Regency Era visual research for Two Peas in a Pod
A Visual Look at Two Peas in a Pod
In doing the research for Two Peas, there is a lot of history of the times involved. Now with the aid of Pinterest, I can place pictures there as well as what I keep in my writing file. The ones in my writing file though, written in Scrivener, are easily recoverable for me, but for my readers, you’d have to hack over the internet to my computer to see what I see.
We open at the battle of Waterloo in 1815 
. “It was a close run thing”, is the attribution to the Duke of Wellington. However he really wrote to Blucher, his Prussian counterpart, “ It has been a damned nice thing — the nearest run thing you ever saw in your life.”
The famous picture of the Scot’s Greys at Waterloo 
was one of the first things that came to mind when I thought of placing the brothers, but then I decided that one of the things that lent character to Percival would be he as an infantry officers walking ahead of his men, his sword held high. When you delve into the story you see that is something that becomes part of Percival’s own battle.
My two heroes, Percival, a Captain (the older, and thes the Earl) and Peregrine a Major, are Grenadier Guards. (The Earl of Kent, he could be of another regiment of course, but the Guards were for the elite of class)
Their commander during the campaign was Henry Askew, who is someone that Peregrine, as a Major interacts with more and sees as a mentor.
The County Holdings is in Kent, my hero Percival, is the Earl of Kent, Peregrine is his younger brother by 17 minutes. I located their ancestral home in the village of Chartham.
For background, we have the mention of Lackington’s
A good place to stock your library, which the Earl will want to do as circumstances in the story relate
That the Earl is also tantalized by the Dandys and Brummell their leader, 
is a part of the plot structure.
Then we have the disposition of Peregrine to deal with as well. He, as the second son, though only 17 minutes younger than his brother, has no lands or great monies that he has inherited. He must shift for himself and he has done well in the army. Wellington 
and others think he should stay in the army. Possibly have a posting in India, Africa or even Van Diemen’s Land.
named after
Anthony Van Diemen
The Government of Lord Liverpool was in power in Parliament, and was so for many years, so Robert Jenkinson has a part off camera in our story. Who I have detailed before in a blog post.
As does Lord Byron, who the women of course like a great deal, but our heroes are of an age that they were at school with the man.
Then so much takes place with dancing, we have two balls in the story, and others mentioned as well as Alamack’s and Lady Jersey.
You can visit the Pinterest board I designed for this, or better, purchase the book.
Love is something that can not be fostered by deceit even should one’s eyes betray one’s heart.
Two brothers that are so close in appearance that only a handful have ever been able to tell them apart. The Earl of Kent, Percival Francis Michael Coldwell is only older than his brother, Peregrine Maxim Frederick Coldwell by 17 minutes. They may have looked as each other, but that masked how they were truthfully quite opposite to one another.
For Percy, his personality was one that he was quite comfortable with and more than happy to let Perry be of a serious nature. At least until he met Veronica Hamilton, the daughter of Baron Hamilton of Leith. She was only interested in a man who was serious.
Once more, Peregrine is obliged to help his older brother by taking his place, that the Earl may woo the young lady who has captured his heart. That is, until there is one who captures Peregrine’s heart as well.
That’s right, today is the first week that it is available. For Kindle’s today, and then in a week or so, you can have it in your hands physically if you so desire in Trade Paperback form as the other releases from our publisher, Regency Assembly Press does.
This release the publisher is trying out the Kindle Select program so it is exclusive to Amazon for 90 days. What that means for you, a reader, is that should you have
1) a Kindle
2) Are a member of Amazon Prime
then you can borrow the book, free to you, and try before you buy (always, please buy.)
For myself and Regency Assembly Press it is an experiment. RAP (And we hope you all are RAPpers and not RAPscallions) wants to see if this will work. They have also reduced the price of this book to half of what RAP books sell for. $3.99 for an electronic copy.
If you do not have an actual Kindle, Amazon has made it possible to read this book on virtually any electronic device. GO HERE if you want to get a copy for something other than a Kindle, or wait patiently until right before Thanksgiving (November 15th) when it will be released in all other digital formats.
Click on the picture above to fetch the book:
Available in other digital formats on 11/15/2012
