My youngest daughter, Bubbles, is seven years old today. I have become a cliché; that mom who cannot believe how fast the time has flown past and who cannot fathom how here “baby” has become a big girl so quickly. It feels as though it were yesterday that I brought her home from the hospital.… Read more Happy 7th Birthday Bubbles!
Can I just say, AGAIN, that with it being so close to the release of Mansfield Parsonage on the 28th, that I am a mass of jitters? I am so hopeful that you all will enjoy the book, and that will delight Austen fans. But why did I chose Mansfield Park, out of all of… Read more Mansfield Parsonage awaits!
Woot! I now have a firm date for the release of my new novel, Mansfield Parsonage! The book, a retelling of Jane Austen’s Mansfield Park from anti-heroine Mary Crawford’s point of view, will be available for purchase on 28 January 2017 … which is also the first day of the Chinese New Year! It will… Read more Release Date for Mansfield Parsonage!!
Yesterday my husband and I took our children to Margam Country Park, which is near Port Talbot in south Wales. It is more than 800 acres of pretty landscape and and home of some remarkable historic buildings. To wit: the ruins of Margam Abbey, the Margam Orangery from the Regency period, and Margam Castle. Thus,… Read more Ruins and Regency
The holiday season in the Georgian era was as much like the Yuletide of the Tudor time period as it was like our modern Christmas. Regency holiday traditions sprang from the same combination of Roman and Pagan midwinter rituals as the Medieval ones. Even Oliver Cromwell couldn’t eradicate this festive ideology from the zeitgeist when he… Read more Merry Christmas!
I just got some bad news. Due to an issue with the book layout my publisher just caught, the book launch will be delayed. Since it is almost Christmas, and the Western world tends to shut down and back up at Christmas, the book may not come out until early January now. Well, poop. I’ll… Read more Alas! Woe! Delay!
Mansfield Parsonage comes out this Friday, and I am both a nervous wreck and hella excited all at the same time. It being my first piece of fiction prose, I am as anxious for a good reception as I was for my first “baby”, Blood Will Tell. For some reason, the nonfiction books became easier… Read more December at Mansfield Parsonage
The second wife of French Emperor Napoleon Bonaparte, Maria Ludovica Leopoldina Franziska Therese Josepha Lucia, was born 12 December 1791, the first child of Emperor Francis II of Austria by his second wife, Maria Theresa of Naples and Sicily. Her name was revised to the more Francophone form, Maria Louise, when she wed Napoleon in… Read more Happy Birthday to Marie Louise, Duchess of Parma
The end of last week was a busy, busy time for the Kramers. First, our things finally arrived from the USA! Although they took months longer to get her than I expected, 99.9% of my things were unbroken and undamaged … which is excellent considering the miles behind them. Basically, my tea trolley will need… Read more Our First Christmas Panto!
For the next 6 weeks it is going to be all Regency Era, all the time here. Why? Because on 16 December (the birthday of She Who Is Greatness – Jane Austen) my book Mansfield Parsonage will be released by Made Global Publishers. This makes me soooooooo happy! The book is a retelling of Austen’s… Read more The Regency Era, Mansfield Park, and Me