Loretta Chase's Blog, page 15
April 13, 2018
Friday 27 April Book Signing Event in Burlington, MA
It's almost time: Near the end of the month, I'll be in Burlington, MA, at the New England Chapter of Romance Writers Annual Conference and Book Fair.
On Friday from 6-8 PM, fifty-six other authors and I will be signing our books at the TGIF Book Sale and Signing.
It's free and open to the public. You get free raffle tickets. Plus, there's a cash bar. It'll be fun, I promise you.
I hope you'll join us!
April 12, 2018
Fifes and Drums of Colonial Williamsburg
This is the "Red Carriage." (Yes, I know. It's a CW thing.) This is an open carriage, with facing seats. It's something like the landau that Ripley and Olivia travel in (in A Duke in Shining Armor) when she takes him back to Camberley Place after he tries to run away to London. But the landau has folding hoods, while this is completely open.
Whenever I'm in Virginia, I try to spend some time in Colonial Williamsburg. This year, our schedule allowed me to have two full days of exploring the s...
March 20, 2018
Difficult Dukes #2 and Other Things
from Egan, Pierce & Cruikshank, Isaac Robert, The Finish to the Adventures of Tom, Jerry, and Logic
Sometimes the writing gods gaze down benignly upon me and send encouraging rays of sunlight and gentle breezes to waft me on my way from the beginning to The End of the story.
Sometimes I have all I can do to launch my boat. Then, having launched, it promptly sinks. Or I fall overboard. Repeatedly.
“There is always a point in the writing of a piece when I sit in a room literally papered with fa...
February 11, 2018
What's Blonde Lace?
The following is an expanded version of a blog post that appeared at Two Nerdy History Girls.
1833 Bridal Ensemble that appeared in several ladies' magazines. This is what Olympia wore.
There was a time when blonde lace was ubiquitous, as we learn if we look at ladies’ attire for court events. Certain magazines listed not only the attendees but also what they wore. For example, if you type “blonde” into the search box for this 1831 Royal Lady’s Magazine, you will notice that nearly every sin...
February 6, 2018
Putney's White Lion Inn isn't quite the same
White Lion Inn. Photo copyright 2018 Walter M. Henritze
Most of the locations in A Duke in Shining Armor are real—or as real as I can make them. Some once existed but no longer do, some have changed beyond recognition, and some are there, looking more or less the same. None are entirely the same, of course. For one thing, the extant buildings have indoor plumbing. And electricity.
The White Lion Inn, where several important early scenes occur, did and does exist, although my characters wouldn...
January 27, 2018
Hackney Cabs & Hackney Coaches
In A Duke in Shining Armor, a character’s close encounter (offstage) with a hackney cab triggers events. At other times, the characters travel, for reasons of anonymity, in hackney coaches. Though some authors use the terms interchangeably, these are two different vehicles.
HACKNEY CABRIOLET
The photograph of a model at the London Transport Museum offers a 3D view of the two-wheeled, one horse single-passenger cab. It was also known as a coffin cab, for two reasons: (1) the vehicle looked like...
January 5, 2018
What is a post chaise?
Detail from Pollard, The Mail Changing Horses at “The Falcon” at Walthamstowe, image from The Autobiography of a Stage Coachman, courtesy Archive.org
In A Duke in Shining Armor, my characters travel, at one point, in a post chaise.
At the Jane Austen Society of North America, you can read Ed Ratcliffe’s carefully researched and detailed paper on transport in the early 1800s. If you scroll down about a third of the way you’ll come to the post chaise part. On her website, Candice Hern covers th...
January 4, 2018
The 2017 Book Tour in Review
Signing books at the Savoy Bookshop & Cafe in Westerly, RI
It’s a new year already, and I’m working on a new book, the second in the Difficult Dukes series.
In recent weeks/months I was also busy making virtual and real appearances in connection with the first Difficult Dukes book, A Duke in Shining Armor.
The virtual appearances include blog posts and interviews, some of which cover not just the book but topics that may be of interest to romance readers.
A conversation with author Caroline L...
December 31, 2017
Happy New Year!
Let's hope it's a good one.
Dear Reader, I wish you laughter, good health, prosperity, and many, many, many great reading experiences, with abundant happily-ever-afters.
Happy, Happy 2018!
Image: ca 1909 postcard, courtesy Missouri History Museum.
December 24, 2017
Happy Christmas, Happy Holidays to Everybody
Thank you for giving me the gift, every day, of your attention—to my books and to my blog posts. You inspire and encourage me every day.
May your holiday season be filled with joy and laughter and many wondrous things.
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