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Author Archives: carolyn

About carolyn

Carolyn Jewel was born on a moonless night. That darkness was seared into her soul and she became an award winning and USA Today bestselling author of historical and paranormal romance. She has a very dusty car and a Master’s degree in English that proves useful at the oddest times. An avid fan of fine chocolate, finer heroines, Bollywood films, and heroism in all forms, she has two cats and a dog. Also a son. One of the cats is his.

Today, The Riskies welcome a guest post from historical romance author Georgie Lee. In addition to her fascinating post, she’s offering a giveaway, so make sure you enter!

Before we get started, here’s a little bit about Georgie:

About Georgie Lee

Head Shot of Georgie Lee. She is smiling, has blonde hair and is wearing a spiffy black dress

Georgie Lee

A lifelong history buff, award winning author Georgie Lee hasn’t given up hope that she will one day inherit a title and a manor house. Until then, she fulfills her dreams of lords, ladies and a season in London through her stories. When not writing, she can be found reading non-fiction history or watching any movie with a costume and an accent. Please visit georgie-lee.com to learn more about Georgie and her books.

Where to Find Georgie

Facebook | Twitter | Goodreads | Blog | Website

The British Sea Service Pistol

In my latest novel, A Debt Paid in Marriage, a pistol plays an important role in both the beginning of the story when the heroine sneaks into the hero’s house and threatens him, only to discover him naked in the bath, and in the turning point at the end, which I won’t describe since I don’t want to spoil it. The pistol in question is a Royal Navy issued flintlock pistol known as the British Sea Service pistol. The army had its own version of this pistol which contained only minor variations.

The Board of Ordinance oversaw the manufacture and distribution of these pistols which were issued from the early 1700s until 1815. The pistols were assembled in the Tower armory but the pieces came from various sources. Made of brass, steel and wood, the user loaded it by ramming the ball and black powder down the nine or twelve inch barrel. The length of the barrel depended on the year it was made, with earlier versions being longer and later versions being shorter. It was a solid weapon meant for use in close fighting during boarding. However, the user only got one shot. Afterwards, it was pretty good for whacking the enemy but not much else, unless a seaman could find a place to hunker down and reload, which, in the heat of battle, wasn’t likely.

The fact that the pistols were government issue did not mean that they were accurate or safe. They weren’t. Flintlocks had a bad habit of misfiring and the harsh sea air aboard ship could wreck havoc on their springs and hammers. The phrase “a flash in the pan” came about in reference to misfires. A flash in the pan is when the flint ignites the gunpowder, or charge as it was known, in the pan but does not fire the ball. With the enemy bearing down on you, this would not be a good thing.

Officers usually had their own weapons especially made for them, but many weren’t above using the standard issue Sea Service pistol. In the painting Nelson Boarding the ‘San Josef’ at the Battle of Cape St. Vincent by George Jones held at the National Maritime Museum, Greenwich http://collections.rmg.co.uk/collections/objects/11984.html) you can see Admiral Nelson holding a Sea Service pistol. Thousands of the pistols remained in circulation for decades after they were no longer issued and it wasn’t just the British who used them. The weapon ended up in several countries, including America, as various enemies captured British supply ships during the numerous wars. Even the East India Company preferred the pistols.

The heyday of the Sea Service pistol would come to an end in the mid 18th century when flintlocks were replaced by percussion cap pistols. However, the Sea Service still remained as many were changed into the less hazardous, but no more accurate percussion cap design. The pistol was a workhouse and a staple of life aboard ship. One of these pistols also plays an integral part in the plot of A Debt Paid in Marriage. After learning about the history of this firearm, I hope you will check out A Debt Paid in Marriage, my March 1, 2015 release from Harlequin Historical.

A Debt Paid in Marriage by Georgie Lee

Harlequin Historical March 1, 2015

Cover of A Debt Paid In Marriage by Georgie Lee

A Debt Paid In Honor

Laura Townsend’s plan to reclaim her family’s merchandise backfires when she creeps into moneylender Philip Rathbone’s house and threatens him with a pistol, only to find him reclining naked in his bath!

The last thing she expects is to see this guarded widower on her doorstep a couple of days later armed with a very surprising proposal. A marriage of convenience may be Laura’s chance to reclaim her future, but she won’t settle for anything less than true passion. Can she hope to find it in Philip’s arms?

Where to Get A Debt Paid in Marriage

Amazon | Barnes & Noble | Harlequin

To thank Risky Regencies for allowing me to join them today, and to thank you for stopping by, I am giving away an ebook copy of Rescued from Ruin. This is the book where the hero from A Debt Paid in Marriage first makes his appearance. Just follow the instructions on the Rafflecopter widget below to enter. It is open to international entries. Good luck!

Cover of Restored From Ruin by Georgie Lee

Cover of Restored From Ruin

Enter the Contest!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

I’m busy working on a historical novella for an anthology that will be out this June. I have no idea what my story will be titled yet, but the anthology title is Dancing in The Duke’s Arms. It’s a spin off, if you will, from the Christmas anthology Christmas in The Duke’s Arms. The same authors are participating: Grace Burrowes, Miranda Neville, Shana Galen, and me.

We chose Nottinghamshire as the location for our first anthology, and as we were discussing the follow up, we decided we would set the stories in the in real life location of The Dukeries, so called because there are four ducal estates located here, and they are more or less contiguous.

Wikipedia has a sufficient explanation. But The Dukeries – Sherwood Forest has a more picturesque one. Not one, not two, but FOUR ducal estates. And so, our anthology will have a surfeit of dukes and ducal estates.

Every book has its own ethos that requires research. For me, with my uniquely Carolyn style of writing, it works like this: Huh. Everyone is sitting around having tea and this is kind of boring. I wonder what local specialty they’re eating? The answer to that turned out to be Colwick Cheese. This cheese was long a specialty of Nottinghamshire. There were websites that implied this was a newer cheese not from our period, but Google and Advanced Google Book Search demonstrated that this was incorrect. British regulations around the turn of the 20th century did result in the disappearance of this cheese. But recently, it’s had a revival. Originally, the cheese was made by pouring spoiled milk into cheesecloth and letting it hang outside until all the water dripped out. The cheese formed a kind of bowl. It was often served with cream, fruit, or preserves in the bowl, and, though I can’t confirm the period part of this, sometimes the additions were savory.

And so, I had my interesting addition to tea. You’ll notice, on that website, a link called Red Poll. This is a kind of cow. It is, not surprisingly, red. This breed of cow is a good milk producer and I found a great deal of information praising this local cow. Why, since it turns out my heroine loves estate management, she could have Red Polls! However, it did not take long to discover that this breed was established well after the Regency, and so it was not possible for my story. But, it turns out she could have another red cow, the Red Leicester. Well, OK! I have learned some very interesting things about cows that I did not know before.

From there, I needed to describe the heroine’s house. I knew (don’t ask why, I just knew, OK?) that she lived in a house with lots of trees shading it and that there was a vine on the house. All right then. What kind of vines do they have in Nottinghamshire? Because, what if it’s not just ivy? More searches and before long I had found the Nottingham Flycatcher. This was perfect because it was known for growing on the walls of Nottingham Castle. Nottingham Flycatcher has a fragrant scent and attracts lots of moths and insects to the nectar. Perfect! This, too, could grow on my heroine’s house, and when the windows were open in the summer, rooms would surely smell lovely. I know this is true because right now this minute there is jasmine blooming on our deck and when the windows are open and a breeze comes along, the kitchen smells faintly of jasmine. I was saddened to learn that Nottingham Flycatcher is now extinct in Nottinghamshire. In the 1930’s the Flycatcher was removed from Nottingham Castle during renovations. It doesn’t appear to be entirely extinct, but I also learned that fully 98% of Britain’s wildflower habitat is gone. That is tragic.

As I’ve continued to write, the story no longer opens at the heroine’s house, and now I have to decide whether to move the Nottingham Flycatcher to my duke’s estate. Then it turned out that my heroine, while visiting the duke’s estate, is going to walk along the driveway and count trees. (Really, don’t ask. Maybe that won’t even stick. It’s too early to tell.) So, what kind of trees? I knew that lime trees are a common tree. Many period descriptions of estate reference driveways lined with lime trees. So. What do these lime trees look like? Somehow, I didn’t think they were the kind of lime trees that grow limes, and indeed, they are not. British Lime trees are very tall and beautiful and give loads of shade. There are lots of images of magical lime tree avenues. Like this one at Clumber Park. This is especially awesome because Clumber Park is one of the four estates of the Dukeries. It doesn’t even matter that those lime trees weren’t planted until 1840. My duke planted his way earlier. It’s called fiction for a reason.

And so, here I am madly writing a novella and having the best time ever researching cheese, and cows, and lime trees, and flycatchers. There will be more moments like this as I write because that’s just how I roll.

My novella for the June historical romance anthology Dancing in the Duke’s Arms (with Grace Burrowes, Shana Galen, and Miranda Neville) is done and off to beta reading, editing, and copy-editing. My story is An Unsuitable Duchess. I posted last time about some research results. Most of that research survived in some form or another in the penultimate version. (Cue applause!!)

While I was madly fixing ::KoffKoff::  revising, I needed some additional research on what songs might have been sung in 1819. This turned out to be slightly harder than I wanted it to be, mainly because what seemed like the most likely on-point resource was a 1794 text that was a Google Books listing only. There was no text available.

I’ve seen this happen when someone, sorry, but often an academic press, has an annotated version of the text on sale, as with The Regency Epicure. There is no defensible reason, in my opinion, for the removal of a public domain title from Google Books just because there’s an annotated version available for purchase. To be clear, of course the annotated version is different and shouldn’t be freely available as to the copyrighted annotations. But the original remains in the public domain and should therefore remain available to the public.

But I digress. The 1794 songbook was not available and I did not have time to see if I could get it on Interlibrary loan. The book is listed in WorldCat, so there are libraries that have it.  Nevertheless, I found something that answered the need well enough, and that was The British Melodist or National Song Book, containing English, Scottish, and Irish songs With a Selection of More than Four Hundred Choice Posts and Sentiments. There are several versions, with the earliest available text dated 1822. A similar book from 1813 is not available because some [ expletive ] is selling a paper copy on Amazon. And that someone just grabbed the book from Google and claims to have cleaned up the OCR text. I hate this. It pisses me off. It should not be permitted. It’s selling for $18.00.  S0 eff you, dude. Right. HE got the benefit of a book in the public domain and now the actual public is screwed. You’re darn right I’m mad. We should all be angry!

I’m in danger of digressing again. Sorry.

The British Melodist of 1822 is recent enough for me to be confident that I’m not far off base in having my characters mention the titles of songs, and a few lines from one, in 1819.

Some of the songs and their titles surprised me. Here are a few examples.

Black-eyed Susan

All in the downs the fleet was moor’d,
The streamers waving in the wind,
when black-ey’d Susan came on board:
Oh! where shall I my true-love find?
Tell me ye jovial sailors, tell me true,
if my sweet William sails among the crew!
(first verse only)

Here’s another interesting one:

The Soldier’s Widow; or Return from Waterloo.

Sad was the plaint of the wand’ring stranger,
Hungry and pale was the infant she bore;
Return’d from the land of misfortune & danger,
She hop’d to find peace on her dear native shore.

O neat was her cottage, and great was her treasure,
A treasure to her more than diamonds or pearl
In the smiles of her William consisted her pleasure,
And the fond caresses of her little girl.

Duty commanded, her William attended,
And she could not bear with her soldier to part
She roam’d oe’r the field when the battle was ended,
She kiss’d his pale lip, & she pressed his cold heart.

They bore her away, of all comfort bereft her,
Affliction her dart at her bosom did hurl;
Oh no, little darling, one comfort is left her,
The sweet smiling kiss of her dear little girl.

Below is a song title I used in my story. I include the lyrics since they’re culturally significant. Talk about a message, eh? But there’s fascinating subtext there. The warning and moral wouldn’t be necessary if there weren’t young ladies who felt just that way.

No One Shall Govern Me.

When young and thoughtless, Laura said,
No one shall win my heart;
But little dreamt the simple maid,
Of love’s delusive art.
At ball or play,
She flirt away,
And ever giddy be;
But always said,
I ne’er will wed,
No one shall govern me.
No, no, no, no, no, no,
No one shall govern me.

But time on airy pinions flew,
And Laura’s charms decay’d;
Too soon alas! The damsel grew
A pettish pert old maid.
At ball or play,
No longer gay,
Poor Laura now you’ll see;
Nor does she cry,
For reasons why,
No one shall govern me.
No, no, no &c.

A lesson learned, ye ladies fair,
From Laura’s wretched fate;
Lest you, like her, should in despair
Repent alas! Back too late.

Let me advise –
While young, be wise,
Nor coy and silly be;
I’m certain I
Would never cry,
No one shall govern me.
No, no, no &c.
I’d gladly govern’d be.

Here’s another from the last few pages:

Drown it in the Bowl.

The glossy sparkle on the board,
The wine is ruby bright,
The reign of pleasure is restor’d,
Of ease and fond delight.
The day is gone, the night’s our own,
Then let us feast the soul;
If any care or pain remain,
Why drown it in the bowl.

This world they say’s a world of woe,
That I do deny;
Can sorrow from the goblet flow?
Or pain from beauty’s eye?
The wise are fools, with all their rules,
When they would joys controul:
If life’s a pain, I say again,
Let’s drown it in the bowl.

That time flies fast the poets sing;
Then surely it is wise,
In rosy wine to dip his wings,
And seize him as he flies.
This night is ours; then strew with flowers
The moments as they roll:
If any pain or care remain,
Why drown it in the bowl.

Possibly Interesting End Note

Normally, I would have done a copy and paste of the lyrics text or used an embedded image because, wow. LOTS OF TYPING!!!

But while I was doing my revisions and found myself behind because ::hand waving, a tissue, sobs omgwtf!:: I lost five chapters of revisions and had to completely redo them from paper edits. ::horrible flashbacks::

I became desperate to find a way to go faster where I had long chunks of new text. So, I hooked up my microphone and turned on the Mac dictation feature and dictated those sections. And danged if it didn’t work pretty damned well. And that includes the dictation working in my Windows 7 Parallels virtual machine. I honestly didn’t think Mac dictation would work across the virtual machine, but as long as I clicked in my WordPerfect document, my dictated words appeared.

And so, I dictated these lyrics into this post, and while there were a few hilarious interpretations, the dictation was remarkably accurate, all things considered. It was very quick to go a line at a time for these lyrics and fix the mostly minor issues.

I’m converted now to using dictation for work where I have longer blocks of text to transfer. I always do paper read throughs of my manuscripts so this is a regular occurrence for me. I redid my five chapters of edits in two days — working on my lunch hour (on the laptop) and then at home on the iMac, and let me represent to you that many of those chapters were a sea of ink and paragraphs written on the back of the pages.

A win, over all, I’d say because now there’s less of a barrier to posts like this one.

EDITED TO ADD: Thanks you to all the contestants. I have decided that all the timely commenters are winners. I will be emailing you!

I’ve been blogging about the research I did for my story in the upcoming anthology Dancing in The Duke’s Arms. My research included such topics as songs, cheese, cattle, and plants. From that you might conclude my story is about a singing dairy maid who moonlights as an herbalist. But you would be wrong. (INORITE???!??)

To celebrate I will send five winners a mystery prize(s).  For each prize(s), I will spend at least $15.00 US. If you hang out here, you probably know that I have impeccable taste except when I am odd or just plain weird. There’s just no telling.  To enter, check out the rules below and follow the instructions.

Unsuitable?


My story,  An Unsuitable Duchess, is all done and final, and you can pre-order the anthology now for $3.99. After June 26th, the price will be higher.  Links below! Fun fact: I A/B tested two versions of my title. A Suitable Duchess faced off against An Unsuitable Duchess. Although I kind of liked the suitable title, I suspected unsuitable would win. And it did. In a landslide. It wasn’t even close. So. Unsuitable it is!

Cover of Dancing in The Duke's Arms, an anthology. A couple is dancing outside. He gazes fondly at her, she is perhaps a little shy. They are outside because it is summer and who doesn't want to dance outside with handsome duke?

Dancing Dukes!

The anthology includes four original novellas by Grace Burrowes, Shana Galen, Miranda Neville, and me. Print will be available shortly.

Why Do Dukes Fall in Love?

Every summer the cream of society gathers at the Dukeries, named for the ducal estates concentrated in one small corner of Nottinghamshire. While the entertainments include parties, balls, and a famous boat race, the ducal hosts and their guests find adventure, passion, and happy ever afters.

Pre-Order Dancing In The Duke’s Arms

Amazon | Barnes&Noble | iBooks | Google Play | Kobo

More about the anthology

The anthology comes in at over 125,000 words. You’ll get four romantic, thrilling, and steamy stories for four wonderful authors. The on sale date is June 26th.

May I Have This Duke? by Grace Burrowes

The governess is determined to leave, but the duke’s plans for her dance to a different—and far lovelier—tune!

The trouble with houseparties….

Gerard Hammersley, Duke of Hardcastle, is dragooned by an old friend into attending a house party, though Hardcastle refuses to fall prey to the matchmakers who relish such gatherings. He recruits his nephew’s prim, prickly governess, Miss Ellen MacHugh, to preserve him from being compromised by the conniving debutantes, and offers in exchange to deflect the drunken viscounts who plague Ellen.

Is that they must end.

Ellen agrees to Hardcastle’s scheme for two reasons. First, she’s been attracted to His Grace since the day she laid eyes on him, and knows that behind Hardcastle’s lack of charm lies a ferociously loyal and faithful heart. Second, she’s departing from Hardcastle’s household at the conclusion of the house party, and two weeks safeguarding His Grace’s bachelorhood is as much pleasure—and as much torment—as she can endure before she leaves him.

Read an excerpt from May I Have This Duke?

DUCHESS OF SCANDAL by Miranda Neville

She was too wild, he was too proud…

When the Duke and Duchess of Linton meet after years of estrangement, they may discover they were made for each other after all.

Too Many Scandals

After months of marriage, the Duke of Linton agreed to live apart from his wife. Thrown together due to a scheduling error, Linton finds Althea still has the power to make his heart race. Linton seems different from the critical, indifferent man she married. But though she burns for him as a lover, can she trust him to be the husband she needs?

Read an excerpt from Duchess of Scandal

WAITING FOR A DUKE LIKE YOU by Shana Galen

When Princess Vivienne of Glynaven’s family is massacred, she escapes to England only to be pursued by assassins. The Duke of Wyndover comes to her aid, but is he the man she’s been waiting for?

There’s no such thing as the perfect hero…

Nathan Cauley, tenth Duke of Wyndover, is so handsome ladies swoon—literally swoon. His blond hair and blue eyes certainly draw attention at the Duke of Sedgemere’s house party, but Nathan doesn’t want a fawning young miss for his duchess. He stumbles upon a bedraggled woman sleeping under Sedgemere’s bridge, and his protective instincts stir. When he recognizes her as the princess he fell in love with eight years before, he’s determined to win not only her affections but her heart.

Or is there?

After revolutionaries massacre Princess Vivienne’s family, she and the head of her guard flee to England. Before they can reach London to beg asylum, assassins kill the last of her defenders. Vivienne is alone and on the run when the Duke of Wyndover comes to her rescue. She barely remembers meeting him years before, and isn’t comfortable with gentlemen who are more attractive than she is. Nathan is more than a pretty face, though, and when the assassins return, he might just prove to be the duke Vivienne has been waiting for.

More about Shana’s story. Read an excerpt

AN UNSUITABLE DUCHESS by Carolyn Jewel

The Duke of Stoke Teversault would like to marry, but the woman his heart has settled on would make an unsuitable duchess.

The Duke of Stoke Teversault has well earned his reputation for bloodless calculation. Indeed, recently widowed Georgina Lark has no idea he’s loved her since before her late husband swept her off her feet. Stoke Teversault means to keep it that way. The cold and forbidding duke and the blithe and open Georgina could not be less suited in any capacity. And yet, when Georgina and her sister arrive at his home, his ice-bound heart may melt away.

Georgina Lark has never thought of the Duke of Stoke Teversault as a man capable of inducing passion in anyone. He’s long disapproved of her, but she will be forever grateful to him for his assistance after her husband died. It’s been a year since she’s realized he’s not the man she thought. Can she convince him to open his heart to her?

Read chapter 1

The Rules and How to Enter

Void where prohibited. Must be 18 to enter. No purchase necessary. All prizes will be awarded. If a winner does not contact me within 10 days of notification, an alternate winner will be selected. Relatives or employees of Carolyn Jewel are ineligible. Winner chosen at random using the contest plugin “And The Winner Is.” International OK! Multiple comments disallowed. Contest closes at 11:59:59 PM Eastern on Friday June 12 (That’s this blog’s time zone.) Make sure you leave a valid email in the email box for your comment.

To enter: Leave a comment to this post in which you tell me the best book you’ve read recently. (I’m looking for recommendations!)

Go!

I’m coming down to the line on finishing my novella for the upcoming anthology Christmas in Duke Street. Despite being madly writing, I have great sites I came across recently.

The Bodleian Library Goes Digital

When I was in grad school and researching a Regency era author named Eleanor Sleath, I was also frequently side-tracked into other fascinating areas of research that was quite handy for writing Regency Historical Romance. One of the most tantalizing things I came across was the Ephemera collection at Oxford’s Bodleian Library. At the time, a handful of images had been made available. It happened that their server was misconfigured and I was able to get to a directory listing of the ephemera collection and could see that they had playbills, and I was searching for performances of a certain play. I wanted to look at those playbills so badly …. A trip to the UK was out of the question. Well, the Bodleian has put this collection on line and searchable along with other collections: Digital Bodleian.

Here’s some playbills in the Ephemera collection: Playbills (None are the play I was looking for, alas.)

Here’s a ticket for a ball given by the Lord Mayor: ticket

Then there’s this letter to the Editor:

(Hopefully that lands you at the enlarged image. If not, click on the magnifying glass.)

To the Printer of the DIARY.
SIR,
My attention being roused by the claims of different countries to the Artist who produced the Exhibition of Edinburgh in the Haymarket, I went to see a work, which, from the contention, promises to have so much merit. I expected to have seen a model like that of Rome, or London; for transparent painting, such as I’ve seen before; but was agreeably surprised to see, I will venture to say, the greatest curiosity ever exhibited in painting, without any deception but that of the pencil, laying nature fairly open to my view, in a manner entirely new.
I ever wish to see the arts flourish; I hope this extraordinary effort of ingenuity will meet its reward: to doubt it would be an insult to publick taste.
Yours, &c.

LIBERALITY.

I had to (digitally) go to a library in Australia to find out what this letter was about. Here’s the link. I’m sorry, it’s a pdf and I sure hope the link works.

The letter first refers to an exhibition in the Haymarket of a panorama of Edinburgh by Irish painter Robert Barker. (Thus, the artist referred to is Robert Barker) This was something of a sensation. No one (according to these sources) had ever painted a panorama before, nor lit and placed it as Barker did. The panorama was 7.5 meters long and was exhibited in London in March of 1789. It stayed on view until 1790. Barker then prepared a panorama of London.

Indeed, this source claims that Barker’s friends coined the word “panorama” to describe this ability to walk around a painting as if one were actually at that location in the world. From this, Barker, and after his patent expired, other artists, produced panoramas of other cities and countries. This letter seems to be referring to a subsequent exhibition of other countries. Barker, having succeeded wildly, built an exhibition hall behind his home at 28 Castle Street Leiscester Square. A larger structure was built at another location, also in Leiscester Square by 1793. The Royal family visited and was much impressed. Panoramas were a popular entertainment through the 1850s.

Ships! The HMS Victory

The Independent has a fascinating article about why the HMS Victory sank. It sure wasn’t what I thought. This article is a great overview of the ship and its history, with a dose of climate, bureaucracy, and bad design thrown in.

The tragedy was not caused by dangerous rocks and the failure of the Alderney lighthouse keeper to keep the fire burning as believed at the time. The reasons for the Victory’s loss were almost certainly poor ship design, top-heavy weight, instability caused by heavy guns and possibly rotting timbers. victory1744.org

For more about this ship, there’s a website dedicated to it: victory1744.org. The photos of the wreck in-situ are stunning.

While I was putting together this post, one of my searches led to a site about pens, which I clicked on because pens! I’m addicted to fountain pens. When I was done, I went to the pen site and discovered that this company sells pens made with wood from the hull of the HMS Victory. Here’s the page about that. And here are the HMS Victory pens they sell.