natured relative. There is no way he will let the estate go to a usurper.

Angela never expected her former employer to name her in her will. Most likely, this Mr. Winnington is a trumped-up jackanapes who expects her to give up without a fight. Well, she is made of sterner stuff.

The ducks quack in avian bliss while Kit and Angela dance a duet of desire as they do their utmost to make the ducks--and themselves--happy.

EXCERPT:

Yawning, he shut the door behind him. Enough ducks and prickly ladies for one day. After dropping his satchel by the bed, he dragged off his clothes and draped them over the chair back. He dug a nightshirt from the valise and donned the garment before he blew out both candles.

Bates had already drawn back the bedclothes. The counterpane was soft under Kit's palm, and covered a featherbed. He grinned. By any chance, had they used the down from the pet ducks to stuff the mattress and pillows?

After tying the bed curtains back, he settled into the soft cocoon and laced his fingers behind his head. Tomorrow, he would have it out with Miss Stratton about the steward's residence, but that was tomorrow. He fluffed up his pillow and turned onto his side…

"QUACK!"

A bundle of flapping, squawking feathers exploded from the depths of the covers and attacked him. Throwing his arms over his head for protection, Kit fell out of bed. He scrambled to his feet and bolted for the door, the thrashing, quacking explosion battering him. A serrated knife edge scraped over his upper arm. "Ow!" Batting at the avian attacker with one hand, he groped for the latch with the other.

The door swung open. Miss Stratton, her candle flame flickering, dashed into the chamber. "Esmeralda, you stop that right now!"

The feathered windstorm quacked once more and, in a graceful arc, fluttered to the floor.

Kit lowered his arms and gave a mental groan. A duck. He should have known.
 
Thank you all,
Linda 

Review: THE PASSIONS OF DR. DARCY by Sharon Lathan

 

The Passions of Dr. Darcy, the latest of Sharon Lathan’s Darcy Saga, sweeps us along on a voyage to the exotic India of 200 years ago as seen through the eyes of the flamboyant, arrogant, and compassionate physician, George Darcy, Mr. Darcy’s uncle.

English, but embracing all things Indian, George bridges the gap between the European and Indian ways of life with his skill in medicine, his humanitarianism and his joy for life. For thirty years, he travels to every reach of the subcontinent, healing the sick and injured, while experiencing his own share of joy and tears along the way.

The Passions of Dr. Darcy is not your typical Regency tale, and Ms. Lathan’s George is not your typical Regency hero. While he is gorgeous, rich and a gentleman, he is also a talented, skilled physician who worked hard to achieve his proficiency. And with all his advantages, not everything goes his way, especially in the matters of love. Ms. Lathan’s talent for evoking emotion makes us laugh and cry along with George as he experiences the heady joy of love found, and all too often, the blackest despair of love lost.

The larger-than-life George’s story could only take place against a canvas as spectacular as he is. India, the lush, vibrant land of fairy tales, is the perfect locale. Sumptuous descriptions and a wealth of historic detail set a stage as compelling as the hero.

The Passions of Dr. Darcy is that rarity these days, the large novel. Right from the beginning, the story grabs you and never lets you go. A true joy to read.

Thank you all,

Linda

ARC provided by Sourcebooks