Nicola here, fresh back from a trip to North Devon and the National Carriage Museum at Arlington Court. I’ve always wanted to visit the carriage museum because although I have read a lot about 18th and 19th century carriages, and seen lots of pictures, nothing compares with the experience of seeing a carriage or riding in one. The other reason I wanted to go to Arlington is because of the connection to Ashdown House, as the Craven State Chariot is one of the stars of their collection. So here, for those of you who also have a love of elegant... Continue reading

Nicola here, celebrating the month of May. What does May mean to you? For me it brings back memories of dancing around a stripy maypole when I was at primary school. More prosaically it is also the month when I have to get the car taxed and serviced. There are also two public holidays in the UK during May so that means lovely time spent with family and friends, eating, drinking and making merry. Traditionally there is a lot of that sort of celebrating in May! The month of May probably takes its name from Maia, the Roman goddess of... Continue reading

Nicola here. A couple of weeks ago I received a copy of a hardback foreign edition of one of my books, Lord of Scandal, in Polish. I was thrilled to get this not only because it’s always lovely to see an older book making a comeback but also because of the gorgeous cover. (Ben Hawksmoor, the hero of Lord of Scandal, has fair hair but I’m not going to quibble about that because this boy looks BAD which is exactly right for the story. That's why I have posted a big cover!) Lord of Scandal is a book that’s very... Continue reading

As the wind whistled in from the Arctic this week and I added another layer of thermals I started to wonder what it must have been like trying to keep warm in the days before there was efficient heating. I love gorgeous old stately homes but those high ceilings and large rooms must have been impossible to keep warm in the winter. Like my little country cottage, the old houses were also cursed with ill-fitting windows and doors, and wicked little draughts that spring up from nowhere to chill your ankles. In the days before central heating I imagine people... Continue reading

Nicola here, and today I am talking about Georgian and Regency wallpapers. Wallpaper is a small detail when a writer is describing a setting but it can be a useful way of showing the grandeur - or otherwise - of a house and it's certainly a way of portraying character. When I saw this rather gorgeous 18th century wallpaper with parrots and apples on it I immediately started to imagine the sort of flamboyant heroine who might decorate her bedroom in this style, but of course it could equally belong to a hero who is an explorer! A few weeks... Continue reading

Nicola here! Today I’m dipping into the subject of titles once again. This is a hot topic in the UK at the moment because there is a bill before parliament to change the laws of succession to the throne. You would think in this day and age that a proposal to change the law to allow a first-born princess to take the throne with precedence over a younger brother would not be controversial. Not so. It has stirred up a great deal of debate, not least as to whether the same rules should apply to the aristocracy. Kings are different... Continue reading

Nicola here. According to the newspapers there is a new breed of man about town (whether that town is somewhere in Europe, the USA or Australasia.) He is the dandy, discerning and well informed on fashionable style trends, historical influences and the art of dressing. These men are devoted to matters sartorial and they spend a lot of money on their clothes, several thousand pounds or dollars per month. Selfridges in London has recently opened the world’s largest men’s shoe department. Harvey Nichols, the designer department store, say that their male customers spend 25% more on clothes than their female... Continue reading

Nicola here. Today, 7th January, is St Distaff’s Day and I am writing in praise of aunts. I expect a lot of us may have been back at work a while but in the past the 7th January was traditionally the day on which everyone went back to work after the Twelfth Night holiday. It took the name St Distaff’s Day because it was the day on which we ladies were supposed to be picking up our spinning once again, the tool of the trade for women being the distaff to spin flax. From the trade of spinning comes the... Continue reading

Nicola here, wishing everyone a very Happy New Year from all the Wenches! As well as being a new year it’s also a new month. January, which was known as Wolfmonath in the Anglo Saxon calendar. In the Northern Hemisphere January is a dark month with long nights and winter weather. Yet it is also the month when snowdrops and winter aconites start to push through the earth to signal the start of spring so it is a time of new beginnings. January takes its name from Janus, the Roman God of bridges and doorways. Janus has two faces, looking... Continue reading

Happy Christmas! Nicola here, sending you warmest wishes on Christmas Day on behalf of all the Wenches! The presents have been opened, Christmas dinner is in the oven and I am proudly wearing my new Christmas jumper. This is a genuine Fair Isle jumper, made on Fair Isle itself where they have been producing knitwear to this sort of pattern for hundreds of years. It is said that it was the survivors of a Spanish Armada shipwreck in 1588 who taught the islanders these patterns but some say the styles of Aran, Shetland and Scandinavian style designs have been around... Continue reading

Nicola here. Here in the UK the hit TV series Strictly Come Dancing is down to its final few couples and the competition is really hotting up. The show pairs celebrities with professional dancers who each week compete against each other in front of a panel of judges and the viewing public. The format of the show has been exported to 40 other countries around the world (I think it’s called Dancing with the Stars in the US and Canada) and is hugely popular. It has spawned dance classes across the country and created an upsurge of interest in the... Continue reading

Nicola here. Recently I inherited a whole stack of research books that once belonged to Sheila Walsh, author of many wonderful traditional Regencies. I loved Sheila’s writing and still have a number of her Regencies on my keeper shelf so when I was given the opportunity to rummage through her library and make a bid on any of the books I fancied, I was onto it like a shot. It's always interesting to see the books that have inspired other authors and the ones they have drawn on for their writing, and amongst the treasures I have snapped up is... Continue reading

Nicola here! I have one arm in a sling this week after unexpectedly needing some treatment to my shoulder and as a result I can’t type much. So for my blog today I thought I would post up a little game for everyone called Regency Either/Or. I shamelessly borrowed this idea from Honorary Word Wench Mia Marlowe who has a very fun version of this on her blog. I hope you enjoy it and share your choices and your own suggestions! Duke of Mr? Actually these days I think that should be Prince or Mr. I have noticed title inflation... Continue reading

Nicola here. Last year I was fortunate enough to spend a holiday in the Scottish Borders. It's a stunningly beautiful part of the UK with dramatic scenery and a tumultuous history. I remember thinking that you could not get a better setting for a historical series packed full of passion and adventure. Then I heard about Blythe Gifford's new trilogy, set in the Borders during the Tudor era and I could not wait to get her to visit the Wenches and tell us all about it! Now it's over to Blythe: First, thanks for having me back. Many books by... Continue reading

Nicola here, reflecting on the qualities associated with the “stiff upper lip” and whether they are the type of characteristics we like to read about in our heroes - and heroines. No Self-Control A new series on TV in the UK is tracing the “emotional history” of Britain and it is interesting to discover that the nation has not always been associated with reserve, resilience, restraint and emotional coolness. In the Middle Ages visitors including the Dutch scholar Erasmus commented on the fact that the English were always kissing each other, weeping, arguing and generally allowing their passions to get... Continue reading

Nicola here, and today I’m talking about the background and inspiration to my story in the Word Wench anthology Mischief and Mistletoe. It’s been fascinating to see the posts by the other Wenches on what makes their heroines wicked. My heroine, Lydia Cole, is the landlady of the Silent Wench Inn in a dark and dangerous corner of Wales. It’s the first time I’ve set a story in Wales and I wonder why I’ve waited so long because the setting really appeals to me. It feels wild and lawless, the perfect place for a handsome and rakish hero to be... Continue reading

Nicola here. The third series of Downton Abbey starts in the UK this week and so today I thought I would look at the role of the lady’s maid. The lady’s maid has frequently had a bad press. Dramatists of the 18th century portrayed her as a vain, twittering creature. Lower servants tended to dislike the lady’s maid, partly for her affectations to gentility and partly for the fact that she had the ear of the mistress of the house. Certainly in Downton Abbey Lady Grantham's maid O'Brien is a complicated and interesting creation who reflects many of these elements... Continue reading

Nicola here! Tomorrow sees the official publication of Forbidden, the last in my Scandalous Women of the Ton series (although the book has been sighted online and in various retailers already!) It’s been huge fun to write this series and I can’t quite believe that it’s over. I started with the idea – inspired by my research – that during the Regency period there were many women doing extraordinary and exciting things such as travelling and working for a living which would also have been considered scandalous at the time. I also threw in some more “conventional” scandals – a... Continue reading

Nicola here, with our Ask A Wench for August. A while ago Kathleen Hendeson asked: “I read somewhere that Jane Austen had told her family where all her major characters ended up after she had written the ending of her books… I wonder when you’re done with a book or series of books are you done with those characters or do you too know how their lives played out?” Kat wins a copy of one of my books for her question, which has provoked some very interesting replies from the Wenches. Jane Austen may well have known what happened toall... Continue reading

Nicola here. “Margery slipped from the vast bed – it had almost engulfed her and the mattress was so soft…” Last night as I was lying in my bed with soft feather pillows but a very hard mattress, I thought about beds in general and beds in historical romances in particular. I almost always model the beds in my stories on ones I’ve seen in stately homes so they are usually grand testers or fourposters with embroidered hangings. I tend to make them huge as well, which isn’t strictly accurate since the beds I’ve seen in the majority of grand... Continue reading

Nicola here, fresh from a fabulous research trip to Edinburgh! I'm writing a new trilogy set in Scotland. Book 1, The Lady and the Laird, is set in the Highlands and Islands, book 2 in Edinburgh and book 3 in the Scottish Borders, so of course I have to go and visit. A lot. Visiting Scotland is no hardship for me. It’s one of my favourite places in the world. But I had not been to Edinburgh before and I knew I had only a few days to pack in all the things I wanted to see, so before I... Continue reading

Nicola here. Today I’m thinking about food. (Again! I think I blogged on a similar topic last time. Hmm… I do graze when I am writing so maybe that’s why food is in my mind.) Today, though, my subject is luncheon. Where I come from in the North of England it was customary to have “dinner” in the middle of the day – at lunchtime in fact – and have “tea” in the evening. We didn’t have “lunch”. In this respect we were carrying on a tradition that went back hundreds of years. Back in the Middle Ages one ate... Continue reading

Nicola here. It's been a wonderful week for pageantry in the UK with the Diamond Jubilee celebrations of Queen Elizabeth II. We've had the biggest flotilla of ships on the River Thames since 1662 and a stunning chain of celebratory beacons lighting up the night sky across the country and the world. Here in my country village there have been fetes, afternoon tea parties and barbecues. All the emphasis on food - apart from making my clothes feel quite a bit tighter this week - made me think about trying out a few historical recipes and I thought I would... Continue reading

Nicola here. Today I am talking about the appeal of islands. I’ve just returned from a research trip to Scotland for the book I’m currently writing. It’s called The Lady and the Laird and it’s the first in a new Regency Scottish-set trilogy I have coming out next year. I’ve got to say I’m enjoying the research very much! I’m lucky – I go to Scotland as often as I can, usually once a year, but this trip was even more wonderful than usual. This time I was visiting The Northern Isles, and staying on Fair Isle, the most remote... Continue reading

Hello, Nicola here. One of the questions I’m often asked when I am showing visitors around Ashdown House is what did visitors to country houses do all day? Life in London or Bath was exciting, with plays, concerts, opera, shopping and many more entertainments. In contrast the country lifestyle was sometimes mocked as slow and boring, especially on a rainy day. “Morning walks, prayers three times a day and bohea tea” was how the poet Alexander Pope described it. It was a leisured lifestyle, of course, because the owners and visitors didn’t have to work for a living, unlike the... Continue reading