It’s Always Sunny in Regency England

Well, no, no it isn’t, any more than it’s always sunny anywhere. Even the driest places on Earth occasionally experience a rain shower (except for the Dry Valleys in Antarctica, which haven’t seen rain in millions of years, apparently, but I don’t intend to set a story there 😊). But I recently caught myself slipping into the habit where every day in my books is a perfect sunny day, and my characters take strolls and sit in open carriages wearing nothing more than a muslin dress and a spencer. It seemed appropriate when I was talking about the Dorset seashore in August, but November?

Ahem. No.

Fortunately, there’s an intriguing site now parked under Weather Web. Researched meticulously by Martin Rowley of Dorset, it pulls together reports of weather in England for centuries, including 1800 to 1849. For example, based on recorded observations, we know that 1805 was a dry summer in London but 1807 was a wet one. January 1810 saw 10 days of fog in London. And January 1820, when George III died and Prinny became king (though he wasn’t officially crowned until later), the weather was terribly cold. Tunbridge Wells, in Kent, recorded 10 degrees below zero at one point.

One of the most intriguing events is recorded on December 14, 1810. On that day, at Old Portsmouth in Hampshire, what is believed to be the strongest tornado ever reported in England touched down. It barreled through Old Portsmouth and on to Southsea Common, blowing down chimneys, peeling back roofs, and levelling houses. Meteorologists believe it was a T8 on the TORRO scale, with winds exceeding 213 miles per hour. Miraculously, no deaths were associated with it.  

Now, I may not be able to pinpoint the weather in Dorset in November 1804, but I can be reasonably sure it rained, a lot, and the weather hovered between 40 and 55 degrees Fahrenheit, requiring me to study lots of lovely shawls, pelisses, cloaks, and redingotes in which to wrap my heroine.

Writing historical novels is such a difficult thing. 😊

Smugglers and Spas and Romance, Oh My!

I am delighted to announce the publication of the first book in my new Regency series: Grace-by-the-Sea, where romance and adventure come home. Grace-by-the-Sea is a spa town, like Bath and Lyme Regis, where people come to see and be seen. I had so much fun figuring out the shops and shopkeepers, the local gentry and aristocracy, and all those fascinating visitors. But there’s more to this sleepy little town than many dream…

Polished Jesslyn Chance has one of the most enviable positions in the little Regency coastal village of Grace-by-the-Sea. She is the hostess of the spa, arranging introductions and entertainments and playing matchmaker to the ladies and gentlemen who come to take the waters, promenade through the shops, and dance at the assembly. But when a rogue returns from her past, Jess finds herself suddenly at sea.

Always an adventurer, Larkin Denby left Grace-by-the-Sea to right the wrongful death of his father. Now he’s back on a mission: to identify the mysterious Lord of the Smugglers who allegedly sails from Grace Cove and takes England’s secrets to France. But Grace-by-the-Sea is the perfect little spa town, run by the still oh-so-perfect Jesslyn Chance. When the village’s future is threatened, Jess must work with Lark to solve the mystery and protect the town’s own. In doing so, the matchmaker of Grace-by-the-Sea may just find that the best match for her is the rogue who stole her heart years ago.

The Matchmaker’s Rogue is available at fine online retailers as an e-book and at Amazon as a print book (as of the writing of this blog post, it hadn’t linked with the ebook, but you can find it here). Here are the other links for your convenience:

Smashwords  

Amazon 

Barnes and Noble 

Apple Books 

Kobo 

Grace-by-the-Sea: I hope you’ll want to visit often. 😊

Tall Tales of Smugglers, and Napoleon

I’m researching smuggling along the Dorset coast of England in the early 1800s. (Lovely, lovely research!) My next self-published series will be set in the area in the days leading up to the Battle of Trafalgar. If you’re interested in the subject, I recommend Smuggling in Hampshire and Dorset 1700 to 1850 by Geoffrey Morley. Fascinating stories! I expected to find tales about secret tunnels and midnight raids, but some of the stories are so amazing, I couldn’t wait to share them with you.

Legend has it, Isaac Gulliver, called by some the King of the Smugglers, once covered his face with the white chalk of the Dorset soil and laid in a coffin to hide from the Excise Men. But legend also has it he foiled a plot to assassinate King George III, who praised him and vowed to let him smuggle all he liked. Smuggling increased dramatically in the area of Weymouth whenever the King came to visit.

Another story tells of two Preventers, as the Customs Officers were known, who were caught spying on a smuggling gang. The gang hung them by their feet over the edge of a cliff, then proceeded to unload their cargo in full view. When the smugglers were finished, they hauled up the officers and dumped them bound in a nearby field, where their colleagues would eventually find and release them.

And then there’s the story about a Dorset farmer’s wife, who happened to be French. She vowed she’d seen Napoleon standing on the headland not far from her home in 1803, studying the English defenses. This was at a time when England’s fear of invasion from across the Channel was at its highest. According to the legend, Napoleon looked down the coast, compared what he saw to a map in his hands, rolled up the map, uttered the word, “Impossible,” and was never seen again.

That one’s going in my book. 😊