Word Wenches

WWR—What We've Read in November

Anne here, and this month we have a bumper crop of recommended reads for you, from YA to timeslip, to Christmas treats, romance, literary fiction, crime and more.

We'll start with Christina: This month I’ve read and enjoyed a couple of books recommended by fellow Wenches. First and foremost, The Christmas Escape by Sarah Morgan which was exactly as wonderful as I had hoped. The fact that it is set in snowy Lapland in the north of Sweden was just the icing on the cake! I now long to go there to take sleigh rides through the forests and see the aurora borealis in all its glory.

Then there was Boyfriend by Sarina Bowen, which I thoroughly enjoyed. I was very happy to find that it was the first in a series penned by different authors, all connected through the fictional US college Moo U in Vermont. The second book in the series, Blindsided by Victoria Denault, was just brilliant! As well as keeping up with hockey practice and his studies, hockey star Tate Adler is trying to save his family’s farm by doing an illicit side job. Their neighbours the Todds have their own problems. They are sworn enemies so when fellow student Maggie Todd finds out what Tate is doing, she doesn’t hesitate to blackmail him. But whenever they meet, sparks fly and their chemistry is off the charts. Can they risk a relationship or will the feud remain forever? This love story was just explosive and I loved every minute of it. I’m now reading my way through the rest of the series.

A friend also recommended a brilliant YA series by L.J. Shen, starting with Pretty Reckless. It’s raw and angsty with a lot of misunderstandings, but I’m thoroughly enjoying these stories too. Penn Scully is from the wrong end of town with a drug addict mother and a deadbeat step-father, while Daria Followhill is a rich and spoiled princess. He believes she took away the only thing he ever loved and is out for revenge. When Penn’s mother dies, Daria’s parents decide to take him in as a foster son and he can set his plans in motion. As for Daria, she’s tired of always coming second in her mother’s eyes and wants to lash out at everyone and everything. But things don’t go to plan for either of them …

Next comes Pat, who says: If you’re in a literary mood, Anne Tyler is always a good bet.

In REDHEAD BY THE SIDE OF THE ROAD, Micah Mortimer, is a 40-something computer tech. He’s the youngest of a large, messy family, and in consequence, he’s a tad obsessive about keeping his personal life contained, so contained that he has a bad habit of shutting doors on the world. The story follows Micah through a series of events that opens his eyes to what he’s been missing all his life. There’s no violence, no sex, just a lovely journey of discovery told by a fabulously talented writer. It’s wonderful to settle in for the evening in safe hands—I didn’t skim a single page!  

What We're Reading in January!

Nicola here, introducing this month’s What We’re Reading. As usual we’ve got an interesting mix, and we’re really looking forward to hearing about your latest reads as well. Looking at my Kindle, all the most recent books on there are recommendations I’ve picked up from the other Wenches and these posts.

Having read every single one of the Jayne Castle Harmony and Rainshadow series, with attendant dust bunnies, I turned to the Arcane series and now to the Fogg Lake series, which is a contemporary romantic suspense trilogy with paranormal elements. There’s a Midwich Cuckoos vibe going on here. Years ago, the small town of Fogg Lake experienced something called The Incident, a mysterious explosion in the cave system beneath the town. The residents were knocked unconscious and when they recovered, they found they had new psychic powers.

Book 1 in the series is The Vanishing,written under her Jayne Ann Krentz name. Catalina Lark and her friend Olivia St Clair witness a murder when they are teens but no one believes them as it took place in the caves of their hometown Fogg Lake, and people think they were hallucinating. Years later, Olivia disappears and it becomes clear that someone is hunting the witnesses to the murder. Catalina sets out to find her friend with the help of Slater Arganbright, a mysterious operative from a shadowy law enforcement agency called The Foundation.

There are lots of parallels with the futuristic books in terms of the special powers that the protagonists possess, the strong heroines and the very hot heroes and even hotter romance. But – no dust bunnies!

Fond of Fire

By Mary Jo

Taming fire was surely one of the most significant developments in human history.  Probably the discovery happened numerous times and numerous places, but the results were profound. Fire provided warmth, hot food, the ability to venture out into darkness, fire pottery and bricks.

It could also be a tool for long distance communication.  There's a marvelous scene in The Return of the King, the third Lord of the Rings movie, where signal fires are lit to summon the troops to battle.  It's breathtaking to watch the fires catch on distant peaks.

 

The Edible Yule Log

The Bûche de Noël

by Mary Jo

Yule logs have a long tradition in Northern European winter festivals, probably a fusion of winter solstice customs with Christian Christmas celebrations.  Traditionally a large log would be dragged into the house and lit on Christmas Eve and it was supposed to burn for at least three days, or better yet, till the New Year. 

This made a great deal of sense when household gathered around a hearth, but as times changed and hearths were replaced by wood burning stoves, what became of the Yule log?

Why, it became a cake!  In 19th century France, the Yule log tradition was transformed into the magnificent Bûche de Noël, a delicious roll cake designed to look like a Yule log.  The filling can be chocolate, vanilla, or perhaps chestnut cream.  (I always go for chocolate. <G>)  The icing is often chocolate but can a pale butter cream.  In either case, the icing is scored with a knife or fork to create the appearance of bark. 

The log is often decorated. There may be holiday items like little Clauses, but I like the traditional bright berries and meringue mushrooms designed to make the log look more foresty. 

I'd heard of Bûche de Noël cakes, but didn't meet up with them in person until fairly recently.  I was delighted when they appeared at my local gourmet market, saddened when the market no longer brought them in, and was ecstatic when a French bakery opened nearby and began to offer the real thing.  They were a stunner at Christmas Eve parties and disappeared until only smear of crumbs and icing were left.

More recently, they have started to appear in multiple markets, a happy benefit of globalization of food.  The one I got this year was less elaborate, but it still tasted very, very good!

Have you experience a Bûche de Noël?  If so, what did you think of it?  Did you imagine ancient northern forest--or was it mostly about the chocolate? <G> Tell me about it!

Mary Jo, with one large slice of log preserved in the freezer to surprise and delight later.

Magic Mall Moments!

By Mary Jo

I'm not a great lover of shopping, but every holiday season, I make sure to  visit Kenilworth Bazaar, a small friendly mall near me.  Every year, volunteers create a wonderful train garden with multiple trains and lots of different scenes.

This year's train garden covers all eras from cheery dinosaurs to a cow napping space ship!   The garden is large and there is always a crowd around the plastic walls as people of all ages delight in the whimsy and spectacle.

And watching the people is as much fun as watching the trains!  Have you ever seen a train garden?  If not, would you like to?

Mary Jo

 

We Wish You a Merry Christmas!

Nicola here, wishing you a very Happy Christmas to those who celebrate the festival and happy holidays to everyone celebrating their traditions. Today is the first day of Word Wenches’ annual tradition of short daily blogs over the Twelve Days of Christmas.

This year for the first time in as long as I can remember, and possibly the first time ever, I’m spending Christmas in a hotel. Every year for the past forever we’ve either been at home, hosting family and friends, or visiting them as their guests. This year, though, my mother-in-law went into a care home near my sister-in-law’s home in the North of England so we are staying nearby in order to see everyone over the festive season. I’m writing this before we go and I’m wondering what it will be like. The hotel promises all manner of wonderful treats: delicious food including the full Christmas dinner, festive afternoon tea, carols and other live music and the chance to work off all the food in the gym and pool. It sounds great. But even at Christmas I find I still think about writing – will it be the sort of hotel that would be a good setting for a murder mystery? What will our fellow guests be like? Will there be rows – or romances? (I’ll be taking note!) Will it snow??? All will no doubt be revealed as our Christmas trip progresses! Wherever you are in the world and however you celebrate, the Wenches wish everyone peace and joy in the year ahead.

How are you spending the holiday season? Will you be at home, or away? Are there any special holiday traditions you enjoy with family and friends? 

Cats and Christmas Trees!

Cats and Christmas trees

By Mary Jo

Cats have been around since time immemorial and Christmas trees became popular in the mid-19th century, when Victoria and Albert introduced the German custom of decorating trees into the British royal palaces and from there to most of the English speaking world. (In other words, they went viral. <G>)

And if Victoria had a cat, it probably climbed her tree.  But cameras, especially easy to use cell phone cameras, have really helped cats in Christmas trees become a true internet meme. (The image of the black and fallen tree is from Facebook and I think of it as "My work here is done. <G>)

At least a couple of times when I was a kid in our farmhouse, cats brought down our tree  and very messy it was. That hasn't happened in many years because tree stands are much more stable now.

I've had a few cats who were Christmas tree climbers, and many of them enthusiastically bat at low hanging ornaments.  ("Look, they hung all these nice play toys just for me!")

The cat below, right, is the Mayhem Consultant's cat, Reggie the Rascal.  Don't believe that innocent look.  He has climbed trees and he loves scooting up tree decorating ladders, then prowling the valances.

But mostly my cats are content to lounge underneath and possibly check the tags to see who gets what.  (That's PandaMax on the left, doing exactly that.)

 

The number of jokes about cats climbing trees and sometimes pulling trees them over got me to thinking about pets in Christmas trees in general.  Cats are small and agile and have claws designed for climbing.

Probably a ferret would also be a climber, but they aren't that common as pets. Parakeets and other pet birds can fly across a room and land on a branch and perhaps cause some damage if they're larger types like macaws. 

Dogs aren't built for climbing, but a friend of mine assures me that the enthusiastic wagging tail of a Labrador retriever can reap a serious harvest of ornaments!

Thus, the number one rule for pet owners who put up trees it to PUT UNBREAKABLE ORNAMENTS ON THE LOWER BRANCHES.

We have a nice collection of lightweight, hard to break plastic apples that look pretty and have a  high tolerance for being knocked across a room.  (They make a distinctive rattling sound as they roll merrily across a hardwood floor at 2:00 am.

So the bottom line is that with decorating care it's possible to have both pets and trees which is good for those of us who love both.

Do you have experiences with pets and Christmas trees?  Tell us about them!

Mary Jo

AAW: Word for 2023

Choose a Word for 2023:

by Mary Jo

Since 2022 is drawing to a close (already?!), it's time to think ahead about what we'd like in 2023. I've done this before here and in another group, but I think it's an interesting and mindful exercise to choose a word that can be a keyword or inspiration or talisman for the year ahead.

Do you want to EXPERIMENT and try something new? Learn to RELAX and let go of as much stress as you can? How about learning to FOCUS better? (That's a word I've claimed in the past!) Do you want to CLARIFY relationships or other elements in your life? Worth thinking about!

And the Wenches have been thinking about this!  Pat Rice is first:

I fear I very much live in the moment. Thinking or planning for a year doesn’t happen. Worse yet, I’m not inclined to meditation, inspiration, or reflecting on the past or future, possibly because I don’t believe I have much control over the events that most shape our lives. So I am hopeless at questions like these.

At best, I can plan for the events I want, and hope that eventually, the Fates will offer me opportunity. Does that constitute a keyword—opportunity? Once upon a time, I practiced writing, taught myself craft, wrote thousands of pages, and eventually, after years of sending out books, a new publisher decided to start a historical romance line and bought my book. I am not entirely certain opportunity encompasses all that.

 So I’ll simply choose the word ENJOY. While I’m wishing and hoping and plotting, I mean to enjoy the moment I’m in. If an opportunity to go out to lunch with friends interferes with my deadline, I’ll forget the deadline and enjoy the lunch because the chance might not come again.

Making Plans . . .

Hi all, Anne here.

We Word Wenches are currently making plans for the blog in 2023, so let us know what you enjoy about the blog.

And if you have any suggestions, ideas, or thoughts about what you'd like more of in the blog, less of, new features, please make them.

I can't guarantee we'll follow them, but we will certainly seriously consider them.

Thank you.

 

November What We're Reading!

by Mary Jo

Christina kicks off:

Snowed in for Christmas by Sarah Morgan.

Ms Morgan has done it again – I didn’t think she could improve on last year’s Christmas story, but this is her best one yet and I absolutely loved it! It was one of those books where you can’t wait to finish to see how it ends, but at the same time you are devastated to have to leave this fictional world. There is plenty of family drama, lots of delicious romance and some wonderful characters, all set against the backdrop of a gorgeous country house in the wilds of Scotland.

I think my favourite character was the grandmother, Nanna Jean, whose outspoken comments had me laughing out loud. I hope I can be like her when I’m old! One of the heroines, Lucy, has no family left and is dreading Christmas, but when she ends up spending it with the Miller family everything changes. She’s an outsider but they make her feel welcome and included, and it was incredibly heart-warming.

And although the family may seem perfect to her, they are far from it, with tensions and undercurrents rife. Daughters of the house, Alice and Clemmie, have their own problems and heartache, and I felt for them as they fought for what they wanted. Being snowed in proves to be a blessing, as they are all given the chance to work through their problems rather than run away from them. I was rooting for all of them every step of the way and couldn’t have put this book down if my life depended on it! Highly recommended.

 

Islands in the Sun

By Mary Jo

A week ago, I told you about the first part of our recent cruise vacation, which described London and the shipboard experience.  Today I want to talk about our three ports of call while we were still in European waters. 

Originally we were scheduled to stop in Tenerife in the Canary Islands, then Madeira, then Bermuda when the ship was most of the way across the Atlantic.  But Bermuda's landing requirements were so complicated and difficult that the cruise line canceled Bermuda and added in Lisbon as the first stop out of Britain.

Lisbon

Great idea!  We visited Lisbon once before on our way to cruising the Douro River in Northern Portugal, the cruise that inspired my book Once a Soldier.  I remember it as a hilly city of broad boulevards, which were a result of a devastating earthquake in 1755.  The destruction was vast, and much of the city was rebuilt according to more modern principles.

 

London Calling!

London calling!

by Mary Jo

Did you know that cruise ships migrate like birds?  In summer they flock to Europe, cruising from Nordic regions to the Mediterranean and more.  In autumn, they turn and head to the Western hemisphere, particularly the Caribbean.  They do this because tourists follow the sun, and so do the cruise ships.

This means that ships do repositioning cruises twice a year, spending days crossing the Atlantic with very few ports of call.  This is great if you like lots of lazy days at sea and the Mayhem Consultant and I do.  Hence we cruised from Southampton in England to Miami, with three stops in Europe and seven glorious sea days. 

 

Titles & Audiobooks

Answering Questions: Aristocratic Titles and Audiobooks

Compiled by Mary Jo

The Wenches invite readers to submit questions to us, and due to general overwork, two interesting questions got lost, but now are found.  So both questions are being answered today, and the questioners will each get a book from me.

Here is the first question from Rosa Berini Franco:

I would like to ask you about a question that has us debating several friends who are fond of historical romance.  The question is the following:

 When a distant relative inherits a title (e.g., earl) from someone who dies without direct heirs, do the sisters of that relative receive the courtesy title of lady?  By distant relative, I am referring to a fourth or fifth degree cousin who has no title whatsoever.

A Distant Magic

by Mary Jo

October 6th is the release date for A Distant Magic, the final book in my Georgian paranormal historical trilogy. 

The Trilogy

In Book 1, A Kiss of Fate, Duncan Macrae is the most powerful weather mage in Britain.

In Book 2, Stolen Magic, Simon, Lord Falconer, is the Guardian enforcer.

In A Distant Magic, Nikolai Gregorio is a crusader, and his life and soul are dedicated to ending slavery. 

 

Cruising the Duoro River

By Mary Jo:

I'm well down the road to insanity as I try to finish a book by mid-October, so I'm invoking Wenchly privilege to rerun an older blog with some editing where appropriate.  What I chose is this long ago 2006 blog describing a riverboat cruise along the Douro River into Spain.

I first read about riverboat cruising in a magazine several years ago, and promptly decided I wanted to give it a try.  I’ve done several ocean cruises, especially in the Caribbean, but rivers in Europe sounded different and fascinating.  The boats are much smaller, holding maybe 130 or so people, and the venues are fabulous. 

Much of European civilization developed along rivers, and traveling them would be a wonderful way of seeing Europe without a lot of packing and unpacking.  The boats park in the center of towns and cities, and one can seen a great deal of the countryside in peace and comfort.  The quintessential riverboat cruises follow the great rivers of northern and eastern Europe: the Rhine, the Elbe, the Danube, etc. 

Ask A Wench About Chocolate!

Nicola here, with this month's Ask A Wench. It’s US National Choose your Chocolate Day (but that doesn’t mean that the rest of us can’t join in, right?) So here on the Wenches, we decided to chat about our relationship with chocolate. Is it a love story or a break up story? How long have we known chocolate for and how has our relationship with chocolate developed? 

Christina: I can’t remember a time when I didn’t know what chocolate was – it’s my main vice, the one thing I don’t think I could give up! As a child, I remember eating something called ‘Guldnougat’, which was basically a chocolate bar that was a mixture of milk chocolate and hazelnut paste (this is usually called Gianduja in the UK). It was incredibly messy to eat as it tended to melt when clutched in a small warm hand, but I adored it. Swedish chocolate on the whole is delicious, especially anything made by the most famous brand Marabou. Personally, I prefer the types without anything added other than nuts, but they have just about every flavour under the sun.

Stolen Magic!

by Mary Jo

Stolen Magic,Book 2 of my long out of print Guardian paranormal historical trilogy, will be released tomorrow (September 8th) in ebook and print.  (The audio is already available.) As with all my stories with fantasy elements, I use the name M. J. Putney to differentiate them from straight historical romances.

The Characters and Story:

Duncan Macrae, the hero of book 1, A Kiss of Fate, is dark and Scottish and literally a force of nature, a weather mage who could call the winds and change the course of battles.  His lady, Gwynne Owens, is English and a Guardian who thinks she has little magic. Until passion unlocks her powers, which are great enough make her Duncan's match, and his nemesis.

Simon, Lord Falconer, the hero of Stolen Magic, is English, blond, and very different from his close friend, Duncan Macrae. As the chief enforcer of the Guardians, he is known for his immense power combined with rigorous control and integrity.  This makes Simon respected, feared, and sometimes hated.   He believes he is doomed to be forever alone until a mission to punish the rogue Guardian Lord Drayton goes horribly wrong and he is transformed into a unicorn.

Simon escapes with the aid of Meg, another of Drayton's victims.  She's a mysterious sprite with wild magic unlike anything Simon has ever seen before, and she can temporarily restore him to his human form.  They pledge to do whatever is necessary to bring down Drayton. The need for each other’s magic binds them together–and releases the more ancient magic of passion. But even the combined powers of Simon and Meg may not be enough to stave off catastrophe for all Britain. Only a desperate act of love may win back the future–or destroy all they hold dear.

 

Turkish Delight!

Turkish Delight

By Mary Jo

In April and May of this year, we took a marvelous cruise from Italy to Istanbul.  I've written three blogs already:

The first was our time in Northern Italy, staying at a grand hotel on the legendary Lake Maggiore, and enjoying the all time best, warm-hearted wine tasting:

https://wordwenches.typepad.com/word_wenches/2022/05/italian-lakes.html    

Next was cruising down the Eastern Adriatic and visiting several amazingly beautiful and hospitable countries. (That's Kotor, Montenegro on the right.)

https://wordwenches.typepad.com/word_wenches/2022/05/adriatic-shores.html 

Next was Greece, mother of so much Western European culture, where we saw several splendid islands as well as notable mainland sites:

https://wordwenches.typepad.com/word_wenches/2022/06/greek-highlights.html 

 

Ask A Wench — Bird Watching.

Anne here, and today the wenches are talking about birds. A few weeks ago, when we were chatting on line, as we often do, we started to share bird stories, and it transpired that we were all very fond of birds. So the question we each answer today is this: What are some of your favorite birds, and where do you get to see them?

Nicola: As a child I loved the English garden birds such as the robin, which I read about in my books and saw when I visited my grandparents. We lived in the city and had a tiny garden but my grandparents lived in the countryside and were surrounded by nature. My grandfather was a keen gardener who knew all the different birds we’d find when we were outside and would point out to me the blackbirds, blue tits and sparrows. It wasn’t until I travelled abroad as an adult that I realised that birds with similar names could be quite different in other countries! I loved seeing an American Robin, for example, and was surprised how different it looked from a European one – except for the orange chest!

My dh is a keen birdwatcher and far more interested and knowledgeable than I, and when we moved to our village in Oxfordshire, we became involved with Royal Society for the Protection of Birds in species protection. It was an exciting time; we had one of the rarest birds in the UK, the Montagu’s Harrier, nesting locally. This beautiful bird of prey is very common in some other countries but not in England. For a number of years, we monitored the breeding pairs and the nests and learned so much about them. Sadly, the harriers are long gone from our area now but instead we have red kites which are also stunning birds. I love the kites, which are a successful re-introduction into the UK. In the Middle Ages they were common and would fly over towns and cities looking for scraps of food to eat. With their forked tails they were known as “devil birds.” They died out but now they are back and I enjoy seeing them up on the hills and flying over the village.

A Kiss of Fate!

by Mary Jo

A Kiss of Fate, Guardian Trilogy #1

I'm delighted to finally be re-releasing my Guardian paranormal historical trilogy, the last of my backlist trilogies that were still in the closet The stories are set in the 18th century Georgian era and the main characters are Guardians, people who have magical abilities and are sworn to use them to help others.  But being sure of when that's the case can be a challenge!

The heroes and heroines are strong, the romances are intense, and the stories are woven around real, powerful history.  All three show what happened behind the scenes to make history turn out the way we know it.

If you enjoy the intelligent, honorable characters who star in my traditional historical romances, I think you'll love these stories as much as I do. (I use M. J. Putney for all my stories with fantasy elements so readers can tell which are straight historical and which have some magic.)

Two Winners!

Anne here, and I'm posting the names of the two people who've won a copy of my new book, The Rake's Daughter.

The first name was drawn from the many people who answered the impossible quiz on a book they hadn't yet read — such good sports you all were. The winner there was Alison B.

The second winner is Anne H, for leaving a comment about rakes on the interview Mary Jo did with me. Thank you to all those who shared their favorite rakes. 

I've emailed both winners privately.

Thank you to all who participated in the fun. The wenchly reader community is a truly wonderful group.

Anne Gracie chats about The Rake's Daughter

Mary Jo here. As always, I'm delighted to interview sister Word Wench Anne Grace on her delicious new book.  The Rake's Daughter  is second in her Brides of Bellaire Gardens series.  Besides being a lovely romance, it's a moving story of friendship and sisterhood.

The book was released yesterday, July 26th. 

MJP: Anne, will you tell us about  the set-up and setting for this series?

AG: The series is based around a large private garden in Mayfair, with access only from the back of the houses that surround it. In some of these house live young women, young women who will one day become brides . . . 

MJP:  How did Leo, Lord Salcott, a sober and hard working young lord, find himself landed with the guardianship of a young woman he's never even heard of?

AG: It was a mistake. The father of the two young women, the Rake of the title, meant to leave the guardianship to Leo's father, naming him "Josiah Leonard Thorne, the sixth earl of Salcott." But Leo's father was the fifth earl, and seeing both Leo and his father had the same Christian names, and his father had predeceased the rake, the document was legal.

MJP: Tell us about the two half-sisters, Clarissa and Isobel.

AG: Clarissa is the legitimate daughter. She is plain, shy, a little plump, and an heiress. Isobel, her illegitimate half sister, is beautiful, outspoken, and penniless.

The two lonely, motherless little girls met by accident, just before their ninth birthdays, and defying their father, who planned to dump the newly bereaved Isobel in the nearest orphanage, decided to stay together. You can read part of this scene here. The two sisters grew up together in the country, and are very loyal to each other.

Christmas in July!

The Best Husband Money Can Buy

By Mary Jo

Here in the US, a heat dome is producing some very hot weather.  Since it isn't possible to teleport Down Under for cool winter weather, Christmas in July sounds pretty good!

I've never turned down the chance to write a Christmas story, so I've written quite a few holiday tales.  Since I've regained the rights to some of the earlier ones, I've released a pair of holiday story collections, Christmas Candles and Christmas Revels. In recent years I've start to publish individual stories in standalone e-versions and at the same time producing audiobook versions because a lot of people really enjoy audios: The Christmas Cuckoo, The Black Beast of Belleterre, Sunshine for Christmas.

This year I chose "The Best Husband Money Can Buy" for the standalone e-book and audio treatment, and tomorrow (July 14th) the e-book version will be released.  The audio version should go live on October 13th in the run up to Christmas.  Once again the wonderful Siobhan Waring is doing the narration and I'm looking forward to hearing her purring the story into my ears. <G> The story:

Emma Stone was raised as part of a large, loving aristocratic family, but after she was orphaned and left penniless, she became a tired, lonely governess. Then through an act of kindness, she inherits an unexpected fortune and realizes that she can now have the husband and family she craves.

 Anthony Vaughn, the dashing distant cousin she'd admired as a child now needs a fortune to pay his father's debts and preserve his family estate. Together they strike a bargain—even though Emma knows she risks not only her fortune but her heart…

 "Best Husband" was published in Christmas Candles along with "Mad, Bad, and Dangerous to Know," the one Western story I've ever written, which turned out to a good partner because both stories involve Christmas candles lighting up windows to beckon weary travelers to the warmth and welcome of home.

Finding good images for covers is always a challenge, but I really like how this cover turned out.  That good looking, laughing young man fits my image of Anthony, who was a very charming fellow. He brightens Emma, and she steadies him and give him purpose. In other words, it's a happy ending!

Christmas Candles and my other holiday collection, Christmas Revels were originally published several years ago, and at the time, I also had print on demand editions released. 

However, more recently the specifications for POD were changed and my print editions of these two collections disappeared. I didn't notice until I started work on the Best Husband release and found that print editions weren't available. Ooops!  But that's being worked on now and some time in the next few weeks, print will be available for those who prefer it. Lots and lots of Christmas,  <G>

If you're looking for some virtual snow, here's the buy link for The Best Husband Money Can Buy . There are even snow angels in the story!

Mary Jo

 

 

 

 

June What We're Reading!

Mary Jo here…

…with the Wenches' ever popular "What we're reading" blog.  Dig out your credit cards, we're going for a joy ride!

I've always known that Jennifer Ashley is a very talented, prolific author who writes historical romances, paranormals, and historical mysteries, but I hadn't found her Leonidas the Gladiator series, written under her Ashley Gardner pseudonym.  So far there are only two novels and a novella, but more are coming.  The first book is Blood of a Gladiator.

Leonidas is the premier gladiator in Rome, a rock star fighter who is recognized in the streets, but he has reached the point where he can't face any more killing.  That is the moment when he receives his freedom from slavery and can finally quit being a gladiator and make his own life--if he can figure out how.

He has no financial resources, but an unknown benefactor gives him a modest apartment and a slave of his own: Cassia, who is a scribe.  Illiterate Leonidas doesn't know what to do with  a slave who does doesn't cook or do housework, but she can help him find jobs and is very good at negotiating contracts and making sure they get paid. 

Initially Cassia is afraid of him, but he's a good guy and doesn't ravish her and gradually they develop a bond of trust.  And have to deal with unexpected murders.  Ashley Gardner creates a wonderful sense of place and what it would be like to live in Rome during the reign of Nero.  But the best part is the characters and their slowing developing relationship. 

 

Ask A Wench: our noble ancestors!

Jean Hasbrouck House

Pat here:

The wenches thank Jane Irish Nelson for this fabulous question: Have you traced your family history? If so, what interesting stories have you discovered? And have you ever incorporated those stories into your books? Jane, you’ve won a copy of one of my books!

Wenches, being the history nuts we are, have delved into the lives and stories of our ancestors where we can and have some fabulous tales to tell…

Except me. I may have mentioned previously that both my parents were orphaned, my mother at birth and my father when he was young. I never had biological grandparents and have no family stories to tell. But after doing the DNA search on one of the genealogy sites and consulting with a cousin, I’ve traced bits and pieces. My father’s ancestors were deeply rooted in the Hudson

Huguenot cemetery

Valley of New York, well back to the original settlers. (There was a good deal of intermarriage in these early families. The same names pop up frequently on the tree.)  One of them has even written a small book with all the research he has done, although I seem to have lost the link. I have pages of research notes from family members, and all I can say is that I’m pretty sure that side of the family came from a lot of vain storytellers with too much time on their hands. <G> If I follow their irregular notes, I am descended from half of European nobility.

Greek Highlights

by Mary Jo

All of the destinations on this cruise were interesting, but I particularly wanted to see Greece and Turkey, and I was not disappointed!

Corfu: 

Our first Greek port was the island of Corfu, which is the extreme northwestern corner of Greece with Albania easily visible across a narrow sea. (It's also the setting for the Mary Stewart novel This Rough Magic.) 

The island has an abundance of history and has been under many rulers, including the Venetian Empire and the Ottomans.  (The same is true of the rest of Greece.) Our Viking cruise had numerous excursions options, but we decided to for "See Corfu by 4x4." This meant joining a small convoy of itty bitty Suzuki four wheel drive vehicles and climbing up up a dramatic mountain.

 

What We Read in May

Anne here, and it's that time again, where we share the books we've read and enjoyed in the last month. Brace your credit cards . . . 

We start with Christina:
My favourite read this month was Sue Moorcroft’s latest novel Summer at the French Café.  This story is an absolute delight and exactly what I needed right now to sweep me away from real life! It’s a wonderful tale of learning to trust, the importance of being open and honest with everyone, and the healing power of love. The reader can’t help but empathise with the hard-working heroine Kat from the start. She’s independent and capable, but with a positive outlook on life, and she never complains even when things go decidedly pear-shaped. A child of divorced parents, she has lots of emotional baggage, but for the most part, she manages to ignore it. Then the hero Noah arrives on the scene and he seems almost too good to be true. He has his own problems to contend with, but instead of charging in like a bull in a china shop, he stops to consider the best way of solving them. I fell head over heels in love with him – how can you not love a man as determined as he is to do the right thing for his very sensitive 8-year old daughter, while at the same time being the perfect boyfriend? Kat has to decide whether she dares to take a chance and believe that he is every bit as great as he seems, and I was rooting for this couple all the way. This is definitely the perfect summer story!  (If the links above don't work for you, try this one.)

I also very much enjoyed Under One Roof, a novella by Ali Hazelwood which she calls “STEMist”. The heroine Mara is an environmental engineer and extremely brilliant at what she does, but she’s fighting against sexism and prejudice in her workplace. She’s just been left a half share in a house by her former mentor, but she hadn’t reckoned with having to share it with the woman’s nephew Liam. At first glance he is everything she hates – a corporate lawyer working for a company that has no regard for the environment whatsoever. They try to co-exist as house owners, but drive each other nuts. But everything is not as it seems, and slowly but surely they begin to find common ground. I absolutely loved the chemistry between these two and watching the romance develop. This is only the first novella in a series of three and I can’t wait for the other two!

Pat Rice tells us about: SEVEN DAYS OF US by Francesca Hornak.

The basic story here is that Olivia Birch has been treating some kind of plague in Africa and when she comes home for Christmas, she has to quarantine for a week. So her family quarantines with her in their stately old, crumbling manor in Norfolk. Olivia is the no-nonsense doctor out to save the world. Andrew, her father, was a journalist who once thought he could save the world. Now he’s a food critic. Emma, his wife, gave up her dreams to be a mother and has buried herself in tradition. Phoebe is the younger sister with no purpose other than getting married. Into this suffocating atmosphere drops Jesse, an American son fathered by Andrew while he was in a war zone. He had been given up for adoption and is now searching for his birth parents. Nuclear explosion ensues.

Make no mistake about it, this is a deliberately literary novel, so you won’t get your fun and games happy ending, but the writing is positively compelling. The reader is dragged into their mixed-up lives and really needs to know how all these good, but confused, people fix themselves or each other. We root them on as they grope about in their darkness. I can promise that they find a new kind of light at the end of their week of togetherness, so it’s well worth diving into for your escapism addiction.

Adriatic Shores

Adriatic Shores

By Mary Jo

I've written about the first part of our Italy to Istanbul cruise, and now it's time for part two, visiting countries on the eastern coast of the Adriatic Sea. 

Croatia

First up was Croatia, a beautiful country with mountains and a long stretch of sea coast.  Dubrovnik is perhaps its best known city, and it's spectacular.  We visited several years ago so instead of touring the city, we visited places in the country.  Above is a view of Dubrovnik from a road above the town. You can see the round shape, the walled city, and the orange roofs. We visited several years ago.  On the right is a picture of one of its steep, stepped streets. I loved all the greenery along the steps!

 

Italian Lakes

Cruising 2022:  Northern Italian Lakes

by Mary Jo

With the pandemic fading, the world has opened up again and the Wenches are now traveling!  Pat Rice has written about Italy and her Southeastern coastal, while Christina has just posted about her recent visit to Roman sites in Italy.

Now it's my turn.  We're just back from a two week cruise on Viking Ocean that we'd booked in 2019.  You know why it was delayed!  But it was an itinerary worth waiting for.  Venice to Istanbul, plus we'd booked a pre-cruise extension in Northern Italy at the famous lakes that lie along the edge of the Alps. 

Covid caused more changes than the years of delay. I've never had to deal with such a complicated and stressful set of hurdles for a vacation.  There were masses of online forms and apps to be filled out, and I LOATHE having to enter so much info on my cell phone because I'm terrible at using itty bitty electronic keyboards.  It was complicated! But I managed all those, along with the equal stress of arranging Covid tests for just before we left.  It's not easy to get the right timing for the tests and have lab certified results within a very narrow frame of 1 to 3 days before leaving. But we managed that, too.

 

May Day, May Day!

By Mary Jo

A recent Wench blog by Christina had us describing our personal Easter customs and memories, which I much enjoyed, though I didn't have much to contribute. (I forgot to mention that we dye Easter eggs.  And then devil and eat them. <G>)

But it got me to thinking about a little custom that I hadn't thought about in literally decades: my older sister and I making little paper cones, putting in a few flowers, generally daffodils since not much else was blooming then in Upstate New York, and taking them around to the neighbors.  We lived on a rural road with not many houses within walking distance, but it was a pleasant little custom.

I remember one year when my sister had outgrown the custom so I went around on my own.  There were a lot of Polish immigrants in our area of Western New York because there was plenty of good farm land.  I didn't notice much difference in the kids at my school except that the Polish kids tended to be blonder. But many had Polish grandmothers at home. 

On this particular year, I went to a small house on the corner of the state highway where we lived and a nearby dirt road. The little house had been a schoolhouse once, and my own father once was a student there.  (When I think back, this is all pretty remarkable but at the time it was perfectly natural.)

 

Woof?!

Random thoughts about dogs

By Mary Jo

Anyone who knows me or has read my books probably knows I'm a cat person, but that doesn't mean I can't appreciate the wonderfulness of dogs.  Many of my friends have great dogs and I always love hearing their canine stories. We had lots of cats on the farm when I was a kid, but only one dog: a friendly family basset hound called Bootsy.  (The picture on the left isn't Bootsy, but the look is very similar.)

The name basset is French and derives from the word bas, meaning low, so they are "low hounds."  Bassets are large dogs with very short legs, so they are low but not small.  Bootsy had a baritone bark that would do credit to the Hound of the Baskervilles. <G>  (My book Shattered Rainbows had a basset known as Louis the Lazy.)