History Lovers Grand Tour & Scavenger Hunt - International

Welcome to the History Lovers Grand Tour & Scavenger Hunt!

—International—

As the name implies, we’re a group of readers and authors who love both history and romance, especially when they’re combined in a delightful story. If you feel the same, you’re welcome to join us on our Facebook page and converse with us about historical romance fiction.

Below you’ll find authors of historical romances set in a wide variety of time periods. Perhaps by participating in our Grand Tour you’ll discover some new authors for your future reading pleasure. Hop around to your heart’s content, feel free to comment on the posts, hunt for answers to the authors’ questions, and perhaps you’ll be one of our 25 lucky prize winners (see contest details below)…although you’re already a winner if you find a new story to read, do you not agree?

The theme for this tour is Courting Rituals, but for my post, I’ve chosen to take a bit of a meandering path and talk about the ways women might find power - particularly within marriage - or how they greatly they were deprived of it, when they had no legal rights until well into the nineteenth century.

Power within marriage for women of the Past

‘Woman’s empire is an empire of gentleness, skill and obligation; her orders are caresses, her threats are tears. She ought to reign in the home as a minister does in a state – by getting herself commanded to do what she wants to do.’

The above quote by 18th-century Genevan philosopher and writer, Rousseau, is a reminder that since a woman had no legal rights, she must exert her power within the home, the only domain in which might be lucky enough to have any authority.

It’s easy to forget that until little more than a hundred years ago, a woman - with the exception of the fortunate widow - was entirely dependant upon her closest male relative. Her husband could force her to have sex and, if he chose, have her children taken from her and brought up elsewhere. (This is the subject of my Regency Romance Lady Farquhar’s Butterfly.)

Until 1891, if a woman ran away from an intolerable marriage the police could capture and return her, and her husband could imprison her.

Susannah Palmer who escaped from her adulterous husband in 1869, is only one example of the inequalities suffered by women. After years of brutal beatings, Susannah finally fled and, after working and saving hard, made a new life for herself and her children.

But when her husband found her, she was stripped her of all her possessions (which was sanctioned by the law) and left destitute. In a fury she stabbed her husband and was immediately prosecuted. (Sounds a bit like Tess of the D’Urbervilles, who I’m sure was only the tip of the iceberg.)

Prior to marriage, only an unladylike lady would make her romantic interest in a gentleman apparent before he’d all but made a formal offer.

Such convention is part of why writing historical romance can be so difficult.

On the one hand the historian will know the real limitations placed on a woman, say, two hundred years ago, yet it is an author’s job to create a heroine worthy of a twenty-first century reader’s interest.

And that interest would not be whipped up if the heroine’s strength of character went no further than the simple obstinacy that was often the tool of first and last resort for many a real-live woman who had set her heart on a potential husband who was not quite ‘up to snuff’ in her family’s opinion.

For this reason I prefer to write about married heroines. Virginal heroines in real life were so restricted in terms of where and how they could meet. Therefore, writing about a widow or a married woman means I’m less constrained, knowing I can be accurate as well as injecting spice, passion and sometimes sex, into my historicals.

The prize I am offering is an e-copy of my debut Regency The Reluctant Bride, which won UK publisher Choc Lit's Search for an Australian Star competition and which is available for pre-order in paperback but will be released in e-book on September 15. (I receive my author copies in a few days and am trembling with excitement.) 

In the blog post published the day before this one you can read two extracts from The Reluctant Bride.

Here’s my question for the scavenger hunt: If a woman ran away from an intolerable marriage the police could capture and return her, and her husband could imprison her. What year did this change?

Click on the History Lovers Grand Tour page to fill in the answer, and you may continue on from there. Enjoy!

In my latest release, Her Gilded Prison my heroine has never known power, either before or during marriage, and has never known the love of a man. Her Gilded Prison is written under my Beverley Oakley pseudonym for Ellora's Cave's Legend Line for, although the content is not overtly sexual, the theme is - the forbidden love between a younger man for an older noblewoman trapped for 20 years in a loveless marriage.

Take a tour through the blogs and websites of our participating History Lovers Grand Tour Authors and answer the questions when you return to History Lovers Grand Tour page. Each author is offering their own prize in addition to the grand prize, overall.

Rue Allyn • Amylynn Bright • Collette Cameron • Téa Cooper • Beverley Eikli • Susana Ellis • Aileen Fish • Debra Glass • Amy Hearst • Evangeline Holland • Piper Huguley • Eliza Knight • Kristen Koster • Cora Lee • Georgie Lee • Suzi Love • Denise Lynn • Deborah Macgillivray • Barbara Monajem • Shelly Munro • Ella Quinn • Eva Scott • Shereen Vedam • Elaine Violette 

Prizes

1.     Each author will offer a prize for a contest, the specifics of which is set up entirely by her. The contest will be open to all participants, regardless of geographic location. For logistical purposes, authors may substitute a digital prize (gift card, etc.) of equal value for another prize that might prove difficult to mail to a distant location.

2.     The Grand Prize for the Scavenger Hunt will be awarded to the participant with the most correct answers to the authors’ scavenger hunt questions.  In case of a tie, the winner will be chosen randomly.

3.     The winners will be posted on the History Lovers Grand Tour page the following week.

Scavenger Hunt

·       Click on the above links to each author’s blog. The blog tour entry can be identified by the graphic in the upper right corner of the post. If it is not the top post, look for the graphic in a prominent location on the sidebar, and click on it to find the blog tour entry.

·       Read the blog post and the author’s short answer question at the end. Locate the answer to the question, then click on the link to the History Lovers Grand Tour page and type in the answer next to the author’s name. Be sure to fill in the your name and email address!

·       You may go back to same page and read more of the author’s post (excerpt, etc.) or you may click on another author’s name on the answer sheet and repeat the process.

·       When you are finished, check to make sure the spaces for your name and email address are filled in correctly, and submit your answer sheet to the tour coordinator. If you submit an incomplete answer sheet, you may come back later and make another submission with the remaining answers when you have more time. 

·       Any questions about the scavenger hunt should be directed to the tour coordinator .

Here’s an excerpt from my latest release, Her Gilded Prison, about the lovely Lady Sybil Partington, who has never known love, either before or within her marriage, until she meets the ‘laddish’ Steven Cranbourne, her husband’s distant cousin and heir to the estate who’s arrived to learn how to run the estate since Sybil has ‘failed’ to provide her husband with a son.

After years of following the army, Stephen finds that life within a family, enjoying the love of a good women, is too precious to squander.

But then an unwelcome contender arrives to usurp Stephen from his position and Stephen must fight for what he has come to value above all else: his love for Sybil.

Extract from Her Gilded Prison

 “Ooh, careful!” The gasps of both young ladies was balm to his youthful ego.

“Come, my pretty. Come, Lady Zena.” Carefully, he extended his hand toward the bird.

After some contemplation, the little bird decided to make him work for his reward. When she hopped onto the sill of the farthest casement windows, Stephen had no choice but to follow.

This involved a heroic full-body thrust followed by a hasty snatch at the stone ledge. With heart hammering and very conscious of his audience below, Stephen hauled himself across the wall, securing one foot on the buttress. Victory was in sight. Lady Zena hadn’t moved position for some minutes and soon he’d pop her onto his shoulder and descend to the rapturous cries of the young ladies. It would be a just recompense for what, he realized looking down, was a rather risky ascent after all.

Eyeballing the canary, he whistled softly. She hopped daintily toward him then hopped backward. Clearly she was enjoying the game.

Stephen growled, hoping this dance of seduction was not going to become prolonged.

It was only the merest flash of something in his peripheral vision that made him turn his head slightly to the right. There was certainly no intent to peep through the misted windows. Yet the shock of seeing a shapely pair of thighs connected to a round, ripe naked bottom as its owner bent down to pick up one stocking was completely unexpected. He didn’t pause to consider that due to the high risk of discovery he should hasten away. He was riveted to the spot, wondering what else the lovely creature had to offer in the way of fleshly delights.

Tingling with excitement, Stephen squinted. He could see a bathtub to the rear of the room and realized she’d just risen from it, for steam swirled in eddies that partially obscured her until she discarded the linen she’d been using to dry herself.

The young ladies below called to him but he was rooted to the spot, desperate to see what more this as-yet-unintroduced female had in the way of sensuous charms.

He couldn’t make out her face, but her light hair rippled to below her waist and her pale limbs, the color of whipped cream, were well turned. He tried to gauge her age for she walked with calm, fluid movements, like one who has grown used to her body without realizing how lovely it is.

Anticipation gripped him as she made her way languidly from her bathtub towards the bed. It was a large, intricately carved tester covered in a sumptuous white counterpane, edged with ermine, and as she lowered herself onto it her lustrous tresses swirled about her waist.

And then with the most enormous shock he realized that this was the quiet, modest woman who’d welcomed him here. He’d barely noticed her in the carriage with her hair covered by a blue silk bonnet and her manner almost deferring to her eldest daughter, who certainly wanted to put herself forward.

This was Lady Partington.

Torn between the desire to scramble away as fast as he could and to strain his eyes to see what other secrets she’d been hiding, prurient interest won out. She was exquisite.

And she certainly seemed not about to raise her eyes to the window.

She flicked aside the curtain of her hair as she reached for a stocking, raising her leg to put it on so that Stephen was treated to the most intimate view a newly arrived heir no doubt had ever received of his benefactor’s wife, the lady of the manor.

He ignored the cries and shouts from his admiring audience below as he enjoyed the visual extravaganza before him.

Lady Partington eased the stocking onto her ankle then, in a seemingly unrelated act Stephen could not at first explain, she hooked her ankle over her knee and placed her head on her thigh. Then she raised her head...

And looked him squarely in the eye.

At first he did not move. He registered the flare of shock in her expression, quickly followed by confusion. She stood up quickly, her hair frothing about her waist, one hand moving to cover the fluff at the juncture of her legs, the other to conceal her full, heavy breasts. From this distance he could see the sheen of moisture from her bath and the faint marks left by pregnancy on her soft and rounded body.

He’d been with women who’d given birth to children but never one who’d shied away from him with such outraged horror.

As was only to be expected. Lady Partington preserved such delicacies for her husband and Stephen was guilty of gross voyeurism. He ought to be ashamed of himself yet he was curiously aroused in a way he’d not expected. Against her vibrant eldest daughter she’d been a soft little pouter pigeon, clucking her welcome. Now she’d stepped into a different league altogether.

Lady Zena chose this moment to hop onto his shoulder and Stephen deemed it timely to beat a rapid retreat. With his heartbeat roaring in his ears, he descended in record time, leaping the last six feet and going over on his ankle, surrounded by the young ladies—Hetty who gripped his arm and Araminta whose regal self-possession was nevertheless disturbed by the violence of his fall.

“Did you hurt yourself, Cousin Stephen?” she cried.

He was about to dismiss their concerns when he checked himself, adding slyly, “I might have twisted my ankle. Perhaps if we retired indoors you’d be so good as to administer a soothing poultice.”

Araminta read his meaning at once, offering him her shoulder to lean on, which he made good use of, and the close proximity. She was worldly enough to know he’d hardly make a fuss over a minor injury and she would be flattered that he’d use the opportunity to gain access.

Yet while her perfume teased his senses and her ministering touch was gratifying he could not get out of his mind the lush, ripe nakedness of Lady Partington’s unexpectedly desirable body.

END OF EXTRACT

Buy Her Gilded Prison:

Ellora’s Cave: 

Amazon

Website

Facebook

@BeverleyOakley

New Cover, Free Read and an Extract

It's a dual personality day today. Right now I'm promoting my Ellora's Cave series, now that DANGEROUS GENTLEMEN is about to go to edits. It's the sequel to HER GILDED PRISON, a story of forbidden love between an older woman and a younger man - whose futures are determined by a bet over mating spiders.

(Here's a blurb for DANGEROUS GENTLEMEN, and you can read an extract, below.)

‘Two rich and powerful men pose different dangers to an innocent debutante in Regency England.’

An innocent debutante, embroiled in the Regency underworld, becomes a prostitute to save her own life but when her new “protector” is falsely branded an enemy of the Crown, there’s nothing she won’t do to see his name cleared.

BUT I'M ALSO ...

... also off to visit the local country libraries in the beautiful Macedon Ranges after delivering my 8-year-old to do Circus Arts during these school holidays.

There are 3 things I'm hoping to achieve.

The first is to advertise the course I'm teaching at the local Macedon Ranges Further Education Centre in Gisborne on HOW TO WRITE A ROMANCE - AND SELL IT.

It's a 6 week course held on a Tuesday at 9.30am and it's been well received, both locally and in Melbourne where I teach at at the CAE (Centre of Adult Education) in Flinders Lane on Saturdays from 10am to 1pm.

The last Saturday is the day after tomorrow but the CAE is running another course next semester.

THEN...

I'm off to sell my History Through Costume Talks, below:

Crinolines, Corsets and Cosmetics

How restrictive (and dangerous) were the devices used by the Regency and Victorian woman to achieve the ideal silhouette and complexion?

Dressed in a 1780s polonaise, and assisted by mannequins in Regency and Victorian dress, Choc Lit author Beverley Eikli will describe the many layers needed to create the silhouette of the day, and explain how fashion was affected by social unrest and political upheavals.

This is partly to promote my September release, published by Choc Lit  under my Beverley Eikli name, The Reluctant Bride.

The above proposal is also what I'm pitching to run at the New Orleans Romantic Times Convention next May.

ALSO...

This week, my publisher Total-e-Bound put up my Hot Shots Free Read - THE ENEMY WITHIN - about lust and revenge in the aftermath of the French Revolution.

FREE READ HERE

Chapter One

Brushing beetles out of her cleavage as she shrouded herself in the fronds of a concealing potted palm was not how Hetty envisaged making her grand London debut.

Still, it was better to be hidden by the horticulture than being humiliated as one. A wallflower. She’d prepared herself for such a fate but being passed over for the last three dances at Lady Knox’s lavish ball had brought home to her how much worse was the reality.

A painful reality that was going to last another three months before she could return to her quiet, unexciting but familiar home.

As the orchestra tuned up for another country dance Hetty watched the slow progress of a ladybird over the bodice of her white sarsanet gown. How much more complimentary the little creature’s bold red and black coat would have been to her own lackluster coloring. A debutante was required to wear white and pale shades to reflect her innocence, status and wealth. The ballroom was bursting with such rare prizes, she reflected gloomily as she carefully transferred the ladybird onto a palm frond. Wallflowers like her faced fierce competition and she was not bolstered by her sister Araminta’s kind reassurance that her sizeable dowry would ultimately compensate for her lack of looks after all the pretty girls had contracted good marriages by the end of the season.

Guiltily she watched her chaperone Mrs. Monks pass nearby, an anxious frown turning down the corners of her thin, bloodless mouth. Hetty held her breath. The truth was, she wasn’t hiding only to avoid public humiliation.

Really, she was here to spy, though spying was the preserve of devious sorts like Araminta.

Araminta, the bold and beautiful sister who was currently clasping hands with the handsome baronet whose brief kindness towards Hetty at the beginning of the evening had ignited a torrent of never-before experienced sensations but whose later actions had quashed every hope for the season Hetty had foolishly entertained.

No, spying from behind a potted palm was as close as a shy, plump debutante like Hetty would ever get to her heart’s desire.

A little sob escaped her as she gazed upon the well-matched couple. Araminta, as always, was dazzling, yet for a few moments earlier this evening, dressed for her first ball in her new cream sarsanet with its powder blue sash, her light brown hair tumbling in curls from a high topknot at the apex of a center parting, Hetty, too, had felt almost beautiful.

Then Araminta had swept her aside to admire her own gleaming reflection before the looking glass.

Indeed, gleaming and self-satisfied were appropriate epithets, and ones Hetty was as inclined to use on the family Siamese cat as her sister. She knew she shouldn’t be uncharitable. Araminta’s first season had ended under a cloud and she should be pleased her sister had caught the eye of a man as seriously handsome and eligible as Sir Aubrey, a baronet who was set to inherit a viscountcy and vast estates in the north.

But it was hard to rejoice in Araminta’s good fortune when Hetty still felt the pain of her sister’s dismissive: “I suppose you’re up to the mark as much as can be expected”—lip service to Hetty’s doubtful inquiry regarding her appearance.

Not only had tonight brought home clearly the fact that Hetty was seriously wanting in the eyes of the male contingent, it had highlighted the fact she was completely beneath the notice of dashing Sir Aubrey, for all that it had started with such a flourish when he’d returned her dropped reticule to her with a bow of sweeping chivalry and a smile that had seemed for her alone. Silly girl. He smiled like that at all the girls, of course. 

Still, Hetty never suffered from the blue devils for long and the lively music soon had her tapping her feet, enjoying her seclusion and fascinated by the way the light caught the extraordinary streak of white hair that cut a swathe through Sir Aubrey’s dark locks. Araminta, while pointing out the peculiarities of several gentlemen of interest, had told her while dressing earlier in the evening that it was a peculiar physical trait shared by all the men in his family.

The foot-tapping stopped abruptly when Hetty saw Sir Aubrey tighten his hold on her sister after Araminta stumbled.

Conniving minx, Hetty thought uncharitably, even though being charitable was, she knew, one of her few commendable traits and that if she couldn’t be beautiful she should at least try to be nice.

Living with Araminta for the past eighteen years, however, had opened her eyes to the fact that vibrant beauties could get away without being nice or charitable and Araminta was certainly neither. But in all those years Hetty had not known jealousy.

The corrosive poison had only started dripping into her veins tonight—not to see Araminta feted, admired and in continual demand, for she was used to that—but to witness Sir Aubrey’s interest, though she’d told herself a thousand times it should hardly come as a surprise that rakish, handsome Sir Aubrey didn’t notice debutantes like plain, plump and awkward Hetty.

The fact his piercing smile at the beginning of the evening was an aberration had been made very clear when not an hour since he’d accidentally spilled champagne upon her arm yet barely paused to flick a snowy linen handkerchief across her sleeve and offer a lackluster apology before hurrying on.

Standing on tiptoe to get a better view through the glossy leaves of her concealment, Hetty was relieved to see Sir Aubrey was no longer dancing with Araminta, though the fact he was now partnering another beautiful brunette was hardly consoling.

Especially when, in the midst of conversation, he brushed a tendril of the young woman’s hair back from her face.

The intimacy of the gesture, or rather, the look upon his face, sent tendrils of pain and pleasure deep into Hetty’s belly, though these hitherto-alien bodily experiences turned to fright when a familiar growl warmed her ear at the same time as the speaker delivered her a playful slap upon the rump.

“Who, may I ask, Hetty dearest, has caught your discerning eye this evening? Tell me so that I might facilitate the joyful union before season’s end. You know I’ve made it my mission to see to your happiness.”

Hetty whirled round, blinking up at her cousin Stephen, unsure whether pity, amusement or—God Forbid—scorn would be his response when she offered her almost guilty admission as to the object of her interest.

To her surprise it was horror. Horror delivered with surely unnecessary force given that all London knew Sir Aubrey Banks was a prime catch. She’d heard him discussed in such terms by more than one designing mama.

Although, registering Cousin Stephen’s antipathy Hetty reflected that there had been some caveat about Sir Aubrey’s eligibility whispered by her mama’s friend Mrs. Dobson in an undertone. 

Stephen’s earlier good humor had evaporated and he looked pained.

 “My dear Hetty, lose your heart to anyone but Sir Aubrey,” he exhorted her. “Under no circumstances can he be a candidate for your affections.” Suspicion laced his next question. “He hasn’t spoken to you, has he?” Stephen put his hands on her shoulders, a troubled crease between his brows. What she’d thought anger was, she now realized, the gravest concern.

“He’s never looked twice at me, Cousin Stephen, and why would he? I’m in no danger from his advances?” Hetty tossed her head as Araminta might have done while she sought for the word she’d heard whispered in the drawing room in the months preceding her ‘come-out’. A word she knew no innocent debutante ought to know. “Is he a philanderer?”

Stephen returned to his natural height with a look that was part wry amusement, part censure. “No, Sir Aubrey is not a renowned philanderer, but what he is must not concern you.” He became brisk. “Since it would appear you are not taken for the quadrille that is forming, perhaps you’d do me the honor?”

New contracts, new courses, new releases

Completely unrelated, but why not since I've just celebrated
20 years of marriage and here's an odd wedding
picture I've just stumbled across.

I used to be so good at keeping a diary. Now everything happens so quickly I can barely keep up.

Of course, there was loads to catch up on after returning from the AbFab holiday of a lifetime - California and RT. Not least of all, sleep. Not that I've had a lot of that lately. No, I've had edits... and final edits... and final checking of final edits.

Finally, finally, though, I finished those while working away at the table of our hotel room at the Park Royal. It was nearly 8pm and I'd arranged for our lovely houseguest, Camilla, to look after the kids overnight so I could join Eivind the night prior to him leaving for LA. Ironically, though we live in Melbourne, he's officially Sydney-based and it's only when he flies out of Melbourne that he gets a hotel room. Thus, on this occasion, wifey decided it would be nice to celebrate finishing edits with a meal in a nice restaurant.

Ha! I'm forever miscalculating the time it takes me to finish edits. For days I'd had 'just a couple more hours' before I'd be finished. Eivind was very patient though, as he was careful not to rush me, even though I could hear his tummy rumbling as I kept him waiting for dinner. (He really is such a darling.)

At 7.45pm I pressed send and had my hand on the door handle waiting for that lovely 'whoosh' sound that tells you your file is out of your hands and winging its way through the ether.... meaning, 'there's nothing I can do about it now'.

So Eivind and I had a lovely juicy Wagyu steak to celebrate washed down with a bottle of wine.

No sleep-in unfortunately the next morning as I had to race back home to the country to get the kids off to school. And no sleep-in since as I'd promised Total-e-Bound a 'Free' read for their newsletter.

I've just finished it now and must say I think it's rather OK. I had no idea what to write but now it's a tale of treachery set shortly after the French revolution in which my heroine is preparing to seduce and murder to avenge her parents' deaths, thinking my dashing hero Silvain Guilbeaux was the informant whose testimony sent them to the guillotine.

Only here's the catch (as if it wasn't half obvious that this is exactly where it would be)... it's not!

Does he die? Does she? Does she have second thoughts about following through with her dastardly plan? After all, she's a well trained spy, now, and she's got pretty good at discovering men's vulnerabilities. The more arrogant they are, the more she relishes her role of meting out justice. Though that said, this will be the first time she's actually planning to administer the poison and wield the dagger. Every other time she's simply rendered the villain (and they've been genuine villains) insensible before dispatching them into the hands of the authorities.

So, I literally finished it five minutes ago and have raced to get 6000 words done in a marathon two days... Hopefully my Free Read will draw in a few readers to try Rake's Honour and Her Gilded Prison and The Cavalier.

Other News

Yes, The Good news is that Carrie, my editor from Ellora's Cave, has contracted Dangerous Gentlemen, the sequel to Her Gilded Prison. I'm happy to see that it appears to be selling quite well now.

So here's the initial premise

for

Dangerous Gentlemen

An innocent debutante, embroiled in the Regency underworld, becomes a prostitute to save her own life but when her new “protector” is falsely branded an enemy of the Crown, there’s nothing she won’t do to see his name cleared.