Victorian Exercise–Tennis Anyone?

The late 19th century brought exercise to the Victorians, both men and women—gymnasiums, bicycling and tennis.
Even in Victorian times, tennis has been around for centuries. It was, however, a “court” game, played indoors and generally confined to wealthy men. In England, 1873, Major Walter Clopton Wingfield, considered by some to be the inventor [...]

Real writers?

I had an interesting discussion last week in my book club. We’d read The Handmaid’s Tale and were wondering about Margaret Atwood’s other works when someone said how writing one book a year was phenomenal. I pointed out that there are some authors who publish 3 a year, sometimes more, and he said, ‘Well, yes [...]

The Joy of Revision!

Okay. I know. A lot of writers hate revisions. And I’ve just gone through a drastic rewrite of my time travel romance, Erin’s Rebel. I practically rewrote the outline, then tossed out about a third of the original story. I had to rewrite new chapters and scenes from scratch to replace all those tossed chapters.
But [...]

Women without souls

In the course of my reading, I was a little surprised to learn that Amelia Bloomer, the originator of the Bloomer costume so many of us are familiar with, didn’t rush to sign the Declaration of Sentiments presented at the first Women’s Rights convention in 1848. Although she agreed with most of the sentiments, [...]

Photography in the Victorian Era
One of the most important inventions of the nineteenth century was the development of photography. At the same time that men began to march off to war and wanted to leave their wives, mothers and sweethearts a memento, one photographic process replaced another and became cheaper, easier to produce, safer, and [...]

The Perils of Research

Having grown up on Victoria Holt, I adore the Victorian era. It seems so mysterious, so Gothic, and no matter how much research I do to shed light on it, the Victorian era still feels that way to me.
And I do a lot of research.
I didn’t originally; I just wrote the story and assumed that [...]

Victorian Interests

I’m interested in a lot of different historical periods, and several of my WIPs aren’t remotely connected to this timeperiod. My undergraduate degree is in American History and is about as generalized as you can get. Why did I choose to write in this era? A lot of reasons. Mostly, however, it’s because of the [...]

Victorian Women Fight Back, Declaration of Sentiments

In my next book, Stalking Star, the heroine is a woman’s right’s activist in 1886. To fully understand the movement and how she feels about it, I’ve been doing some research. I thought it would be horribly dull, since I’ve never had much interest in Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Amelia Bloomer, Susan B. Anthony [...]

Women In the Ranks — Intro

Female Civil War Soldiers

Although I’ve started revisions on my time travel romance, Erin’s Rebel, I’m also revising an outline for a new Civil War romance I’m calling, Katie Rose. Katie is a widowed Irish immigrant who takes up the rifle while disguised as a man in the Confederate ranks.

Through my research for this upcoming book, [...]

Anglo-Zulu War 1879

This war signaled end of Zulu independence, and shouldn’t be confused with the Boer Wars (1880-1881 and 1899-1904). It was a complicated transfer of land and succession to King Mpande of Zululand (1840-1872), Boers, the king’s sons, and the Utrecht district (read the background here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglo-Zulu_War#Background).
The new king Cetshwayo kaMpande (1872-1879) refused British demands [...]