Cerise DeLand's Blog, page 8
October 10, 2023
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
October 6, 2023
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!
October 3, 2023
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
September 14, 2023
How much would you reveal if your gowns were damp? Josephine and her pals had an idea!
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.
August 17, 2023
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.
August 4, 2023
Paris during the Regency: from the Terror to the Second Restoration (Part I: Early 18th century)
Cerise at Pont Alexandre, 2023Paris of today is a gorgeous combination of creative civic planning, geography and historical eloquence. To visit is to imbibe the freshness of fine architecture mixed with the greenery so vital to a thriving city. To visit also imbues one with the devotion so many had to maintaining the necessities to keep millions of people fed, clothed, moving, working and living well.
It was not always so.
The transformation of Paris from a medieval hub of civilization into a metropolis of beauty and renown occurred over centuries. Sometimes that happened in spurts; others over decades. Sometimes it happened with prudent planning; others by accident.
Major changes in the City began as Paris became the hub of economic activity during the reign of Louis XIV. That monarch who fought wars nearly incessantly also brought to Paris diplomats from other countries, cultural tastes that he dictated and decrees about the looks of buildings.
First, to understand the changes to come, we must look at the geography of Paris before the Revolution. Here is an excellent map of the city as it was in 1739. This map was commissioned by the chief of the municipality of Paris, Michel-Etienne Turgot and drawn by surveyor Louis Bretez.
Drawn with all buildings to scale, it presents the city toward the southeast. It has marvelous detail. Do enlarge this section to see that. You can see different types of housing and commerce. This map does not show all of the arrondissements, or departments of modern day Paris, as it corresponds roughly to the first 11 arrondissements of the City, not the current 18.
For more: See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turgot_map_of_Paris
Here is a small portion of the map which shows the Louvre as it was in 1739. (Kyoto University Library)
Do return as I continue this series addressing all of the following aspects of city growth and dynamics, including:
August 2, 2023
Today's bon bon: You look for a house where your hero lives...and where his heroine will first meet him and you discover that...
You look for a house where your hero lives...and where his heroine will first meet him and you discover that the house you choose from a map of London because you "feel" that it is one you've seen, and you discover the house once belonged to someone famous.Very famous!
Like Caroline Norton! She of the notoriety of having been accused by her husband of a liaison with Lord Melbourne and subsequently losing rights to her children. However, she did protest by writing treatises and books that argued for the rights of women. She lived here at No. 3 Chesterfield Street, Mayfair.
It is a small world! Intriguing, always.
July 31, 2023
Today's bon bon: Amazing what you find when you look for your heroine's family's home in Paris! This!
Among the many ah-ha moments, I love when research brings me something I can smile about...and visit!
Here is a picture of Daisy Molyneaux's family home in the 1st Arrondisment of Paris. The Hotel de Toulouse, owned by her parents in the 1780s, is a building that still stands. As I describe in BECAUSE OF YOU, this home was built by her great grand father who was an illegitimate son of Louis XV.During the REVOLUTION, houses like this were seized by the Committee in Paris as national property. A few years later, Napoleon came to power and took this building and gave it to the Banquet de France.
And there it stands today!
July 29, 2023
Today's bon bon: Come see my heroine's chateau in BECAUSE OF YOU in the Loire Valley! (My pictures)
My heroine's home in France is a gorgeous place. I set it in the Normandy region, near Rouen. I had the pleasure of going there last year and took pictures galore. I've also traveled extensively in the Loire valley where many famous chateaux dot the river. I have combined many of the features from various chateaux to create Marguerite Molyneaux's family home!
Here are a few for you. Do enlarge to enjoy. (They are mine so they are copyrighted material. Please do not share the pictures, only the blog!)
This is really Azay-le-Rideau in the Loire valley
Me, of course, in front of the great kitchen fireplace in Chenonceau in the Loire valley
The collection of copper cookware, Chenonceau, the kitchen
The great dining room, Azay-le-Rideau
The grand parlor, Azay-le-Rideau
Diane's bedroom, Chenonceau
July 24, 2023
Today's Bon Bon: How fast can you run on a horse in 1815 from Rouen south, then over to Honfleur? All to escape mobs and Napoleon!
How fast can you fly on a horse in 1815 from Rouen south, then over to Honfleur? All to escape mobs and Napoleon!
When the little general escaped Elba February 26 1815, so many were shocked that he could. But he did and he went quickly, gaining support from old army veterans and active ones too as well as with the people. Tired of the new King Louis XVIII already, the French were happy to welcome Napoleon back.
Or at least at first they were.
In my newest BECAUSE OF YOU, my heroine and hero learn of Napoleon's march north to Paris six days later than his landing in Cannes. Why? Well, no tv or telephones then, you see! Word had to travel via runners.
And when it did, those like Daisy Molyneaux Ruxton and her English husband, Daniel Ruxton, must run of their lives.
Going only at night to escape detection, and going in disguise, they must travel an unknown road. They do it for three nights to finally arrive in Honfleur and book passage home to England!
And this is their route!
