Why Celebrate One Regency Holiday When You Can Celebrate Six?

We’ve talked about a number of Regency holidays over the years such as Christmas and Easter. I’m delighted to report that I have a Regency steampunk story, in the Regent’s Devices universe, out this Thursday. Like the other stories, which are more-traditional Regencies, it centers around a Regency holidays. We cover from May Day to Twelfth Night, featuring some of your favorite tropes—enemies-to-lovers, second-chance romance, forbidden love, friends-to-lovers, and more! The collection includes the following stories:

May Day Mayhem by Ann Chaney—Intrigue, death, and love come to Horsham-Upon-the-Thames as the small English village anticipates their May Day celebration. Home Office agents the Duke of Doncaster and governess Helen Stokes join forces to uncover a missing list of French agents before an enemy discovers it. Mired in May Day preparations while chasing hoodlums and gentry, Helen and Doncaster try to fight their mutual attraction in a romantic farce worthy of Covent Garden.

My Favorite Mistake by Courtney McCaskill—Sixteen years ago, lady’s maid Fanny Price was swept off her feet by a handsome horse trainer named Nick Cradduck. The very next day, he shattered her heart. But now, at the Cooper’s Hill Cheese Rolling and Wake, who should Fanny encounter but the man she crossed all of England to avoid… A second-chance love story featuring Fanny, the scene-stealing lady’s maid from How to Train Your Viscount!

His Damsel by Charlotte Russell—During her annual visit to Bartholomew Fair, Eliza Cranstoun is mistaken for a lady in distress when in fact she was attempting to avenge the honor of her cousin. Now, she insists Anthony Ripley, her savior, help her bring down a lordly scoundrel. Amidst the scheming however, the independent Eliza and the confirmed bachelor Anthony, discover that love finds even those who choose not to seek it.

When I Fall In Love by Cora Lee—The Harvest Festival is a chance for reunions and love, but perhaps not for childhood friends Sylvie Devereaux and Kit Mathison. When Kit returns to renovate the home he inherited, Sylvie’s financial burdens prompt Kit to propose a marriage of convenience. But Sylvie has always wanted to marry for love, and they don't love each other…do they?

Remember by Shannon Donnelly—Over the years, Beatrice Foxton keeps meeting up with Andrew Cliffs on Guy Fawkes Night, but these two friends are separated by her family’s expectations for her to marry a well-born lord and his family’s background in trade. And, yet, they can’t stay away from each other...

The Aeronaut’s Heart by Regina Scott—Josephine Aventure was on her way to earning a place in England’s Aeronautical Corps until the dashing smuggler she’d once loved showed up. Etienne Delaguard risked much to help England win the war against France. Over a Twelfth Night masquerade, can a gentleman of the sea win the heart of a lady of the air?

You can find all the links to your favorite online retailers here.

Time to celebrate!

The Day Seattle Built a Railroad

The Transcontinental Railroad shaped the course of many a state’s history. The towns it passed through experienced building booms, population booms, business booms, at least in the short term. The towns it bypassed in some cases shriveled up and died. It shouldn’t be surprising, then, that Seattle reacted badly when its leaders learned that the Northern Pacific Railway had chosen Tacoma to the south as its terminus on Puget Sound. 

Arthur Denny read the telegram aloud from the city center to an eager crowd expecting good news. When they heard the decision was for Tacoma, cries echoed against the single-story buildings. The newspapers decried such an unfair decision. Seattle had the better harbor. Seattle had the Territorial University. How could the jewel of the Sound have been overlooked? Right then and there, the city fathers vowed they would not suffer silently.

They’d build their own railroad.

The plan was ambitious. They would lay trestle across the bay and out to the coal fields being developed on the other side of Lake Washington. From there, they would push the tracks up into the mountains, crossing what is now Snoqualmie Pass but what was then no more than sparsely traveled trail, to wend across the eastern half of the territory to Walla Walla. Think of it. The timber, salmon, and coal from Seattle heading to the burgeoning agricultural depot of the state, a major supply center for the gold mines in Idaho. Their fortunes were made.

It didn’t matter that they lacked any expertise in laying track or building the structures needed to span bays, rivers, and mountains. Within a week they had elected commissioners for the Seattle and Walla Walla Railroad and filed articles of incorporation. It didn’t matter that they lacked funding. They issued $10 million in stock. You could buy it for $100 a share, or you could pay in-kind—by working, lending tools, or splitting wood for railroad. They had vision, they had purpose. They had the will of the approximately 800 people who called Seattle home.

For nearly a year, the papers kept the story alive. On May 1, 1874, canons boomed and the Seattle band played while every man, woman, and child in Seattle marched out to a spot some 3 miles south of the city to begin felling trees and clearing the way for the track that was to be laid. Everyone, from Mayor Henry Yesler to the most common sawmill worker, helped for free. The men did the heavy work; the women brought food and drink for a massive picnic to keep their spirits and energy up. Together, they managed to clear and grade 1 mile that day, and 12 miles by the end of October, when weather made it more difficult to work.

The Seattle railroad never did make it over the mountain, but it did arrive at the coal mines, bringing tons of the black gold to ships waiting in the harbor. You might say it was a labor not of love but of justification.

And speaking of labor, Marissa and I will be off next week and the week after for Labor Day, but come back September 5 to celebrate a new release in the Frontier Bachelors series, in which the Seattle May Day picnic looms large, Mail-Order Marriage Promise.

May Flowers on May Day

Happy May Day!  Though not a holiday much celebrated in either England or America in the nineteenth century, there were still those hardy souls who clung to the old ways and picked flowers, danced around the May Pole, and handed bouquets to friends and family on May 1.  So, dear friends, here are some flowers I “picked” just for you, courtesy of Hampton Court gardens in England:

And I couldn't resist throwing in this fellow for good measure.

May your May Day be merry!

May Day! May Day!

May 1 was once a day of merriment and rejoicing in England. Families brought armloads of flowers and hawthorn boughs in to decorate the houses, and the prettiest girl in town was crowned Queen of the May. Village lads and lasses danced around a tall pole (the May Pole) in the church yard. There was even a huge May Pole on the Strand in London.

By the nineteenth century, however, that pole was long gone, and most villages had forgotten the customs. May Pole dancing has been reduced to no more than a children’s game at best. But the beginning of May was still a lovely time in England. Flowers burst into bloom. The sun shines more often than not. It wasn’t too surprising for young ladies and gentlemen to use those flowers to communicate.

We’ve touched on the Language of Flowers last year on the blog, but I thought I’d pull out a few more entries in honor of May Day. The basic idea is that each flower, and sometimes its bud or full bloom, represents a different concept, and you could communicate with your loved one through your bouquets. The author of the 1883 Collier’s Cyclopedia of Social and Commercial Information waxes poetic on the subject:

“Flowers have a language all their own. . . How charmingly a young gentleman can speak to a young lady, and with what eloquent silence in this delightful language. How delicately she can respond, the beautiful little flowers telling her tale in perfumed words.”

Perhaps you should see what your garden or your bouquet is saying to you with these spring flowers:

• Cherry blossoms: good education


• Daffodils: regard


• Dogwood: durability


• Bearded iris: flame


• Blue lilacs: humility


• Purple lilacs: first emotions of love


• White lilacs: youthful innocence


• Red tulips: declaration of love


• Yellow tulips: hopeless love


• Variegated tulips: beautiful eyes.

So, does the bouquet on my table of blue lilacs, yellow tulips, and cherry blossoms mean that I have a humble regard for a good education? What else can you make of these?