Launching the Captain

Captain Quillan St. Claire, that is. He is the Lord of the Smugglers in 1804 Dorset, England. Okay, so I have a soft spot in my heart for witty, dashing, slightly dangerous heroes, particularly when they're humbled by the love of a strong-willed woman. That’s one of the reasons I’ve been eagerly waiting to write the sixth, and final-for-now, story in my Grace-by-the-Sea series. The Siren’s Captain officially released July 19 and has been getting lovely reviews.

“FIVE STARS! A fantastic conclusion to the series! Long have I waited to read Quill’s story and I am in no way disappointed. It was definitely worth the wait.” – Huntress Reviews

“Regina Scott is a dab hand at a Regency tale, and these stories are super good. Well done!” – Simply Susan Review Blog 

Here’s the story in a nutshell:

French singer and spy Marie-Louise Fortier has spent her life protecting idealistic men like her father, who died trying to wrest France back from Napoleon. So when the British War Office asks her to safeguard a former naval captain in the little spa village of Grace-by-the-Sea from the emperor’s threats, she doesn’t hesitate, even if it means pretending to be engaged to the legendary Captain St. Claire to remain at his side.

Quillan St. Claire has been taking care of himself since he was a foundling. He’s fought Napoleon in battle and now smuggles the tyrant’s secrets from France to aid England’s cause. He’s certainly not willing to trust the pretty soprano with his life, yet her siren’s voice seems to call to him. As danger draws closer, these two must work together to protect the friendly little village that welcomed them, only to discover that protecting each other may mean risking their hearts for a real chance at love.

Those of you who have been following the series may also enjoy the courtship of another resident of Grace-by-the-Sea, Maudie Tully. I couldn’t resist giving our whimsical wise woman a happily ever after.

You can find The Siren’s Captain at fine online retailers in ebook format and print on Amazon:

Smashwords 

Amazon (Affiliate Link) 

Barnes and Noble 

Apple Books 

Kobo 

Set your sails for Grace-by-the-Sea today.

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. 😊

Feet on the Ground, Head in the Clouds by Guest Blogger Charlotte Henry

People often ask me how I do my research—in a library? Google? Or do I travel to the places I write about?

The answer is, as you might imagine, all of the above. Since I’ve just launched my debut novel (a classic Regency titled The Rogue to Ruin, book one in the Rogues of St. Just trilogy), the research curve has been fairly steep. But you know what? I discovered that I’ve been preparing to write these books for twenty years.

When I decided to write my first Regency, I did an inventory of research books on hand. I found I had at least a dozen, from biographies of Jane Austen and Queen Charlotte to books of cant and custom to small books published in tiny towns in Cornwall about local dialect and folk tales. (If you ever need a Cornish name for your house, talk to me. I’ve got the book.)

With the groundwork laid in books and maps, it was time to put my feet on the ground. When I know I’m going to be rooted in a location over several books, it’s worth it to me to go there so that I can describe the scenery, the plants, the sea, and the houses in ways that make them feel immediate and real to the reader. When I wrote Amish women’s fiction, this was particularly important, because those readers want to sink deeply into that world, and they expect true, not fictional, facts and details. And as everyone knows, there is no stickler more serious about period detail than the Regency reader. I knew what I was in for, and a trip to England was worth it to make sure I got the details right.

One of the most beautiful stretches of coast in the world is the Roseland Heritage Coast in Cornwall, where I already knew my fictional parish of St. Just would be located. The first and most important location was my heroine’s home. I found the house (thank you, National Trust): Trelissick, which is famous for its gardens. It transformed itself in my mind into Morvoren Manor, home of  the Penrose family (morvoren is Cornish for mermaid), who obtained their wealth from mining china clay. (See below, and note the pine cones on the chairs to prevent visitors from sitting on the antique furniture.)

Who knew that Cornwall was famous for its china clay, the fine white clay from which porcelain is made? Not-so-coincidentally, the best known of the china clay pits isn’t far from the Manor. I merely gave it a new name and a new owner, and made it so productive that my three sisters will bring forty thousand pounds apiece to their marriages.

My hero in book one, Sir Perran Geoffrey, is a destitute baronet desperate to repair the family pile and give his grandmother and sister a decent place to live. He cannot ply a trade, and he hesitates to marry for money, so what is the third option?

You are quite right. Smuggling.

As it turns out, smuggling was the third most productive industry in Cornwall during the Regency, along with fishing and tin mining. (See a fascinating treatise by Chatterton called King’s Cutters and Smugglers, 1700-1855 for more.) It was so respectable that even the local clergyman might keep his coach house door unlocked in order that the gentlemen of the free trade might leave barrels of French brandy there safely until the coast was clear. A gentleman like Sir Perran might agree that his shore and cove could be used to “sow a crop.” The boat would come over from France with the barrels of brandy, and should it be pursued by the preventive men (brave and persistent souls who eventually became the Coast Guard), the barrels would be roped together in a long line and pushed over the side, to sink to the bottom. The next night, my hero might see fishing boats in his cove, “creeping,” or trawling the bottom with gaff hooks to bring up the “crop.”

Sometimes wonderful details like these are difficult to find anywhere but in the location I’m researching. The only difficulty is to make myself concentrate on facts and notes, when my head is in the clouds turning them into scenes and pages!

Under two other pen names (Shelley Adina and Adina Senft), Charlotte Henry is the author of 24 novels published by Harlequin, Warner, and Hachette, and a dozen more published by Moonshell Books, Inc., her own independent press. As Charlotte, she writes the Rogues of St. Just series of Regency romances. She holds an MFA in Writing Popular Fiction, and is currently at work on a PhD in Creative Writing at Lancaster University in the UK. She won the Romance Writers of America RITA Award® for Best Inspirational Novel in 2005, and was a finalist in 2006. When she’s not writing, you can find Charlotte sewing historical dresses, traveling for research, reading, or enjoying the garden with her flock of rescued chickens. Look for more information about her and the Rogues of St. Just at her website.

Yo Ho, Yo Ho, A Smuggler's Life for Me (Part 2): Guest Blogger Jo Ann Brown

Today we welcome back Jo Ann Brown, author of A Bride for the Baron, who has some interesting tales from the smugglers of the Yorkshire coast.

Smugglers developed unique and intriguing ways to bring their illicit goods ashore and to their customers. In some communities, there were elaborate methods developed to hide the merchandise from excise officers. Robin Hood’s Bay, a tiny village south of Whitby in North Yorkshire, is a prime example of such a town. Set on a cliff in a broad cove, it offered smugglers an excellent view of the sea as well as plenty of hiding places.

           

Many of the smugglers in Robin Hood’s Bay were also in legitimate businesses like fishing. The local fishermen used a deep, oared boat called a coble, which could just as easily carry illegal goods. The smugglers rowed out to a waiting ship and loaded the cargo into their cobles and brought it ashore.

           

Many of the residents of the bay village were eager participants in the smuggling trade. The houses, which were built into the steep sides of the cliff, often had places hollowed out beneath them to stash contraband. This happened in many villages, but the smugglers of Robin Hood’s Bay took it a step further.

           

The village built a tunnel beneath its steepest street. Ostensibly it was intended to channel the stream coming down the cliff so it could reach the sea without eroding the cliff and endangering the structures along it. However, legend has it that the tunnel had a more unlawful purpose. 

Houses were constructed over the top of it, making it invisible from higher on the cliff. The tunnel opened at the foot of the street, and the water from the stream trickled out to meet the sea. However, the tunnel was tall enough for a man to walk without bending, far taller than a conduit would need to be. It is rumored that doorways once opened off from it into cellars of the nearby buildings...including the parish church when an 18th century parson was counted among the smugglers.

Though it sounds like fiction, it may all be the truth. According to the Scarborough Maritime Heritage Centre, the smugglers in Robin Hood’s Bay confronted excise officers on several occasions, usually to the officers’ detriment. One raid was on the home of the owner of a local inn. Brandy and weapons were found, but the excise officers were driven away by a large group of smugglers who came to their comrade’s assistance. On another occasion, the battle was at sea, and the excise officers’ ship was forced to retreat.

           

Today, Robin Hood’s Bay is a sleepy tourist town, but the cobles and the tunnel are still there...to remind visitors of a time when strangers who liked to look around and ask questions would not have been so welcome.

~~~

Jo Ann Brown has been creating characters and stories for as long as she can remember. Her earliest stories starred her friends and sisters. She wrote her first novel in high school, and it happily resides in the very back of her file cabinet. Fast forward through college, serving in the US Army as a quartermaster officer, getting married, and increasing her blessings with three children...and Jo Ann sold her first book (a western historical romance) in 1987. Since it was published in 1988, she has sold over 100 titles and has become a best-selling and award-winning author. Romantic Times calls her "a truly talented author." She writes romance, mystery, and paranormal under a variety of pen names.  

Her books have been translated into nearly a dozen languages and are sold on every continent except Antarctica. A sought-after speaker, she has been teaching creative writing for over 20 years, and she established several popular fiction courses at Brown University.  She has always lived on the east coast, but now resides in Nevada with her husband, who is always her first reader, and a chubby tiger cat.  You can reach Jo Ann at her website: www.joannbrownbooks.com or by email: jo@joannbrownbooks.com. A Bride for the Baron is her March 2014 release.

Yo Ho, Yo Ho, A Smuggler's Life for Me (Part 1): Guest Blogger, Jo Ann Brown

Please join me in welcoming prolific author Jo Ann Brown to Nineteenteen.  I have the highest respect for Jo Ann, from her impressive list of publications (more than 100 books across her pen names!), to her wonderful stories, to her impeccable research.  Her March book, A Bride for the Baron, is the third in her delightful Sanctuary Bay series for Love Inspired Historical, all set along the Yorkshire coast in the early nineteenth century.   And what Jo Ann learned about the coast of England just might surprise you!

Smugglers were a vital part of British commerce in the early nineteenth century...just an illegal part of it. Readers (and authors) love smugglers in a novel. Sometimes as good guys. Sometimes as villains. Perhaps it is the allure of a moonless night with the heroine standing on a craggy cliff, gazing out to sea.

In reality, smuggling was an industry that stretched far inland as illegal wares were transported throughout Britain. Smuggled goods were any that had been brought into the country without tax/duty being paid. The primary concern during the early 19th century was excise tax, because that was by law set aside to pay for England’s wars. There was a customs tax as well that could be placed on items going in and out of the country. Obviously if a shipper avoided paying the taxes, there would be more profit on the shipment. Some commodities were simply illegal to bring into the country during the Napoleonic wars, including many French products that the ton adored like brandy and silk fabrics and ribbons like the ones in this bonnet.

           

The smugglers depended on a vast network. Ships were needed for sailing to the Continent to collect the goods. Even during the wars with Napoleon, English smugglers could be found in every French port. The smugglers also acted as an underground system for spies on both sides of the conflict by transporting information and messages. Transactions were handled with money or barter of English products for merchandise that could not legally be brought into Britain or should have had a duty paid. Once the ship was laden, it headed back to its home port while trying to avoid the excise officers both on land and sea.

           

England’s coast with its many coves and inlets offers many opportunities for smugglers to sneak their goods ashore. Caves were often used, though the smugglers also hid their illegal goods in cellars and in barns or wherever they could be stored unnoticed. 

           

Sometimes a shipment was broken into several parts because a smuggler might bring in over a thousand cases of brandy on a single trip. Tea and fabrics and laces must be kept where they were not get damp. Once ashore, the goods had to be transported to customers without any excise officer discovering they did not have the proper stamps. At that point, cash changed hands, or occasionally the smugglers might use barter to obtain more goods to trade across the Channel.

The system must have been very successful. At one point, it is believed that almost 80% of the tea drunk in Britain had been smuggled into the country.

           

And smugglers were also very resourceful...as will be discussed in the next segment which focuses on one smuggling town along England’s eastern shore.

~~~

Jo Ann Brown has been creating characters and stories for as long as she can remember. Her earliest stories starred her friends and sisters. She wrote her first novel in high school, and it happily resides in the very back of her file cabinet. Fast forward through college, serving in the US Army as a quartermaster officer, getting married, and increasing her blessings with three children...and Jo Ann sold her first book (a western historical romance) in 1987. Since it was published in 1988, she has sold over 100 titles and has become a best-selling and award-winning author. Romantic Times calls her "a truly talented author." She writes romance, mystery, and paranormal under a variety of pen names.  Her books have been translated into nearly a dozen languages and are sold on every continent except Antarctica. A sought-after speaker, she has been teaching creative writing for over 20 years, and she established several popular fiction courses at Brown University.  She has always lived on the east coast, but now resides in Nevada with her husband, who is always her first reader, and a chubby tiger cat.  You can reach Jo Ann at her website:  www.joannbrownbooks.com or by email: jo@joannbrownbooks.com. A Bride for the Baron is her March 2014 release.

There's Graphite in Them Thar Hills

I love research. Oh, have I said that before? You never know what fascinating tidbit you’re going to stumble upon. It doesn’t matter that experts in the subject have known the matter for years. When I find something I never heard about, I feel like I’ve been given a present, just for me.

This week my present was the history of graphite mining: you know, the stuff in the middle of pencils? I was researching the industries of the Lakes District, where my next book will be set, and graphite mining was one of the industries. It turns out that the mineral, which the British called wad, was also used to line the inside of molds for creating cannon and musket balls. The mold had to be relined frequently. As you can imagine, between the various wars and pirate chasing and just everyday hunting, England used a lot of lead balls. Then too, as pencils became more popular, the mineral was used to make them too. Given all this, the prices for wad soared.

Luckily, it was easy to mine. Unlike in other places around the world, where graphite is often in the form of flakes or shales, England’s Lakes District boasts a very pure form of graphite that comes in chunks. Once a vein is located, the miners merely had to walk up and grab the mineral by the handfuls. Some boasted that they could get as much as a thousand pounds (as in money, not weight) in a half hour.

As when anything becomes precious, wad soon required additional security. Miners were watched by security guards and overseers who regularly made them empty their pockets or even strip down to their skins at the end of a shift to make sure they weren’t carrying away the profits. Thieves snuck in at night, and sometimes were bold enough to threaten a mine in broad daylight. A whole army of smugglers worked at ferrying the material overland. One of the most famous was a woman called Black Sal. In 1752, Parliament made a law that stealing or receiving stolen wad was punishable by whipping and a year’s hard labor or being transported for seven years.

Wad was so precious, in fact, that Napoleon asked one of his experts to figure out a way to make it without getting it from England (bit hard to do with a war on). The expert figured out a way to water down wad with clay, a process that spread and so severely undercut the need for pure graphite that the mines in the Lakes District all shut down before 1900.

So that was my present this week. Be sure to come back next week because there will be a bunch of presents. It’s Nineteenteen’s third birthday, and Marissa and I will be celebrating. Please join us!