Retro Blast: Happy Thanksgiving!!

I can’t say it any better than I did back in 2011—Regina and I wish our American readers the very happiest of Thanksgivings. I’m still making that cranberry ginger sauce as posted below (which I’ll have to go do as soon as I post this—it does best if it has a day or two in the fridge before serving) as well as another family favorite Thanksgiving side dish—garlic and rosemary marinated mushrooms.

And speaking of recipes, Book View Café’s BVC Eats: Recipes from the Authors of Book View Café is now available in print as well as in e-book form from all the usual suspects, as well as directly from Book View Cafe.

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Although Thanksgiving was not a holiday that would have been celebrated by the 19th century British young ladies of our books, Regina and I certainly celebrate it…and one of the things we’re most thankful for is you, our readers. You’re truly what keeps us blogging every week…so thank you!

Now, just because Thanksgiving isn’t a 19th century British holiday doesn’t mean we can’t celebrate it in our own way…so Regina and I would like to offer you some recipes with a 19th century flavor that might do well at your own Thanksgiving feast.

This first one is from Beeton’s Book of Household Management, first published in England in 1861 by Mrs. Isabella Beeton. Remember that name…you’ll be hearing more about her in the coming weeks. This sounds like a terrific way to use up leftover Thanksgiving mashed potatoes:

Potato Rissoles

Mashed potatoes
Salt and pepper to taste
Minced parsley
Egg (number depends on how much mashed potatoes is available)
Bread crumbs (likewise)

Beat the egg in a shallow dish. Set bread crumbs aside in another shallowdish or plate. Add a seasoning of pepper and salt and a little minced parsley to the mashed potatoes. Roll the potatoes into small balls, dip them into the egg and then cover them in bread crumbs. Fry in hot oil or butter for about 10 minutes. Drain and dish them on a napkin, then serve. Note.-The flavour of these rissoles may be very much increased by adding finely-minced tongue or ham, or even chopped onions, when these are liked.

And here’s a recipe from Queen Victoria’s chief chef, Charles Francatelli:

French Beans with fine herbs

Pick over, trim, and wash string beans, and boil in lightly salted water until tender. Put two pats of butter into a stewpan with a tablespoonful of chopped parsley and also two shallots finely chopped, a little nutmeg, mignionette pepper [a mix of black and white pepper and coriander] and salt, and the juice of a lemon; simmer this over a stove-fire until melted, and then add the beans, tossing the whole together, and serve.

This last recipe isn’t 19th century, but it makes its appearance every year on my Thanksgiving table:

Pickled Ginger Cranberry Sauce (from Cooks Country Magazine, October/November 2008)

Pulse one 16 ounce can cranberry sauce (I prefer whole berry myself—gives a better texture), 2 tablespoons drained pickled ginger, and 1 teaspoon wasabi powder or dry mustard in foor processor until combined. Refrigerate, covered, for 30 minutes. Serve chilled or at room temperature.

Have a pleasant Thanksgiving, full of good food and good company!

Now We're Cookin'!

We certainly are! I’m delighted to announce that Book View Café’s first cookbook, BVC Eats: Recipes from the Authors of Book View Café, which I co-edited with fellow BVC author Shannon Page, is out today.

So why did a bunch of fantasy and science fiction and mystery and romance writers decide to publish a cookbook? Several reason, actually...the main one being that most of us love to cook. After all, cooking is as much a creative endeavor as writing is, and writers tend to have an itch to create more than just stories: we knit, sew, quilt, carve, paint, draw…and cook. Over the years we’ve published dozens of recipes on our blog, and as a way to commemorate our fifteenth year in business, a cookbook seemed like a fun way to celebrate.

The fun part is that this isn’t just a collection of recipes. Each contributor has prefaced their recipes by an origin story, the inspiration for the recipe, or a memorable occasion at which they served it. It’s as enjoyable to read as it is to cook from, whether you wish to make cocktails and hors d’oeuvres, a Sunday brunch, an elegant dinner, a pig roast, or what's being served on Mars at a well-known girls’ school.

BVC Eats is releasing exclusively from Book View Café until November 20, when it will be available from all the usual online bookstores and in print. We hope you’ll check it out, because in this case, good eating is also good eating.

The Best Kind of Summer Storm

 

I'm popping in a day early with a short post (lots going on this week with visiting family) to say this:

 

 

Book View Cafe, the author co-operative publisher of which I am a member, is having its Summer Lightning Sale today! All e-books in our store are half off today, September 4. That means hundreds of books by Patricia Rice, Sherwood Smith, and two dozen other authors (including me) in multiple genres such as romance, fantasy, mystery, and science fiction are available at substantial savings. No codes or coupons needed: put books in your cart, and the sale price will show up automagically.  

 

Planning a fall weekend getaway? Stock up on reading material now. Wanting to explore some new authors? This is a great chance to maybe find a new favorite. Or just pop over and treat yourself to a fun read or two.

 

Happy shopping!

Sneak Peek Time!

 

Ah, spring! The birds are singing, my garden is sprouting…and after a quiet winter, the pile of pages that will be The Audacious Abduction, the ninth installment in The Ladies of Almack’s series, is starting to grow on my desk.

So what is happening with Annabel and the Ladies now? Well... 

Annabel is in Bath, recovering from the terrifying events in Brighton, when an unexpected visitor brings news of Quin, alive and well but practically a prisoner in his own house. The Lady Patronesses launch a daring, successful rescue, but the captive isn’t necessarily freed. Nor is he the only captive that needs rescuing…

I don’t have the release date yet—that’s in the works with Book View Café—but look for it some time this summer. These later books in the series are running a lot longer than the earlier ones—there are more story threads to weave together and characters and their journeys to choreograph—so the time between releases is longer. I hope you’ll think the waits worth it.

And here’s the sneak peek part: read the first chapter now! You can download it from BookFunnel to your e-reader, or just hop over to my website to read itonline.

Enjoy!

Meet Me at the Café!

A few weeks ago Regina pointed out to me that I had never blogged here about my publisher, Book View Café, and that I really ought to. After I stopped calling myself names, I decided I would, because BVC is really kind of a cool thing.

Book View Café is a cooperative publisher, meaning it is run and managed by its members and publishes their books. That means the members (including me) wear a lot of different hats at different times: we’re business managers and bookkeepers and technology managers and marketers and editors and designers and cover artists. Basically, we do all the tasks that any publishers does, but we’re doing them for ourselves.

Book View Café was founded in 2008 by a group of science fiction and fantasy authors—among them Ursula K. LeGuin and Vonda N. McIntyre who wanted to bring out their books that were no longer in print, but also to find a way to publish on their own terms. Fifteen years later, BVC has published hundreds of its members’ books, which it sells from its own online store as well as on Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Kobo, and elsewhere, and makes available to multiple library distributors. Of note is the fact that each author receives 90% of the cover price of their titles sold in the BVC bookstore—unheard of in a publishing world where authors receive a tiny percentage of the profits from their books.

We publish primarily genre fiction—fantasy, romance, science fiction, and mystery—with a smattering of other types of fiction as well as some non-fiction, in particular books on writing. We periodically bring out short story anthologies as well—our last was Murmurs in the Dark, the ghost story anthology I co-edited with Shannon Page—and we’re noodling around with a cookbook idea, mostly for fun…

That’s a key concept at BVC, now that I think of it: fun. We take our business practices and the running of our co-op very seriously…but when we take off the business hats and put on our writing hats, we can write what we want to write, what we enjoy writing, without being constrained by the opinions of a marketing committee somewhere. It means that Sherwood Smith could write a Wuxia fantasy series just because she wanted to, that Shannon Page can co-write mysteries set in her beautiful home island community because she wanted to, and I can write my Regency/fantasy-of-manners/mystery/romance Ladies of Almack’s series because I might have exploded if I hadn’t.

And that’s Book View Café. Thanks for nudging me, Regina.

And speaking of just for fun…remember my post a few weeks back about Ladies of Almack’s Regency meme calendars? Well, I did it: 2023 calendars (featuring all new, never before published memes) and magnets are available at my Etsy store here. Because Regency snark? How could I not? 😀

 

All For In One

December. I am so not ready for December. Are you?

But there’s one thing I am ready for: the second Ladies of Almack’s omnibus! Marquis of Secrets: The Ladies of Almack’s Omnibus No. 2 releases today from Book View Café. It includes the fourth, fifth, and sixth novellas in the series: The Cursed Canvases (who is magically vandalizing the pictures at the Royal Exhibition? When art becomes artillery, the Ladies take notice); Turmoil on the Thames (when the King’s birthday celebration at Eton is crashed by uninvited guests who threaten to eat the students, it’s a good thing that the Ladies of Almack’s are at hand...); and An Event at Epsom (a horse is a horse, of course—or is it? Annabel and the Ladies must attend the races at Epsom to investigate a very unusual steed) together with all the accompanying author’s notes.

Marquis of Secrets will be widely available at the end of the month from all the usual online bookstores…but if you want a copy now, you can purchase it directly from the publisher, Book View Café, in both EPUB and MOBI formats. And (ahem) subscribers to my newsletter will be receiving a coupon at the Book View Café bookstore…so if you want this set of the stories in one tidy package, now is a great time to do so. Happy reading!

 Now if you will excuse me, I must go find out where the second half of November went...

Announcing the First Ladies of Almack’s Omnibus!

I’ve had so much fun releasing the stories in the Ladies of Almack’s series one per month, in something that’s somewhere between a serial and a conventional book series. But I know that some readers prefer to read shorter works bundled together in chunks, which is why Countess of Shadows: The Ladies of Almack’s Omnibus No. 1 releases today.

Countess of Shadows contains the first three stories in the series: The Forgery Furore (Who is forging vouchers to Almack’s…in Annabel’s name?), The Vanishing Volume (When book fandom in Regency London is foiled by magic, the Ladies come to the rescue), and Lyrics and Larceny (Annabel’s cousin is in love, and London’s jewels are being spirited away…might there be a connection?) together with all the accompanying author’s notes and other materials. It’s a great way to meet Annabel and the Ladies and follow their earlier adventures in fighting supernatural crime in Regency London.

Countess of Shadows will be widely available in November from all the usual online bookstores…but if you want a copy now, you can purchase it directly from the publisher, BookView Café, in both EPUB and MOBI formats. And (ahem!) subscribers to my newsletter will be receiving a coupon for it at the Book View Café bookstore…so if you haven’t yet made the Ladies of Almack’s acquaintance (or signed up for my newsletter!), now is a great time to do so.

Happy reading!