Invasion of the Body Snatchers

It’s October, and that means Halloween and things that go bump in the night—or, sometimes, bang in the night. Did you know that until 1827, it was legal in England to booby trap a gravesite with a set gun, a cocked and loaded firearm attached to a trip wire? If anyone drew too close to the booby-trapped grave, he’d be shot. Just why a nineteenth-century Englishman would want to booby trap a grave is a matter for history.

In the early nineteenth century, medical schools had two sources for the cadavers they needed in order to train new doctors: those rare altruistic individuals who left their bodies to science, and executed criminals. In the case of those who volunteered their bodies, any objection from a surviving relative could block the donation. In 1752, the British Parliament passed “An act for better preventing the horrid crime of murder.” It decreed that the bodies of executed killers should be delivered to surgeons, and “dissected and anatomized...but that in no case whatsoever the body of any murderer shall be suffered to be buried; unless after such body shall have been dissected and anatomized as aforesaid.” At the same time as medical education began to advance, however, the rate of executions declined, until by the early 1800s the need for bodies far exceeded the available supply of anatomical specimens. Thanks to this ever-increasing shortfall, medical schools paid top dollar for donor cadavers—eight to ten guineas a corpse—and tended not to ask questions.

"The Anatomist Taken by the Watch...Carrying off Miss W--- in a Hamper" shows Dr. William Hunter and an accomplice caught in the act of bodysnatching, 1773.

As a result, a flourishing trade developed in human bodies. Armed with lanterns, shovels, and a ghoulish degree of daring, body snatchers slipped into graveyards by night to dig up the freshly buried. Although stealing the clothing or jewelry from a body amounted to a felony, stealing the body itself was a mere misdemeanor.

Body snatchers, also known as “resurrection men,” were especially active in London and Edinburgh, the two principal centers of British medical education. To fight back, area graveyards built watch-houses and hired armed security guards called beadles. Some of the bereaved even encased their loved ones’ graves in iron bars called mortsafes, or employed the kind of booby-traps mentioned above. Bodysnatchers responded by bribing the beadles and tunneling into fresh graves from a careful distance.

Dr. Robert Knox dissecting a cadaver. The caption "Nox, somni genetrix" means “Night, the mother of sleep,” playing on Knox’s name and his role in the Burke & Hare murders.

In Edinburgh, two particularly unscrupulous bodysnatchers, William Burke and William Hare, realized that it was easier to create dead bodies than to smuggle them out of graveyards. Between November 1827 and Halloween of 1828, they sold seventeen bodies to anatomist Dr. Robert Knox. Most of the bodies were victims Burke had smothered to death. The pair were finally caught when tenants at Hare’s lodging-house discovered a freshly-murdered body temporarily stored under a bed. The case became a media sensation, even spawning a popular jump-rope rhyme: "Burke's the butcher, Hare's the thief, Knox, the boy that buys the beef." Hare received immunity in return for testifying against Burke, who was hanged on January 28, 1829, whereupon he himself was dissected at the Edinburgh Medical College.

Burke and Hare’s murders were so well known that they inspired copycats. One group called the London Burkers began as ordinary bodysnatchers, later admitting to having stolen between five hundred and a thousand bodies before they decided to take the lazy way out and augment the supply of dead bodies. The group committed at least four murders before the ringleaders, John Bishop and Thomas Williams, were caught and tried. They were hanged at Newgate on December 5, 1831, then their bodies were sent to medical colleges for dissection. In another case, a woman named Elizabeth Ross murdered a Whitechapel woman called Catherine Ross in order to sell her body to surgeons; Ross was subsequently hanged.

Alarmed by this emerging trend, the public sent up such an outcry that Parliament was compelled to pass the Anatomy Act of 1832. The act made it lawful for licensed anatomists to collect and dissect any body that went unclaimed, including those who died in prison or the workhouse. No longer did medical schools have to depend on executions—and bodysnatchers—to obtain anatomy specimens.

And what does any of this have to do with romance? Well, nothing much. But I personally believe that there’s no better excuse for cuddling up on a cold autumn night than sharing a scary story.

Alyssa Everett's debut regency romance, Ruined by Rumor, is currently available from Carina Press, and her second regency will be out in March of 2013. She hopes you'll visit her website and follow her on Twitter and Facebook, where she promises not to spam you relentlessly.

Beignets: New Orleans Treat

A few weeks ago I went to New Orleans and spent a few days in the French Quarters.  Besides history, food was the next best thing in the Quarters. I fell in love with beignets.

Beignets were brought to New Orleans by the French colonists where they became part of the local cuisine. These tasty treats are French donuts and not to be confused with American donuts. I love donuts but beignets are different. They have a different taste, they are crispy and coated in confectioners sugar.  I loved them. Of course, they didn't do my thighs any favors!

I brought home a box of beignet mix from Cafe Du Monde. The Cafe Du Monde is located in the French market and all they sell is beignets and coffee 24 hours a day year round. Also, I have found that you can buy the mix at Kroger and the instructions are simple enough.

I have yet to give making my own beignets a try but I'm hoping to do so this weekend. Of course, many times my cooking adventures turn into disasters so I'm prepared for flat and chewy instead of light and fluffy! Have you ever tried making beignets?

To Stick to the Facts or to Not Stick to the Facts?

Writing historical fiction can sometimes be a tightrope walk between presenting the past as it actually was, and presenting the past as people have come to believe it was. Movies are largely to blame for most people’s perceptions of the past. Set a story in any time period from the old west to ancient Egypt and readers will expect certain tropes thanks to TV and film. Who can imagine the 1950s without poodle skirts and a bunch of James Dean lookalikes, or hear the word pirates and not think about handsome swashbucklers like Johnny Depp or Errol Flynn? In reality, most pirates were dirty, desperate men and, as my mother who attended high school in the 1950s will attest to, girls did not walk around in poodle skirts.

Choosing between accuracy and entertainment wasn’t created by the invention of the motion picture camera. Shakespeare had this problem when he was writing his plays. He knew his audience, the Tudors, and he wasn’t against twisting history to make their ancestors look good. His desire to entertain often overcame whatever desire he may have had for historical accuracy. Poor Richard III’s reputation suffered for it, and will probably never recover, no matter what archeologists find under that parking lot in Leicester (read more about that here).

Sometimes these tropes can work in a writer’s favor by allowing us to establish a setting with just a few words. For example, if I say Colosseum, you instantly imagine a massive arena in ancient Rome. If I say Vikings you automatically think of warriors wearing horned helmets when in reality, there is very little evidence that they actually wore them. And there’s the rub. As historical fiction writers, when do we write to be accurate and when do we write to fulfill reader expectations?

I faced this challenge in an early draft of my ancient Rome novella, Mask of the Gladiator after my sister reminded me that the capital “C” Colosseum wasn’t built until 30 years after my story took place.  This proved a bit of a conundrum. After all, I knew readers would expect to read about gladiators fighting to the death in an impressive arena and such a venue also added to the drama of my opening.  So, after doing some research to back up my decision, I did a quick find and replace and set the opening in an unnamed lowercase “c” colosseum. It was historically accurate since there were large arenas in use by gladiators during Caligula’s reign. Also, by using the word colosseum, I instantly created a picture in reader’s minds, even if it may not be the exact, historically accurate one.

When to be accurate and when to write to readers’ expectations is a hard call, but in the end, I think the decision comes down to the story. As writers, when do you make the call? As readers, how accurate do you want your history, or do you actually expect certain tropes?

A Sacred Site

I entered a contest after I wrote Knight of Runes not with hopes of winning, which would have been awesome, but rather for feedback. More than anything, I wanted feedback.

I did very well in the contest actually. Well, according to two of the three judges anyway. The swing in the third set of scores was, well that is a blog for another day. Suffice it to say, I placed well but didn't win. But I did get the feedback. Awesome!

My story is a time travel. Our heroine says the right words, carries the correct talisman, and is standing in the right spot, a constellation of events that transports her back in time 400 years. I set the magic place at Stonehenge.  I know it's been used before by some great authors and  I did take some ‘poetic’ license. The great stones now stand protected behind a fence. Visitors can't walk up and around them.  One judge noted that she lived near some great stones that were older than Stonehenge and didn't gave any barriers. The stones stand proudly amidst the village of Avebury, Wiltshire County in southern England.

 Avebury is impressive. While erosion and vandalism, to say nothing of religious persecution, has reduced the henge, it is breathtaking. Like other henges, construction at Avebury started with deforesting the area somewhere about 3700 B.C. Archaeologists estimate the actually setting of the stones began about 3000 B.C. when the central Cove, the early part of the Sanctuary, was built. Construction moved outward and lasted for several centuries. The circle covers almost 29 acres with a circumference of almost 1 mile. Concentric circles of stones defined the borders of the circle. These circles are much larger than the more famous Stonehenge. As a matter of fact, Stonehenge would fit into the outer stone circle at Avebury around 130 times.

 A large portion of village resides inside the Avebury circle.

The Cove is the area of the henge where Rebeka, my heroine, is drawn into the time portal.  Like the rest of the henge, it’s been a long held belief that the stones represent male and female characteristics. A male scientist must have done this designation as male stones are long and thin while the female is short and square. The two surviving primary stones at the Cove are perfect examples.  I thought the Cove the perfect place for Rebeka’s adventure to begin.

Your Peninsular War veteran hero: common errors and how to avoid them

Every once in awhile, when I'm judging the historical category of an unpublished romance contest or even reading a published book, I'll encounter something like this in a story set in 1812 or so:

"Sebastian Grey has just come home to claim his title as Earl of Wolfcliff. I wonder what he's like now. He's been with the Duke of Wellington on the Peninsula since 1805."

This inevitably sets me to sputtering because there are two glaring errors that tell me the author didn't do the research, even to the most basic degree--i.e. checking Wikipedia.

Sir Arthur Wellesley in 1804

First of all, there was no such person as the Duke of Wellington in 1805--nor, indeed, in 1812, though by that point I'll admit I'm splitting hairs with that statement. Of course the man known to history as the Duke of Wellington was around then, that just wasn't his name yet. Arthur Wellesley was born the third son of an earl, so he didn't inherit his titles--they were granted to him as a reward for his service and accomplishments. In 1805, he was still a young major-general whose talents were just beginning to become apparent, and he'd recently been made a Knight of the Bath. So if you met him in a ballroom, you'd call him Sir Arthur.

But you'd be unlikely to meet him a ballroom in 1805, and you certainly wouldn't find him on a battlefield in Portugal or Spain. He began the year in India, where he'd been serving since 1797, and spent months of it on a ship returning to England.

In fact, you wouldn't find ANY British troops fighting the French on the Iberian Peninsula at that point. You see, in 1805, Spain and France were allies. The force Horatio Nelson and the British navy defeated at Trafalgar was a combined French and Spanish fleet. That alliance didn't break until 1808, when Napoleon, not content with simply marching through Spain on the way to Portugal (which he'd successfully invaded in 1807), began pushing more troops into Spain and meddling with Spanish court politics--which, admittedly, were such a mess before he stepped in that he seems to have honestly expected to have been greeted as a liberator when he put his brother Joseph on the throne.

Joseph Bonaparte in 1808

Instead, his actions triggered a popular uprising...and made the Spanish willing to work with their long-time enemies from Britain and Portugal to gain their liberation. All of which gives us the Peninsular War--which from a British perspective ran from August 1808 till April 1814.

As for Arthur Wellesley, you and your characters can begin calling him Wellington as of the latter part of 1809, when he was made Viscount Wellington after his victory at the Battle of Talavera. He then became Earl of Wellington in early 1812 and Marquess of Wellington a few months later, but he wasn't created Duke of Wellington until May 1814.

Because I've researched the Peninsular War and Wellington in some depth, I know everything in the quick summary above off the top of my head. But you know where I went to confirm I had my dates right? Wikipedia.

I'd never counsel using Wikipedia as your only source for any piece of history that plays more than a superficial role in your writing, but it's a good place to start. Really, if you have an internet connection--and you must, if you're reading this blog--there's not much of an excuse for botching names and dates as in my Sebastian Grey example above. And while I made up that quote, I've seen those two errors again and again.

The thing about the Napoleonic Wars, and the French Revolutionary Wars that preceded them, is that they're plural, and with a few brief interruptions lasted a quarter of a century. Alliances shifted, dissolved, and re-formed, and the theater of war encompassed pretty much all of Europe and a good chunk of the rest of the world. (Just to name two well-known examples, Napoleon invaded Egypt, partly because he hoped it would be a gateway to breaking the British hold on India. And in a world with no Napoleon, the War of 1812 wouldn't have happened.) 

So if you want to have a hero with a military or naval background in a Regency, the possibilities are all but infinite--but keep in mind that what works for 1810 wouldn't make sense in 1805 or 1800, and do a little homework. Trust me, it's fun, and if you want to go deeper than Wikipedia, I'd be happy to point you toward some good sources.

Susanna Fraser's next Carina release, An Infamous Marriage, is now available for preorder from Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Amazon.co.uk.

Hygiene Regency Style

It's often been said that in the early part of the nineteenth century you would have been well advised to stand up wind of anyone with whom you were having a conversation. Hands, necks and arms might have been frequently washed, but as for the rest of the person...well, probably better not to ask. Washing all those heavy delicate gown would obviously be a challenge, even in the best-equipped houses.

Fashionable ladies got round the problem by wearing several layers of undergarments to protect their gowns from the...er, less acceptable aspects of being in crowed rooms with a lot of smelly people.
The first layer was a chemise, or shift, a thin garment with tight, short sleeves and a low neckline if worn under evening wearing. It was usually made of white cotton and finished with a plain hem that was shorter than the dress. They were obviously washed far more frquently than the outer clothes. Washer women of the time used coarse soap when scrubbing these garments, then plunged them into boiling water, hence the absence of colour, lace or other embellishments that would have been damaged under such treatment. Shifts also prevented transparent muslin and silk dresses from being too revealing.

The next layer was a corest, the forerunner to the bodern bra since it was designed as an undergarment that served to separate a woman's breasts. And made it impossible for her to breathe half the time, I would imagine! Short stays were often worn over the shift as well.

The final layer was the petticoat, which had a scooped neckline and was sleeveless, and was fitted in the back with hooks and eyelets. The lower edge of the petticoat was intended to be seen, since women would often lift their outer dresses to spare the delicate material of the outer dress from mud.

'Drawers' were only beginning to be worn by a few women during the regency period.

Blimey, no wonder it took ladies so long to get dressed in those days. And they had to change several times, as well!

Wendy

When Politicians Attack

As election day approaches in the United States, the inevitable barrage of negative ads and unfavorable spin may have some Americans questioning whether politics can possibly grow any nastier. The truth is, political disagreements are pretty tame these days--at least, when compared to those of the nineteenth century.

Less than five years before the start of our Civil War, for example, Senator Charles Sumner, an antislavery Republican from Massachusetts, was nearly clubbed to death by South Carolina Representative Preston Brooks after Sumner insulted Brooks’s relative, South Carolina Senator Andrew Butler, in a particularly inflammatory speech. And our first Secretary of the Treasury, Alexander Hamilton, was famously killed in an 1804 duel with former Vice President Aaron Burr, eventually giving rise to the first and funniest "Got Milk?" commercial.

Though a notoriously poor shot, Andrew Jackson was still the Chuck Norris of the early 1800s.

Though his reasons were usually more personal than political, our seventh President, Andrew Jackson, allegedly fought more than a hundred duels. Jackson’s wife, Rachel, began living with him before her divorce from her first husband was official, and Jackson was always quick to respond to slurs (real or perceived) against her honor. In one of his most famous duels, fought in 1806, Jackson challenged attorney Charles Dickinson. Dickinson had insulted Rachel on a previous occasion, though the immediate provocation for the duel with Jackson was a letter to the newspaper in which Dickinson called him “a poltroon and a coward” following a dispute over a horse race. Dickinson, who had already met and killed 26 opponents, was a crack shot and he knew it, even stopping on the long ride to the agreed-upon Kentucky dueling grounds to show off his marksmanship to the friends accompanying him. Jackson realized he couldn’t match Dickinson’s skill with a pistol, but he had no lack of courage, so he settled on a strategy of allowing Dickinson a quick first shot, hoping it wouldn’t be fatal, after which Jackson intended to take slow and careful aim.

When Dickinson fired, smoke snaked its way out of Jackson’s coat, and Jackson touched a hand to his chest—but he didn’t waver. Baffled, Dickinson cried out, “My God, have I missed him?” Dickinson’s shot had in fact hit Jackson, breaking his ribs and narrowly missing his heart, but Jackson stood his ground. Then Dickinson had to remain still while Jackson fired. Jackson aimed, drew back the hammer of his pistol, squeezed the trigger—and the pistol stuck in the half-cocked position. The rules of the duel required Dickinson to wait while Jackson coolly drew back the hammer and aimed again. Jackson's shot hit Dickinson, who soon bled to death. When a doctor marveled that Jackson was able to remain on his feet despite his chest wound, Jackson replied, “I should have hit him if he had shot me through the brain.”

Though he was also accounted a poor shot, the Duke of Wellington was undeniably easy on the eyes.

Fortunately, not all of history's famed political disputes feature bloodshed. In 1829 the Tory Duke of Wellington, then Britain's Prime Minister, spoke in favor of Catholic emancipation, whereupon the super-ultra-Tory tenth Earl of Winchilsea accused him of carrying on “insidious designs for the infringement of our liberties, and the introduction of popery into every department of the state.” Wellington challenged Winchilsea to a duel, and the earl had little choice but to accept the challenge. Despite his strong anti-Catholic feelings, Winchilsea nevertheless quickly came to the realization that it would be a faux pas of epic proportions to kill the hero of Waterloo. The two men met at Battersea Fields (now Battersea Park) on March 21, 1829, and when the signal to fire was given, the earl didn’t even raise his pistol. Wellington responded by purposely firing wide, whereupon Winchilsea fired into the air. Honor satisfied, Winchelsea ate crow, sending to the newspaper a letter he had already prepared in which he announced, “Having given the Duke of Wellington the usual satisfaction, I do not now hesitate to declare, of my own accord, that, in apology, I regret having unadvisedly published an opinion which the noble Duke states to have charged him with disgraceful and criminal motives in a certain transaction.” The Catholics and their supporters had the last laugh when the Roman Catholic Relief Act of 1829 became law less than a month later.

Let’s hope all this year’s political disputes end as civilly.

Alyssa Everett's debut regency romance, Ruined by Rumor, is currently available from Carina Press, and her second regency will be out in March of 2013. She hopes you'll visit her website and follow her on Twitter and Facebook, where she promises not to spam you relentlessly.

Finding Your Civil War Ancestors

I’ve always had a weakness for the American Civil War. There’s something about friends and brothers on opposite battle lines that lends itself to romanticism. When you study American history, something about us changes after the Civil War.  The United States starts down a path to moderism that necessarily sheds the cloak of chivalry. 

I knew they were out there, my Civil War ancestors.  Nearly every family with boots on the ground in the 1860’s had a twig or two in the Civil War—and not always on the same side.  While my mother has done a great deal of geneological research, she saved the Civil War ancestors for me.  I needed to get started, so if you’ve ever wondered how to access this kind of information about your own family, read on!

The National Archives is the culmination point of your search, but you need some general information first, such as name, whether the soldier fought for North or South, and the state in which your soldier mustered into service.  To narrow the field even further, finding the specific unit in which your soldier served can be helpful.  Most non-elisted servicemen would be in “volunteer” regiments that may have mustered in close to where the soldier lived.  You do not necessarily need to know the regiment, but if your ancesor had a fairly common name, this information would make him easier to find. 

The National Park Service website offers a searchable Civil War Soldier database that, if you have the name and state, can generate pertinent information, such as the regiment, rank in and rank out, and the film number at the National Archive on which the soldier’s records can be found:

The unit informtion is clickable, and will give you the entire regimental roster, so if you have more than one relative in the same unit, this is convenient.  To learn anything about your soldier beyond this information, you have to dig further.  Luckily, much of this information has gone digial.

Fold3 offers an easy to use, searchable douments database through the National Archives that will provide service records, if available:  http://go.fold3.com/civilwar 

You can also order directly from the National Archives at http://www.archives.gov/veterans/military-service-records/ , but the process is a little more frustrating.  You can order records either by mail or online, being sure to request all service records, pension records, and medical records.  The majority of this information is free and can be delivered digitally (see below, via Fold3), but may require a fee if you request copies be made and sent from the National Archives.

That’s enough to get you started and lead you in the right direction, but it’s good to know that the National Archives aren’t the only resource.  State archives are also goldmines and may be more convenient if you live near by and prefer to put your hands on things.  For census records, the Latter Day Saints have compiled a mountain of genealogical research that you can access by visiting your local LDS community or online at http://ldsgenealogy.com/

Happy searching!

Back When You Could Get Morphine and a Syringe from the Sears Catalogue

I love history and I enjoy medical history. Recently, I came across this article on patent medicines from the Victorian era. I especially love the advert for the Vital Power Vacuum Massager.

While we laugh at these snake oil medicines and the people who purchased them, we need to remember how different times were back then. We’ve grown up with all the advantages of modern medicine. We understand germ theory, viruses, cancer, bacteria and the role they play in disease. We have the benefits of surgery under anesthesia, x-rays and MRIs. In the past, people were afraid of disease because they didn't understand how it spread. They didn't have antibiotics or easy access to doctors, meaning life-long pain, suffering, disfigurement, and death were constant companions. Patent medicines were hope in a bottle, and, with alcohol and opiates as the main ingredients, people probably felt pretty good after taking them.

We wouldn't be where we are today without the innovations of previous generations. However, it is interesting to see how hard some old habits died when we entered the modern age. For example, the belief in “miasma” as an agent of infection was alive and well during the 1918 influenza pandemic. That was less than 100 years ago. My grandfather used to tell me about the pandemic and about losing his mother to the flu.

During the pandemic, with no Tamiflu available and little understanding of the virus causing the disease, folk remedies enjoyed a great deal of popularity. I read a book once about the pandemic, and it explained how concerned parents would hang asafetida bags around their children's necks to ward off the “bad air.” Asafetida is a foul smelling herb. My sister once ordered some of it and even in a zip-lock bag in a glass bottle it stunk so much we had to put it outside. My mother remembers her grandmother regularly employing these bags during her early childhood in the late 1940s. We laugh about it but, according to my mom, my great-grandmother took it very seriously.

So, what will people 100 years from now laugh at us about? My money is on weight-loss products. I’m curious to hear what you think. What current medical advertisements or practices do you think will end up in a news article in the future?

Runes

Have I got your attention?

This is the cover of my book, Knight of Runes. *Heavy sigh*  Runes, the writing down Lord Arik’s chest, play a large part in this story. Runes hold both the family secret and magic that the heroine, Rebeka, must decipher to finish her quest and win her man.

Runes are an alphabetic script used in Northern Europe from the first century c.e. until well into the Middle Ages. In addition to their use as a written alphabet, the runes also served as a system of symbols used for magic and divination. Runes fell into disuse as the Roman alphabets became the preferred script throughout most of Europe, but their forms and meanings were preserved in inscriptions and manuscripts. 

The primary characteristic differentiating a runic alphabet from other alphabets is each letter, or rune, has a meaning. For example, "ay", "bee", and "cee" are meaningless sounds. They represent the first three letters in our alphabet. The names of the first three runes, "fehu", "uruz", and "þurisaz" are actual words in the Germanic language, meaning "cattle", "aurochs" (ancestor of domestic cattle), and "giant", respectively. Runes also have magical and religious significance and transform the simple process of writing into something magical. Runes are also used for divinatory readings and creating magical spells.

In our popular culture, runes are associated with mystical properties. The etymology of the word rune may be a driving factor. The Germanic root of the word, run, means "to conceal", "a secret". There’s another way to explain its mystical context.

At first runes were used as a sacred writing system and later became not only the magic, but also the civilian script. The first runic inscriptions appeared around 200 AD, but its origins may lie much deeper in the pre-history of Northern Europe. For the next thousand years it was used in Germany, Scandinavia, England, and Lowlands. In the late Middle Ages it was replaced by the Roman script everywhere in Northern Europe.

The strange sharp forms we recognize today result from rune inscription on metal, stone, or wood boards. When the alphabet, suspected of originating in Scandinavia, spread to the British Isles and to continental Europe, its symbols somehow changed, as well as the number of them. Modern science makes a distinction between the Elder Runes (up to the 9th century), and the later Younger or Scandinavian Runes, a special variety that existed in Anglo-Saxon England from the 7th to the 10th century.

Fathark Runes

The Elder Runes, used mostly for magic purposes, contain many personal names and their lexicon is sometimes hard to understand, though the language is clear. There are about 150 runic inscriptions and some of them contain just one or two symbols. The Younger inscriptions are more numerous (about 3500), and are mostly documents written in particular Germanic languages.

Though the origin of Futhark is unknown, there is no doubt that the alphabet is connected with the alphabets of Southern Europe and the Mediterranean (Greek and Italic).

My next task is to study my cover, really hard, and see if I can decode the runes. It may take me a very long time. Oh, the things I do for history!

Hi! I'm Ruth A. Casie. I'm a new author on Romancing the Past. I've always had stories in my head. I was encouraged by my family and friends to give way to my inner muse and write from my heart. I write historical fantasies about strong men and empowered women and how they cope with unexpected challenges. I hope their stories become your favorite adventures!

Two months to release day, so it's excerpt time!

My next Carina book, An Infamous Marriage, releases Monday, November 5. Here's my beautiful cover, as selected by attendees at the Carina spotlight at RWA earlier this summer:

My hero and heroine, Jack and Elizabeth Armstrong, marry for mutual convenience in 1810. She's the impoverished widow of his best friend, and he needs someone to care for his aging, ailing mother while he is far away in Canada with his regiment. Because of their shared grief for her first husband, they don't consummate the marriage right away, and their efforts at a long-distance post-marital courtship by correspondence falter when tales of his womanizing make it all the way across the Atlantic to Elizabeth's ears. She could forgive the adultery, in an unconsummated marriage. But the scandal and mockery are too much to be borne.

When Jack returns to England in 1815, Elizabeth informs him she's not willing to fall into his bed and give him the heir he wants until he earns her forgiveness--and she's by no means certain that day will ever come.  He persuades her to give him a chance, and to let him come to her room every night, just to talk, and to forestall servant gossip about their estrangement. During their first night's conversation, he discovers how much she longs to travel and envies him for having seen more of the world than she has:

"There’s nothing to stop you from traveling wherever you like now.”

She blinked, then her eyes widened and her cheeks grew flushed. Elizabeth might not be a beauty in any conventional sense, but whenever her spirit animated her features she was lovely to look upon. But the moment passed quickly, and her eyes shuttered behind a frown. “Of course there is. You want me to bear you an heir.”

“If you can ever forgive me enough to allow me, indeed I do.” He rubbed furtively at his right leg, which was beginning to ache from his old injury. Should he tell her he would want her in his bed even if he had no line to continue and no land to pass on, or would that alarm her more at this stage?

“Well, then. You wouldn’t want your heir born in the Ionian Islands, instead of here at the Grange, would you?”

“Supposing good attendants and a capable accoucheur could be had there, and I don’t know if that’s the case. But we could learn. And I’m certain you and the baby could have even better care than you could get here in any number of places. London, to name the most obvious, but also Edinburgh, Dublin…Paris, Vienna, Rome, Brussels, Berlin…” He warmed to the theme as he began ticking the great cities of Europe off on his fingers. He’d hardly got the chance to fight in Europe as a soldier, how would it be to travel there in peacetime simply for the pleasure of it? He decided he wanted to find out. “We could go on a Grand Tour together.”

Her eyes narrowed. “So I can travel, then, but only if we consummate the marriage.”

Part of him wanted to drive such a bargain, if only it would work. But she might call his bluff. Even if she did not, did he really want a wife who only tolerated his presence in bed? Especially this wife, with her unexpected loveliness and prickly, defiant soul? “If we separate,” he said patiently, “then I won’t have any say in your comings and goings. You could certainly live on the Continent, if you chose. But I hope it won’t come to that. I’d like to see Paris with you.”

She frowned at him in utter bewilderment. “Why,” she said at last, “are you being reasonable?”

He raised an eyebrow. “Would you prefer me to be unreasonable?”

“Yes—no—I don’t know!” She shook her head and glared at him. “If we separate,” she said, “you have no heir for all this.” She indicated Westerby Grange and its lands with a wave of one hand. “I expected more rage at the very possibility.”

He hid a smile. Without a conscious plan, he’d hit on the right strategy, and now he would stick with it. If he didn’t rage back, surely her fury—her perfectly justified fury—would spend itself more quickly.
“Would it do my cause any good, given that I’ve no intention of throwing you onto that bed and asserting my rights against your will?”

Her jaw fell open, and she stared at the bed, then back at him. “No.”

“So I won’t do it.” He stood, shifting most of his weight to his good leg. “I want you. But unless you want me too, it’s no good.”

“You don’t want me. You want an heir.”

He smiled a little. “That’s what I would’ve said this morning. But now I’ve seen you. Good night, Elizabeth.”

Without waiting for a reply, he bowed to her and left her to seek his solitary bed.

Strawberry and Coffee Creams

You know when you have one of those massive barrels of sweets – usually at Christmas over here in the UK. Quality Street’s the nation’s favourite and they have a great selection of sweets in them. Nut clusters, caramel cups, toffees, fudge etc etc.

And then Christmas is over, and you are left with a handful of sweets that no-one wants.  Orange, Strawberry and COFFEE creams. BLEURGHK.

Now this is obviously only indicative of what my family like – I’m sure there are lots of people who love these flavours, but it does seem to be coffee that is the least favourite, if the brilliant Revels Roulette adverts are anything to go on.

And where am I going with this??? Well, I don't know if you know but I run "Speak Its Name" which is the only review site that concentrates on gay historical fiction and although I have choice as to what books I read for pleasure, when it comes to Speak its Name I have to read a lot of eras that really make me go meh, even before I've opened the book and it's not really fair on the book. I’ve noticed a worrying trend recently, that I tend to leave the westerns till last and right now, out of 40 or so books to be reviewed, more than half of them are westerns.  I hate to say it, but I’ve found that westerns are my coffee creams.

And I’m sorry about this.  I don’t think there are more westerns written than any other gay historical — although, this might be the case, I’ve not done a fact-finding mission to find out — it’s just that, because I’m not mad on the genre, I tend to put them to one side and then I end up with a ton of them to do at once–which doesn’t do anything for my temper or the balance of the site.

I don’t know when I stopped being a fan of the western, either. I used to love them as a child and even went to the cinema to catch classics such as True Grit, and I was such a huge fan of Rawhide (Gil Favour for the win) but now I tend to avoid most of them, except for Slashy goodness such as The Searchers.  (Yes, really.  If you don’t believe me, go and watch it again, John Wayne’s character is most certainly bisexual at the very least.) The very worst western and one that will make me run screaming from the sofa is anything Mexican. Don’t ask me why. I like coffee to drink, and I LOVE strawberries and oranges so nothing really makes sense.

And my aversion to western gay fiction  makes no sense either because there’s been a good few that I’ve really enjoyed.  Mark Probst’s “The Filly” is a beautifully written restrained piece of fiction, Jamie Craig’s “Those Who Cherish” was highly enjoyable, and Kiernan Kelly’s “In Bear Country” duet of books have everything necessary for a reader, adventure, romance and a good historical feel. I don't think that at the moment, Carina Press has any gay historical westerns - that's odd.

So I don’t know why I’ve got this westernphobia. Perhaps it’s because for every good book, there’s three not so stellar with more cliches than tumbleweeds, but then that’s true of every kind of fiction really isn’t it?

Perhaps in future for reviews I’ll take a tip from the Russian Roulette advert and just pick a book blindfold and not allow myself to push the least favourites to the back of the drawer.

Is there any genre you find yourself avoiding?  Is there any logical reason for it (unlike me!)