Please save the date: In January, we're going to celebrate!

We’re going to have a tea party! It’s happening in January. It’s happening live, in Massachusetts, where it will be cold and possibly snowy. Have your boots ready.

Meena Jain, Director of the Ashland Public Library, is throwing the party to celebrate the release of My Inconvenient Duke. I’ll be there, of course, chatting with my good friend, author Caroline Linden, and those of you readers who can make it. There will be treats. And attendees are welcome to dress in Regency/Romantic era costume, if they so choose.

January 2025 also marks Lord of Scoundrels’ 30th anniversary (may I say Yikes). We’ll also celebrate this miracle of longevity.

Details, details

  • This is an actual, in-person event.

  • 1-3PM ET

  • 25 January 2025

  • Ashland Public Library / 66 Front St / Ashland Massachusetts 01721

  • More info here.

  • Ph 508 881 0134 / Email: ashlandprograms@minlib.net

  • Kindly register here.

The photo: The teacup and saucer belonged to my mother, and was probably a wedding gift. She gave it to me when I turned into a serious tea drinker. Of course I’m afraid to use it, but I keep it where I can see it every day… and wonder if she ever drank tea from it. She was a coffee drinker (black, always) all the time I knew her.

"A Duke in Shining Armor" eBook on sale for $1.99

The eBook edition of the first Difficult Dukes book, A Duke in Shining Armor, is available for a short time for $1.99. Sometimes these deals go on for weeks. Sometimes it’s only a few days. This came up on Bookperk, a HarperCollins daily newsletter.* You might want to subscribe, to get daily news about deals, new books, giveaways, etc. For instance, if you, like me, are a Terry Pratchett fan, you might be interested in the reissue of the City Watch series.

If you already own A Duke in Shining Armor, thank you!

If you don’t, here’s a chance to try it for only a couple of bucks.

*For readers in Canada, here’s the newsletter link.

Two Nerdy History Girls on YouTube

The Two Nerdy History Girls Ride Again 2024-07-15, courtesy Meena Jain and the Ashland Public Library

Once again historical novelist Susan Holloway Scott and I had a great time talking nerdy history with our most excellent host/superior moderator, Meena Jain, Library Director of the Ashland Public Library, in Ashland, Massachusetts.

As always, the discussion ranged hither and yon, as we did our best to respond to questions from the audience. But we did devote some time to an unfamiliar-to-many-people garment, the under-waistcoat, as part of a discussion of men’s attire. Apparently, it’s not an easy garment to comprehend in this day and age. Even waistcoats, the regular variety, are not familiar garments to many people.

For those who have watched or will be watching the video and trying to picture the item, here are a couple of images. That red V in the men’s fashion print is the under-waistcoat. It’s a bit more obvious in the portrait, although the museum tells us he’s wearing two shirts. No. The style is different because the images are thirty years apart, and waistcoats changed, much as women’s fashions changed.

From The Dictionary of Fashion History: “A sleeveless waistcoat, shorter than the over-waistcoat but extending a little above its upper edge; the visible portion of rich fabric contrasting in colour with that of the overgarment. Most fashionable ca 1825-1840 when several under-waistcoats might be worn, * one above the other; in the 1840s its use was becoming restricted to evening wear, ceasing to be fashionable after ca. 1850.” It’s revived later in the century under a different name, but let’s not add to the confusion with alternate names.

We touched on other topics, but I’ll leave it to you to ask questions, if you have any, by heading over to my Contact page. Please be aware that during these chats we don’t know what questions to expect, and the answers aren’t always on the tip of our tongues. There were a couple I could have answered more intelligently with a little preparation or time to reflect. But that’s part of the fun: not knowing what’s going to come up.

The program is on YouTube on the Ashland Public Library’s channel. You can watch it by clicking here. Or you can look up the title, “The Two Nerdy History Girls Ride Again! 7.15.2024.” Or you can cut and paste this link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_9F-xqxxQqM

*!!!!!

Images: L-Saliceti, Cristoforo, by Jean-Baptiste-Joseph Wicar ca 1800, Chrysler Museum of Art. R-Fashion Plate 20 March 1833, French, © Victoria and Albert Museum.