Cerise DeLand's Blog, page 6

Today's Bon bon: What's the fun of research? Finding what's real NOW from then!

Today I bring you two pictures of two things that make me smile.

Both come from a combo of my research and my travel.

Ready?

Here is a picture of a street in London and a series of shops. I took this picture on a lark in 2017. This picture is of Berry Brothers and Rudd, Wine Merchants. This is on the same street as a hatter, or milliner, Lock and Company, which I wanted to know more about. Why? Because Lock has made hats for men and women for hundreds of years and I just wanted to see the store for myself. On a whim, I took a pix of Berry Brothers.

Then, in 2023, I wanted to create a merchant company headed by a woman and I wanted 'the feel' of a real merchant. Lo and behold, as I searched my photos one day, I spied this one—and took them as my feeling for a merchant family.

Caulaincourt's wife, Adrienne, who was also a friend of Josephine.
Then for many years, my husband and I have vacationed in Paris. Renting the same apartment every year in Montmartre, we reside on Rue Caulaincourt.

One day it occurred to me that the name was so very familiar. Did I know someone named Caulaincourt? Where was it I had heard the name? Or read it?

On the way from the apartment to the Metro one day, I happened to look up at the street sign. "General and Diplomat" said the sign.

And I knew! 

This was General Caulaincourt who was Napoleon Bonaparte's aide de camp, and friend. This was the man whom Bonaparte sent to Karlsruhe in Baden, a German duchy, to secretly take into France the Duc d'Enghien. Ever after, Caulaincourt hated that Napoleon had tricked him into thinking he would do naught to the heir to the Bourbon throne.

But in fact, Napoleon had the young duc hurried to the fortress of Vincennes where he was quickly shot one bright morning in a trench. Caulaincourt never forgot nor forgave his master the terrible blight this was upon his conscience. 

Napoleon also sent Caulaincourt to Moscow to negotiate treaties. This was the man who warned Bonaparte not to invade Russia. This was the man who accompanied Napoleon alone on the emperor's flight from Moscow to Paris in his desperate attempt to get back to Paris before the news of the devastating defeat of the French army in that cold land.

Tombe Caulaincourt, Pere-Lachaise
Here is that noble fellow, Armand Augustin Louis de Caulaincourt. A noble aide who was very badly treated by Napoleon and who died a few years after his emperor, in 1827. He is buried in Pere-Lachaise Cemetery in Paris.

Free and 99 cents to celebrate YOU MADE ME LOVE YOU, Book 3 in MATRIMONY!

Take advantage of this lovely promotion for all 3 books in the Matrimony series! Available today through 11/22!

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Honeymoon cottages and other delights of deep research!

 Writing historical romance requires often more research than you, the reader, can often imagine! More than even I can imagine, too.

One of the biggest challenges, I find, is that I have to really SEE what I'm describing. I have to have a feel for what it is and where it is so that my characters also know where they are. A room, a house, the countryside often give you a feeling, don't they?

I remember what it was like to ride on a Ferris Wheel at the school fair on Fourth of July. I recall the shivers I got as I walked World War One American cemeteries in France. The eerie feeling of the underground fortress of Verdun France. (It was so cold, so miserable that even my husband who loves the cold turned to me after a tour that lasted much too long beneath ceilings dripping with ice cold water and said, "I must leave. Coming with me, are you?"

I was.

And so here is a picture for you of the place I choose that would be Kendryck and Tynley's honeymoon cottage on the coast of Wales. Lovely, isn't it? Cozy. 

I also thought they deserved this for their honeymoon because so much was so wrong with his family and the tow of them had to solve that, didn't they? What they needed was the affirmation of a good future together before they could join hands and resolve all the wrongs that lay before them.

Here is my picture of the eerie Cliffs of Glamorgan in Wales, which is what Tynley sees as she approaches Kendryck's home. And the picture of Rhoos, Wales.

And here is the sunny picture of the land where Kendryck's house stands. Lovely, isn't it? But in a fog and in the cold, I imagine it to be rather forbidding. This is a picture of Caswell Bay.

Finally, the article I read in an old British newspaper that gave me the idea of a lady sadly missing.

Today's bon bon: A nibble of my new cherry, YOU MADE ME LOVE YOU! Pre-order for 99 cents!

Love advertises! In YOU MADE ME LOVE YOU, Cerise DeLand’s newest on pre-order! 
Excerpt YOU MADE ME LOVE YOU, All rights reserved. Copyright 2023. Cerise DeLand.
Kendryck put his two hands to her cheeks. “I told myself I would not take you like a villain.”
“Hmmm,” Tynely said as she considered that with a tip of her head this way and that. Then she pulled at the end of his beautifully tied cravat and said, “You aren’t.”
He took her by the shoulders. “Not against the stables, not in a carriage. We must be in a bed.”
“I do agree.” She sank to lick the skin of his corded neck. “But one must have a few bites of bliss before the main course.” She undid the button of his soft linen shirt and kissed the hollow of his throat. “Otherwise, one’s appetite is not prepared.”
He laughed, he groaned, then he pressed her flush to his chest. “You should have told me you were a tease.”
She rolled her eyes. “Why? Isn’t this more fun?”
He hooted. His grip on her was mighty and seductive. “What should I know, my darling?”
“About…?”
“Making love to you.”
She bent to his mouth and licked his bottom lip. “That I will be as needy as you.”
“Thank God.”
“That I will want all of you as mine.”
“I rejoice at it. And? Anything else?”
“That I am yours completely and you may have me at your will,” she whispered and took one of his fingers and nipped the end, “as long as I may have you at mine.”
BUY LINK:    https://books2read.com/u/4jBX9o

Today's bon bon: A Great House in Elizabethan period becomes my setting for my story in HARVEST MOON Box set!

HARVEST MOON, the newly released box set by award-winning Bluestocking Belles, is set in Cheshire during the harvest!

In my story, my hero Stafford Barlow, 6th Earl Barlow, is just home from the wars. His home as I envisioned it is similar to the famous structure, Little Moreton Hall.

I had so much fun with this building with its Great Hall, seen here in this ground floor plan and marked as room #1. Twenty-two people are invited to dinner the night before the event and later, my heroine (who is rather upset at herself after dinner) goes to walk in this garden.

To her its seems almost like her family's parterre at home in the Loire Valley in France. But in reality it is more an English maze, called a knot garden, with flowers and herbs and chaise longue...for those special rendezvous every loving couple wishes for!

But I also use area #4!

Small, yes. What do you think it is? And how would my hero and heroine use it????

Today's Bon Bon: WHOSE BABY IS HE? Unique, unmatched box set by Bluestocking Belles wins rave 5 STAR reviews!

 

Yes. The Bluestocking Belles have done it again! We have created a box set of historical romances you have never read before...unless you've read our award-winning other box sets!

This year's is UNDER THE HARVEST MOON and it has only a few more days for sale at 99 cents.

You will want this one.  Set in Cheshire in a village after the wars are over, it is 1815 autumn and the soldiers are coming home. And so does a baby whom many think is from this village.

But WHOSE BABY IS HE?

Everyone in the village of Rheabridge wants to learn.

The story:

The new Earl Barlow returns home from Waterloo, intending to live by his own rules. The woman he loved and lost years ago visits for the Harvest festival—and he plans to offer the Widow Wright what they both want.

Being an obedient female has brought Vicky only sorrow. But with the need to visit Ford’s home to identify a mysterious toddler who may be her deceased sister’s son, she questions if a lady who has lived by the rules can throw them all away to seize her last chance for happiness.

AN EXCERPT, All rights reserved. Copyright Cerise DeLand, 2023.

“How many girls from this town ran off to the wars?” asked the vicar’s fiancé, Lady Afton.

That was a very pertinent question. The town was at most one thousand people strong. How many young women would leave their homes and embrace a vagabond life amid the turmoil of war? How many were lovely, wealthy young women with good prospects before them? How many had fallen for a man so different from them that all it took was just one look, one night, one bold assignation beneath the stars and the girl would run off into the unknown? To Spain. To a life of hardship and fright. With a man she adored and would never once complain of the dust or the deprivation until she was with child and feared the birth might come in the midst of battle and she might not survive.

Who did that?

Her own sister.

The sweet girl who chose love and ran off into the wide world embracing the one she adored…and who never came home.

Vicky pushed her glass away. Surveyed those at table.

How many people in this room had changed their lives with one bold decision?

BUY LINK: https://books2read.com/u/bxB6ek

Today's bon bon: Sean Beane portrayed a soldier in the 95th Rifles in Sharpe's Wars. My hero is a friend of his!

Not really. But it's fun to link up the real with the unreal.

My hero, Stafford (Ford) Barlow in HARVEST MOON BOX SET is a Colonel in the 95th Rifles during the Napoleonic Wars and he's home now, after Waterloo, hoping for peace...and love...and marriage.

I envision this midnight-haired, silver-eyes hero as this guy.

And his uniforms, all green to distinguish the 95th sharpshooters from other soldiers, is this!

Dashing eh?

Sharp-shooters of the 95th were in almost every battle of the Peninsular Wars and were at Quatre Bras and Waterloo. The unit survives to this day and they are renowned for their ability to shoot accurately at long distances from their targets!

HARVEST MOON debuts soon and here is the cover and buy link! Enjoy!

The way to a man's heart is through the DRAGONBLADE RECIPE BOOK! Out tomorrow! 99 cents!

A favorite little cookie at our house is shortbread. The recipe came to me from my mother who got it from her Aunt Ann who brought her up.

My Great Aunt Ann Fletcher journeyed from her home in West Riding, England and sailed to the United States with her older sister Mary in 1889. Ann was 5 years old. The two of them joined others in their family who had emigrated to the United States, including my grandmother who had arrived earlier. All of them lived, married and had children in a small town outside Scranton Pennsylvania. 

My grandmother, Ann’s sister, died young, leaving her six daughters and one son with her widowed husband. He died months after she in a coal mine cave-in in 1914.

My Great Ann who had been widowed years before, had three children of her own, but she took in all my grandmother’s children and reared all eight. 

My mother told me this was Aunt Ann’s recipe for shortbread. My mother made it often and it’s one I treasure.

I hope you enjoy it. Easy to make with ingredients you have on hand most of the time, these cookies are delightful little treats.

IF I LOVED YOU, the first book in my MATRIMONY! series, stars a heroine who comes from Bradford. I hope you read the story and enjoy it. 

For more than four decades, I have been published in historical romance and love every minute of the work. Bringing a bit of fact and lore to every story, I believe love blossoms and grows in the intimacy of communication.

Visit my website: https://cerisedeland.com

How much would you reveal if your gowns were damp? Josephine and her pals had an idea!

I work on my new series, the first of which is LORD ASHLEY'S BEAUTIFUL ALIBI, out in March. It is 1802 and we are in the Tuileries in Josephine's court. What do those ladies wear?Short, short hair.Damp muslin. DAMP. NO petticoats.A few things do show! See these to tickle your fancy! La Blouillotte , 1804.A Drawing room scene with a few bright things with certain calling cards Titus, 1802.


Titus, curly, 1803.












Theresa Tallien, by Jean Bernard Duvivier. Brooklyn Museum.Teresa Tallien was a notorious lady who had many husbands and many lovers. A friend of Josephine's who had been in Carmes prison with her, she was known as a leader of Parisian Directory society. She loved her jewels and wore them in her hair, on her fingers and her toes. She is said to have gone to the Paris Opera one evening in a white silk gown so transparent that even sanguine Talleyrand commented on her revelations. You see, she wore no undergarments.

Today's bon bon: Napoleon escaped Elba and the French did not know how to cope! His route was fast!

Napoleon escaped Elba and the French did not know how to cope! His route was fast!

He landed from Elba in Cannes and marched a bit each day north. His objective was Paris to take over the government again. This was not easy. The results, not a foregone conclusion either.

Many assumed the French army would stop him. They didn't. But turned to his cause.

Many thought peasants would rise against him. They didn't. They opened their arms to him.

Many thought his former generals, most of whom were now employed by the new king and the royalists, would stop him. They did not.

Here is his route. I hope you can see it. Do enlarge. It is the first one published of his return.