Book series

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Whisky stills, smugglers, and caves

My March release, Flavour of Our Deeds, is partially set in Northumbria.

I wanted my hero and heroine far away from their natural allies, faced on all sides by enemies and uncertain who to trust. Learning a bit about Northumbria introduced all sorts of new plot elements.

For example, did you know that the Coquetdale area of Northumbria was a whisky distilling area (whisky is the Irish, Scots and, as it happens, English borderlands spelling of what the US call whiskey). Coquetdale, in what as now the Northumberland National Park, was full of illegal stills that exported their product not just south into the rest of Northumbria, west into Cumbria, and further afield in the United Kingdom, but also by ship to the Lowlands. The distillers were supported and protected by the locals.

The smugglers carried whisky and wool overseas and brought back genever (Dutch gin) and luxury goods from the continent. They had havens in fishing villages like Boulmer, on which I have based my own fictional village, close to the shore. I’ve removed a few aristocratic families–in my story, the Earls of Grey and their home, Howick Hall, is not mentioned, and nor is Alnwick, Alnwick Castle, or the Duke of Northumberland whose residence the castle was. The sea caves are real, and were used by the smugglers. The excise men did, indeed, have a base at Berwick Upon Tweed, and another at Newcastle, and were too few in number to make much of a dent in the trade.

I would have loved to set the story closer to the Roman wall, but I needed limestone for a good caving system that could be improved by enthusiastic tunnelers. A vast maze of caves was once discovered under Alnwick Moor, and has now been lost again, but caving experts believe there may be many more tunnels and caves than those shallow hollows known to our modern cavers. I’ve invented some, putting it in limestone country to make it plausible.

I’d also have loved to include the Holy Island of Lindisfarne. Maybe another time.

 

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Week 3 of Lady Beast’s Bridegroom launch giveaway

To celebrate the launch of the first book in my new series, A Twist in a Regency Tale, I’m running a four-week giveaway, with a free book each week plus great weekly prizes and a grand prize at the end.

Week 3 runs from 9 February to 14 February.

Here’s how it works

You can enter the giveaway, and go in the draw, by helping me share the good news about Lady Beast’s Bridegroom.

  1. Just download any or all of the memes and the video on my Lady Beast Bridegroom gallery page
  2. Share them on your social media–Facebook, Tiktok, Instagram, Twitter, Tumbler, Pinterest, anything at all you use. Use the hashtag #LadyBeast
  3. Share this post (the one you’re reading now). Use the hashtag #LadyBeast
  4. Leave a comment on this post–the Rafflecopter entry form says what I’d like you to comment on
  5. Enter the week 3 Lady Beast Rafflecopter,  which will give you space to note what you’ve done
  6. Keep sharing and enter many times every week!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Week 3 prize

Every entry in the rafflecopter will go in the draw. This means you could have multiple chances to win a prize.

The first 10 names drawn will each be sent a set of book-shaped earrings with the cover of Snowy and the Seven Doves (book 3 in the series).

Those 10 names will go back in the draw and one will win a $10 gift card. (USD value)

Grand prize

All entries from every week go into the grand prize draw, and the grand winner will be announced between 24 February and 28th February.

The grand winner receives:

  • the full set of four pairs of earrings, one for each novel being published in 2023
  • a $50 gift card (USD value)
  • a made-to-order story, written to include the winner’s ingredients.

Week 3 giveaway

This week, I’m giving away Chasing the Tale, one on my Lunch Time Reads collections.

Download from my shop–just go through check out and the price is free:  https://shop.judeknightauthor.com/index.php/product/chasing-the-tale/

Or download from BookFunnel: https://dl.bookfunnel.com/yq4bmw3c8v

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First Kiss on WIP Wednesday

The Talons of a Lyon, my first Lyon’s Den book, has just gone back to Dragonblade after I’ve made the changes suggested by Cynthia, the wonderful editor. I thought I’d share a first kiss with you.

His eyes focused on her lips, turned up towards him, and his mouth lowered almost without his volition. “I am going to kiss you, my love,” he warned her.

Seraphina said nothing, but lifted her mouth to meet his.

The first touch of their lips inflamed him, and he struggled to keep from hauling her against him. Her awkwardness helped him to retain his senses. She kissed like a complete novice, closed mouth, uncertain what to do.

He set out to teach her, showing her by example all the ways that two pair of lips could stroke and caress one another. “Open your mouth,” he invited, and swept his tongue inside. Aaah. The taste of her. Now he placed her hands on his chest, releasing his own to embrace her.

Not too fast, Lance. Not too much. Don’t frighten her.

Her tongue tentatively followed his, and his desire surged, almost overwhelming his control. “My love,” he gasped, pulling back to rest his forehead against hers.

The knock on the door gave them a split second’s warning, and then Elaine was in the room, followed by Barker and Mrs. Worthington.

Lance stood and assisted Seraphina to her feet. If her knees were as weak as his, she should probably sit down, but first, “Lady Frogmore has agreed to be my wife,” he announced.

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Week 2 of Lady Beast’s Bridegroom launch giveaway

To celebrate the launch of the first book in my new series, A Twist in a Regency Tale, I’m running a four-week giveaway, with a free book each week plus great weekly prizes and a grand prize at the end.

Week 2 runs from 2 February to 8 February.

Here’s how it works

You can enter the giveaway, and go in the draw, by helping me share the good news about Lady Beast’s Bridegroom.

  1. Just download any or all of the memes and the video on my Lady Beast Bridegroom gallery page
  2. Share them on your social media–Facebook, Tiktok, Instagram, Twitter, Tumbler, Pinterest, anything at all you use. Use the hashtag #LadyBeast
  3. Share this post (the one you’re reading now). Use the hashtag #LadyBeast
  4. Leave a comment on this post–the Rafflecopter entry form says what I’d like you to comment on
  5. Enter the week 2 Lady Beast Rafflecopter,  which will give you space to note what you’ve done
  6. Keep sharing and enter many times every week!

a Rafflecopter giveaway

Week 2 prize

Every entry in the rafflecopter will go in the draw. This means you could have multiple chances to win a prize.

The first 10 names drawn will each be sent a set of book-shaped earrings with the cover of One Perfect Dance (book 2 in the series).

Those 10 names will go back in the draw and one will win a $10 gift card. (USD value)

Grand prize

All entries from every week go into the grand prize draw, and the grand winner will be announced between 24 February and 28th February.

The grand winner receives:

  • the full set of four pairs of earrings, one for each novel being published in 2023
  • a $50 gift card (USD value)
  • a made-to-order story, written to include the winner’s ingredients.

Week 2 giveaway

This week, I’m giving away To Wed a Proper Lady, the first book in The Return of the Mountain King

Download from my shop–just go through check out and the price is free: https://shop.judeknightauthor.com/index.php/product/to-wed-a-proper-lady-the-bluestocking-and-the-barbarian/

Or download from BookFunnel: https://dl.bookfunnel.com/y5ho64hrk7

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Introducing a character on WIP Wednesday

The reader’s first sight of a character is crucial. Here’s Seraphina Frogmore on her first appearance. She is my Frog Princess, turned into an outcast who lives on Pond Street on the edge of the slums. She is the heroine of The Talon’s of a Lyon, my Lyon’s Den connected world story, which is coming out in April.

Seraphina, Baroness Frogmore, hid behind some bushes in St. James’s Park so she could spy on two little girls while they walked—marched, almost—along the gravel path beside the pond, their eyes fixed longingly on a group of less regimented children who were feeding the ducks. She could not see the baby; only the baby carriage in which he was, presumably, asleep.

Helena, the younger of the two, took a step out of line towards the forbidden activity near the pond, and the stick the stern governess was carrying crashed down in front of her erring feet. She scurried back into line.

While the governess was still nodding her smug satisfaction, Hannah, the elder, touched her sister’s hand then whipped it back to her side just in time to miss another swipe with the stick.

Seraphina, trembling in her hiding place with the effort not to leap from the shrubs and wreak vengeance on the monstrous women, was comforted to know her brother-in-law and his minions had not yet broken the girls’ spirits or their love for one another.

Tears in her eyes, she watched them out of sight.

This was the fourth day she had seen them since she’d learned that they walked in St. James’s Park each morning. Each day was the same. A solemn little procession, with two nursemaids in the front, then another pushing the baby carriage, then Seraphina’s two black-clad daughters followed by the governess, with two footmen bringing up the rear.

Did her brother-in-law think that she would abscond with them if they were not well guarded? He was probably right, though the solicitor she had consulted had advised her to resist any such temptation.

“Until you can disprove the calumnies against your name, Lady Frogmore, any attempt to take the children will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law, and you will lose any chance of getting them back.”

Which left the other option. She needed to find a way to change Society’s opinion about her. As her solicitor had advised, “Your uncle has convinced people you are little better than a tavern wench, if you will excuse my bluntness, my lady. He says you are stupid, coarse, illiterate, and ill-mannered; a shopkeeper’s daughter unfit to have the care of your husband’s children. Anyone who meets you will see immediately that the charges are not true. Unfortunately, you have not been much in Society.”

Not, in fact, at all. Her husband Henry, Baron Frogmore, had said there was no need; that she would not enjoy it anyway, that he expected her to stay at home and keep his household. Meanwhile, he went to London for the Season and Leicester for the races and Brighton to wait upon Prinnie, all the while telling the stories his brother had exaggerated to steal her children.

Henry had liked to present himself as the handsome prince who had married the beggar maid. He’d never had much acquaintance with truth, justice, kindness or even a critical look in a mirror.

Her children were gone, and Seraphina needed to return to her lodgings to finish the chores she had been assigned in lieu of rental on her room. She had saved every penny to spend retaining the solicitor, only to find that following his advice was impossible.

 

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Tea with a second-time bride

Susan glowed. Her godmother, the Duchess of Haverford, had never found it to be generally true that a bride responded to marriage with a joy so palpable that it lit up a room. In Eleanor’s experience, marriage crushed the light out of more brides than not.

Susan was one of the rare exceptions, and about time, too. Her first marriage had been disappointing. Captain Cunnngham was not a terrible husband. He was an absent one. In physical fact, most of the time, and emotionally the rest. He had also been serially and frequently unfaithful.

Indeed, Susan had been so disappointed in her first marriage that Eleanor was surprised she had taken the risk of a second. Of course, her second marriage was to a man she had known since she was a child. Eleanor’s friend Henry had told her all about it.

“We all thought Rutledge was courting Susan during her first season, but then he disappeared and a few months later, she accepted young Cunningham. After that, she had nothing good to say about Rutledge. When we heard he had accompanied her north to help her rescue her kidnapped daughter… Well! I certainly didn’t expect them to fall in love and marry!”

Susan had been at least half in love with Rutledge all those years before, of course. Which was the reason she was so upset with him when he abandoned his courtship. And anyone who had seen the poor man yearning after her on the rare occasions they were in the same room knew that he had never ceased to be in love with her.

Eleanor was unsurprised to find that Rutledge’s nasty elder brother had come between the pair when Susan was young, unattached, and naive. He undoubtedly wanted her for himself, the horrid man.

“I need your help, Aunt Eleanor,” Susan said, once she and Eleanor were established with a cup of tea. “I want to reestablish Gil in Society. It is part done, of course, because my friends will accept him for my sake, but so many people still judge him by his brother and his father. He is nothing like them, I can assure you, but those two reprobates brought such dishonour to his name and title that he almost refused to marry me for fear he would never live it down!”

“People need to meet him and see for themselves that he is a good man,” Eleanor observed.

“Precisely.” Susan took a sip of her tea, watching Eleanor over the rim.

“Yes, Susan,” the duchess told her. “I will help you to change the minds of those who tar your husband with his family’s brush.”

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Danger and adventure on WIP Wednesday

In The Flavour of Our Deeds, I decided I was tired of the hero rescuing the heroine. Here’s Kitty, hunting for her husband, who has been kidnapped.

“You two stay here with the prisoner,” she told Dixon and Henry. “Millie and I will scout the area.” She adjusted her quiver so she could reach it quickly, took half a dozen arrows, and set one into her small hunting bow.

“I should do that, my lady,” Dixon protested. “You are a lady! I can be trusted. I promise.”

Kitty thought she probably could trust the man not to betray them, but she wasn’t going to risk it. “Stay here,” she repeated. “My husband trained me and Millie in woodcraft. We will not be in danger, and will return when we know whether there are guards.”

There were. Two men, sitting on a ledge part way up the rock outside of a cave that was awash with each wave. They were passing a bottle between them as they took it in turns to toss a pair of dice. 

With all their focus on their game, they didn’t see Millie and Kitty creep towards them. Not until Kitty stood, her arrow nocked and her bow drawn. “Hands up,” she said.

Both men reached for the guns that lay beside them. Two arrows flew, and both flinched back, dropping the guns into the wave. One gun had an arrow in the stock. The other arrow had glanced off the other gun and struck its holder in the face.

“Millie, collect their guns,” Kitty commanded.

Her maid put her own gun down and crept forward, taking care not to get between Kitty and the two smugglers. 

“You won’t shoot,” one of the smugglers ventured. “You’re a girl.”

“She did shoot, you fool,” hissed the other.

“And hit exactly what I aimed at,” Kitty told them. “The next two arrows will go into your black hearts. That will leave me two spare and another six that I can reach and fire in seconds. Don’t move. Don’t speak. Don’t think. Millie, fetch the others.”

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Tea with Ella and Alex from A Raging Madness

Her new set of carriage horses were everything the Duchess of Haverford could wish. A perfectly matched set of handsome bay geldings, gentle of nature and trained not only as a team of four, but to work in pairs or even alone.

Aldridge had brought them for her for a birthday present, and the breeder and his wife had delivered them in person, bringing them down from their estate in Suffolk by gentle stages. Lord and Lady Renshaw specialised in providing riding and carriage horses, and were gaining a stirling reputation among the ton. Lord Renshaw, or Alex, was an ex cavalry officer whose courage had been rewarded with the title of viscount and a rundown estate, which they were rapidly building into a prosperous going concern.

Aldridge knew them personally, of course. Alex was a Redepenning, a cousin of Stephen, Lord Chirbury, who was Eleanor’s nephew and therefore also Aldridge’s cousin. His wife was a less well known quantity. Ella had followed the drum as a child, had been married to a baronet, and there had been accusations of insanity around the time of her second marriage. All nonsense, as it turned out. A ghastly plot by her cousins in league with a villain whom Alex had killed in self defence.

As she poured tea for them all, Eleanor questioned them about the bloodlines of the horses and their training. “They will also take a saddle, Your Grace,” Ella said. “A gentleman’s saddle or a sidesaddle. We like our  horses to be ready for any eventuality.

So it was true. Ella was as involved in the stud farm as her husband. Indeed, one of their two most successful studs had been her dowry. “Do you drive, Lady Renshaw?” Eleanor asked, on a sudden whim. At Ella’s nod, she suggested, “Let us have two of my fine new fellows harnessed to the tilbury. We will leave your husband and my son to the brandy they would much prefer to have to their tea, and you shall drive me around the grounds and tell me all about your children.”

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Spotlight on The Golden Redepennings: Books 1 to 4

Published on 24 March: The box set of the first four Golden Redepenning novels. It’s only $4.99 until the end of the month. In February, it will revert to $9.99, which is still a great price for four long novels.

Order your copy today: https://books2read.com/GRbox-set

Here’s more about the series: The Golden Redepennings

And here are the covers of the four books included in the set:

And, finally, one of the early reviews.

I had read books 1 and 2 several years ago. It’s especially good to binge read such a series. I had forgotten how obnoxious and cynical Alex was at times in book 1 – Farewell to Kindness. In book 2 – A Raging Madness – he takes on the role of knight errant and is less bitter than in book 1. (Well, of course. He has admired Ella for years.)

In all 4 stories there are secrets to be revealed (including surprises for the reader) and many obstacles to overcome, including the reluctance of the main characters to voice their feelings for the other. I felt transported in time and place by these well-paced and carefully crafted stories.

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Masks and Masked Balls in Regency England


Masked balls and masquerades were a popular part of Georgian culture that continued on throughout the Regency.

People attended wearing a mask, and possibly a costume, and the event often included a time for a general unmasking. First, there were the public balls, such as those at some theatres or at Ranalagh and later Vauxhall Gardens. Those could be attended by anyone with the price of a ticket. All the rules we’ve learned about in reading novels set in the Regency were ignored or turned on their head during the masked part of the evening–and were expected to be. Indeed, only the most careless of guardians would allow a lady under their care to attend.

As for private balls, they could be just as bad, though it depended on the host and the guest list. In the Bluestocking Belles collection Holly and Hopeful Hearts, the high sticklers are shocked that the Duchess of Haverford would include a masked ball at her house party, but she is confident that, with the guest list controlled and her and her committee of ladies on the watch, all propriety will be observed. Even so, a naughty maiden in one story is only saved by the good sense of the rakes who outrage her, and in another story, a lowly-born chef borrows a costume to steal a dance–and a kiss in the garden–with a lady.

In less controlled environments, the behaviour was–and was expected to be–much more lively. Propriety, sobriety, and even chastity were ignored once people put their masks and costumes on. In fact, possibly a private affair, where a person might expect to meet only people from their own class, the guests might be encouraged to be even less careful!

In Lady Beast’s Bridegroom, my heroine Arial wears a half-face mask for a different reason… Because one side of her face is horribly scared. She is delighted in the next novel in the series, One Perfect Dance, when her friend Regina holds a masquerade ball, so that Arial will not stand out from the crowd.