Venice, The Foundry, The Ghetto

Lady Charlotte’s Christmas Vigil is set in Venice…travel always wakes up Caroline’s muse.

History Imagined

Islands pepper the well known Venetian lagoon, but canals and rivulets divide within the city proper into islands as well. Venice set aside one of those islands, site of a copper foundry, as the Jewish quarter 501 years ago. I toured it in fascination during my rambles a few years ago; I went back the next day. The Venetian Ghetto was and continues to be a vibrant center of Jewish culture.

The Ponte Vecchio Ghetto, once gated and locked at night. The multi-stories are a clue you are entering the ghetto.

Though confined to their own quarter, Venetian Jews enjoyed relatively more freedom than they did in other parts of Europe—if being relieved from the threat of forced conversion (such as they faced in Rome or Spain in the 1500s) or pogroms (such as took place in Germany and elsewhere) can be considered freedom. The resulting influx of people swelled…

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Perfect for October – A Real Life Ghost Story

by Donna MacMeans

Several years ago, I participated in a reader event held in Huntington, West Virginia several years ago. A fellow author told my editor and I that she had encountered a spirit in her hotel room the night before – an evil spirit that tried to choke her. Now I’ve stayed in that hotel a number of times and never experienced anything other than a good night’s sleep. I said as much and my editor replied, “Of course you’ve never seen a ghost. You’re a CPA. You’re just not built to be sensitive or open to the paranormal.”

Well Cindy, you were wrong.

With Byron in Venice

History Imagined

While wandering the streets of Venice a few years ago, I asked myself (as I often do when I’m traveling) if I could put a story there. Since I write largely Regency and Victorian romance I specifically wondered what Venice would have been like in the Regency era. Did the English aristocracy go to Venice? Boy did they!

As I was wandering the side streets and neighborhoods as I like to do—it gets me away from the crowds—I came on a particularly fine bookstore, where I found a treasure. In Venice and in the Veneto with Lord Byron opened up visions of the whole lagoon between 1816 and 1819, complete with maps and sketches of buildings from that era. Everything an author might need for world building in advance of a story lay at my feet. How could I resist?

Ivan Constantinovich, Byron in Venice

George Gordon, Lord Byron, left…

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Caroline Warfield: Lady Charlotte’s Christmas Vigil

Susana's Parlour

This beautiful cover for Caroline Warfield’s 2017 Christmas novella comes with the announcement that the book is available for pre-order from various retailers.

Love is the best medicine and the sweetest things in life are worth the wait, especially at Christmastime in Venice for a stranded English Lady and a dedicated doctor.

About Lady Charlotte’s Christmas Vigil

Lady Charlotte Tyree clings to one dream—to see the splendor of Rome before settling for life as the spinster sister of an earl. But now her feckless brother forces her to wait again, stranded in Venice when he falls ill, halfway to the place of her dreams. She finds the city damp, moldy, and riddled with disease.

As a physician, Salvatore Caresini well knows the danger of putrid fever. He lost his young wife to it, leaving him alone to care for their rambunctious children. He isn’t about to let the lovely English…

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Opium, Hypocrisy, and Amnesia

History Imagined

Those who don’t know history are destined to repeat it.

Edmund Burke (1729-1797)

This much-abused quote is frequently tweaked to say “ignore” or “forget” history. Sometimes people simply choose to ignore it, particularly when there are profits to be made. So it is with the opioid industry, legal and illegal.

We are in the midst of an opioid epidemic that threatens to destroy a generation. The Center for Disease Control’s most recently published numbers are that 91 people a day are dying of opioid abuse of one form or another. One suspects the current number to be higher. One friend told me her son had lost ten friends to opioids. TEN! A recent article in The Guardian describes a ten-year high school reunion in which fully half the class was missing—dead from pills or heroin. It is now the leading cause of death for young people, beating out automobile accidents.

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About Dangerous Secrets author Caroline Warfield

Jessica_thebookaddict

Caroline Warfield has three great loves: family, travel, and writing. The first two are a big part of the third. An author of historical, family-centered romance, her work features classic Regency and Victorian heroes and heroines in not-so-traditional settings. She once asked herself if she could set a Regency novel in Rome. The result was Dangerous Secrets. Since then her characters have visited Constantinople, India, Canada and the Barbary Coast. One of her heroes travels to China next year. Just back from a trip to Scotland, she has stories that will take readers to the Highlands and perhaps Orkney dancing in her imagination. The hard work of writing them comes next. A native of Detroit, she looks forward to meeting readers at Rust City Book Con 2017.

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The Reluctant Wife by Caroline Warfield

Thanks to the Escape Artists for all their support.

Musings by Mandy

Today I have the great pleasure of hosting the talented Caroline Warfield and her new release! Just feast your eyes on that cover would you!! Be sure to check out her interview below and enter the giveaway 🙂

The Reluctant Wife

Children of Empire, Book 2

Genre: Pre Victorian, Historical Romance

Heat rating: 3 of 5 (two brief -mild- sexual encounters)

ISBN: pending

Page count: 275 pages

Pub date: April 26, 2017

Long Blurb

When all else fails, love succeeds…

Captain Fred Wheatly’s comfortable life on the fringes of Bengal comes crashing down around him when his mistress dies, leaving him with two children he never expected to have to raise. When he chooses justice over army regulations, he’s forced to resign his position, leaving him with no way to support his unexpected family. He’s already had enough failures in his life. The last thing he needs is an…

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