Friday, March 28, 2025

Weekend Links


 And a few fun reads to keep you distracted!  (don't we all need that right now??)


The 12 Most Popular Bookstores and Libraries On Earth

The Scintilating Histories of the Mitford Sisters

Flannery O'Connor at 100

Happy Birthday, William Morris!  Born March 24, 1834

And Elizabeth I died on March 24, 1603...

The dazzling tiara collection of Queen Mary

How Mr Darcy became one of Austen's most memorable creations


Women played a pivotal role as scribes of medieval manuscripts

The great American classic we've been misreading for 100 years

Advice from vintage cocktail party etiquette books...

Eleanor de Montfort's lavish medieval wardrobe


Springtime! Hey ding a ding time! And new releases

 I can't believe it's so long since I've visited here!  Winter has seemed long and dreary, full of deadlines and trying to get our new house into rights (my office is still basically a junk room, but it's getting there!)  I have lots of books news!



Flora Flowerdew and the Secret of the Sarcophagus
, Book 3 in my Victorian Mysteries series is out NOW!  It was quiet an adventure getting Flora and her posse corralled and sent off to the Nile to find out who did in Aunt Imogen's old lover, archaeologist Lord Crosbie.  I am a sucker for tales of desert adventure and ancient Egypt, to this was a fun tale to write.  I hope you enjoy their adventures as much as I have!  (and more info to come this week, I'm putting together a "history behind the scenes post)

1889. With the winter season, Flora's séance society is quiet and life looking dull. A late-night visit from the too-handsome Benedict, Duke of Everton, and his aunt Lady Imogen changes all that. Imogen's long-ago lover, the renowned archaeologist Lord Crosbie, is missing, and she fears the worst.

Flora agrees to accompany them to a mummy unwrapping at the British Museum to see if anyone knows about the disappearance. It's the shock of the town when Crosbie himself is found in the ancient sarcophagus—murdered! Adventure awaits when Flora, Benedict, Imogen, the faithful Pomeranian Chou-Chou, and Mary the Cockney maidservant, set off for Egypt—and find a large cast of suspects who all had good reason to send the archaeologist off to his own underworld...

Buy link 



The second book in my Regency "Matchmakers in Bath" series also came out this winter!  Their Convenient Christmas Betrothal  is a fun "will they or won't they?" make their pretend engagement real!  Mary and Charles get their HEA at last.  (and look for the third in the series How to Court Your Wife in October)

A festive romance to fool society… 

But are they fooling themselves too? 

Mary St. Aubin is a stellar matchmaker, but society has decided that, as a spinster, Mary can no longer be trusted with their matches! After watching her parents’ cold marriage, she refuses to wed for anything but love. 

 Then at a Christmas house party she encounters dangerously attractive Scottish laird Charles. He needs Mary’s help saving his ward from a reputation-ruining liaison with a rake. But when Charles’s own rakish past starts to get in the way, is there another match that must happen first…between Mary and Charles?

Buy Link

If you want to venture to the drama of Renaissance Florence, Betrayed by his Kiss is .99 right now.  If Elizabethan England is your things, Murder at the Princess's Palace is 2.99


And, last but not least, the book of my heart, Secretary to the Socialite, a historical novel about icon Millicent Rogers and bohemian mid-century Taos, will be on sale in August!!!  I am soooo excited for this one, it's been a long journey...

In the glittering world of mid-century America, Millicent Rogers is a woman ahead of her time—Standard Oil heiress, fashion icon, patron of the arts, wife, mother, lover to men like Ian Fleming and Clark Gable. Her beauty and intelligence captivate the world. But behind the scenes, she harbors secrets of ill health and loneliness that only one person knows—her secretary Violet Redfield. A quiet but artistic woman who left her Iowa farm family to pursue dreams of being a writer, Violet navigates a delicate balance between devotion to Millicent and her own dreams of independence.

As their lives become intertwined in a tangle of love, betrayal, and ambition, both women must confront the hidden costs of their powerful alliance. From lavish Hollywood parties to the mountains of bohemian Taos, Secretary to the Socialite explores this intricate bond between a woman of privilege and the one who keeps her world from falling apart.


In this captivating, immersive historical novel, two women from very different worlds find themselves at a crossroads where loyalty and personal desires collide, and where their choices could alter the course of their lives forever...

Look for info about my newsletter giveaway in a few days!  You can sign up for it here