Friday, December 23, 2016

Merry Christmas, Everyone!


I have both my girls coming home this holiday season: Samantha and her husband (and Maddie, Zydeco, Loki, and Odin, too) are here already, and Danielle and Ryan arrive the day after Christmas. The fact that they're all going to be here at the same time set me on a mad scramble to paint Dani's old room and get it fixed up with a double bed in time for the holidays. But everything is now finished--room painted, bed delivered, tree up, house decorated, presents wrapped. I've shelved my writing until after the new year (with just 35 pages left in the 13th Sebastian book!), and now I'm simply settling down to enjoy my family and the holidays.


It's a full house, with eight cats, one dog, four people, and two more soon to come (thankfully Danielle's two cats aren't coming, too!), but Maddie is the Queen and she knows it. She is SO BIG, and still as sweet (and bad) as ever. She especially likes the village under the tree. Ahem.


Huckleberry always loved the tree and village so much that I must admit it was hard putting it up without his help. BUT, my little Peanut is still on the mend, and while I can't completely relax, I think she is going to make it. And my son-in-law, while still so terribly ill, was able to make it here for Christmas, so we are thankful for that. And Steve is now walking well enough that he was able to put up the crown molding in Danielle's room (that was the one room in the house that didn't have it).

I know things could have been so much worse, but this has been a pretty awful year, so here's hoping for a better 2017. Happy Holidays, everyone!

Saturday, December 10, 2016

Some Updates


First, an update on Peanut: She's still with us, and while I don't want to jinx anything, she seems to have turned a corner. She's now eating on her own and is bathing herself, and we've been able to stop the subcutaneous fluids. It's been a hard (and expensive!!!) two weeks, and we're still not relaxing entirely, but we're hopeful. She also now officially hates my guts.

And here's a lovely review of my new standalone historical, Good Time Coming, from the Historical Novel Society:

https://historicalnovelsociety.org/the-personal-loss-of-war-as-illustrated-in-c-s-harris-good-time-coming/




Thursday, December 01, 2016

Release Day!


Today is the U.S. publication date for GOOD TIME COMING, my standalone historical, that should now be available everywhere in all formats.

I'd planned to do all sorts of promotional things for this book, but they all collapsed in the face of the awful year that has been 2016. At the moment we're fighting to keep alive our little Peanut, the runt of the litter my daughter rescued just seven years ago. So I will post links here to two interviews I've done in which I talk about the book and my writing. The interviewers asked some great questions and are well worth the read.

The first is with Layered Pages at:
https://layeredpages.com/2016/12/01/interview-with-best-selling-author-c-s-harris/

The second is here:
https://nicoleevelina.com/2016/11/28/interview-with-bestselling-historical-novelist-c-s-harris/

More soon, hopefully. I just want this year to end.

Friday, November 04, 2016

PW's Review of GOOD TIME COMINGhttp://csharris.blogspot.com/


My new standalone historical, GOOD TIME COMING, has received a wonderful review from Publishers Weekly. Here are a few excerpts (I'm not printing the entire thing because I thought it gave away a bit too much of the story):

In a distinct departure from her popular Sebastian St. Cyr mystery series, Harris tells a powerful story of war's destruction of property, people, hopes and morals during the Civil War in Louisiana. This is top-notch historical fiction, thoroughly researched and vividly presented, revealing the Civil War in all its brutality. . . 

. . . an excellent story, full of suspense and historical detail.

I've also received a starred review from Booklist, but I can't put that up until it's officially out on November 15.

AND while I'm still waiting for final approval from New York, I think I may have a title of Sebastian #13: Why Not the Innocent?

Saturday, October 29, 2016

Fall!

When I was a kid, my favorite time of year was always summer. It was a no brainer: no school, and long days spent playing outside in the sun or reading, reading, reading. As the mother of young children I still loved summer, spent largely at the beach or exploring the Adelaide Hills with my girls. Then I moved to New Orleans. Summers here are brutal and endless, and my heat tolerance seems to have gone away. So my new favorite season is autumn, when the mornings are actually cool and I can work out in the garden without suffering heat stroke. It's wonderful.

I'm still chugging away at my next Sebastian book, #13, which still has no title (yeah, I'm starting to panic about that). It should be finished by now, but I am having a hard time concentrating thanks to the election. (I will be so glad when it is over!) I've also been doing the research for the World War II novella I'll be writing. Research is always fun, and it's the one thing that can distract me from obsessively reading about the you-know-what.

My new standalone historical, GOOD TIME COMING, has received some wonderful reviews, including a starred review from Booklist. I hope to get those up next week. In other news, Steve is gradually improving, but my son-in-law had surgery last week and we're waiting on test results. Scary times. On a lighter note, here's a picture my daughter sent me of Maddie, who's growing up fast. She and Zydeco may be coming to stay with us again. More soon.




Wednesday, October 05, 2016

Lots of Stuff


Yeah, I know I've been MIA again. So, THINGS:

First of all, I've spent the last few weeks going over the galleys for WHERE THE DEAD LIE, coming in April 2017. This is always exciting because it means the book is that much closer to going into production. I've also been correcting the galleys for the paperback version of WHEN FALCONS FALL. Penguin has decided to shift the paperback releases from mass market size to trade. Some people love trade paperbacks, some people hate them. (And others with my OCD tendencies will no doubt object to their collection of the series now being in different sizes--grrr.) The rationale for the change is that outlets such as Target prefer trades and others such as Barnes and Noble keep trades in the store longer than mm. My mm sales have always been sluggish since my readers tend to buy my books when they first come out in either hardcover or ebook.  So basically they are looking for new readers who typically buy trade paperbacks. Anyway, here's the cover for the new trade reprint. I asked them to put more of the original blue and green coloration back in the painting, and they sorta did.


Bouchercon was fun but a bit hectic, and marred by the fact that the hotel had a bad case of mold in their ventilation system. Katrina left me with mold-agrevated adult-onset asthma, so that's part of why I've been missing the last few weeks. Anyway, my panel was great, and Andrew Grant proved to be a fantastic moderator. But what I want to know is, Why do I look like a little kid in this picture? Am I really this short?! Or was everyone else on that panel tall?



And now for the big reveal: I am taking part in a new historical mystery anthology with Susanna Kearsley, Anna Lee Huber, and Christine Trent. Currently titled THE JACOBITE'S WATCH and pitched as in the tradition of The Red Violin, this collection of four novellas will range from the mid-1700s until World War II and tell the story of an infamous pocket watch that wrecks havoc in the lives of those who seek to contain its mysterious force. My novella will be the final one, set in World War II in Kent. The anthology is scheduled to be published sometime in 2018, and should be a lot of fun. So more on this to come.

And, finally, thanks to everyone for your kind thoughts on our recent troubles. My son-in-law is improving daily (although a diagnosis as to what caused his near-death experiences is frighteningly still elusive . . .) Steve has his cast off and is slowly regaining strength in his leg; I've now hurt MY leg and can barely walk. (I'm beginning to think it's a curse . . . ) Fortunately, I no longer have the dog to exercise, although Steve and I both miss Maddie and Zydeco desperately. We're looking forward to them coming to visit at Christmas. (Oh, yeah, my daughter and s-i-l will be coming, too!)


Tuesday, September 13, 2016

Bouchercon


Bouchercon, the premier mystery convention, is happening this week in New Orleans, and yes I will be there, if not exactly with bells on. 

I'll be on a panel at 9:30 am Friday in Mardi Gras Room D. Also on Friday I'll be doing a Sebastian St. Cyr book signing at 2:40 in the Bookworm. AND I'll be signing Good Time Coming at 12:40 on Thursday in the Bookworm. This standalone historical isn't officially released in the States until December, but they will have copies there for sale. 


In other news, I took Zydeco and Maddie back to San Antonio this past weekend, which was an extraordinarily hard thing to do. One can grow enormously attached to furry little guys in six weeks. But my son-in-law is slowly improving, and he really wanted his friends back to cuddle while he convalesces. Plus, with the convention coming up, I would have needed to board Zydeco for five days and that would not have been good for his psyche. We were hoping Steve would be walking well enough by this week to take over while I was gone, but a few weeks ago he tried to do too much, fell, and broke his right leg (yes; really). So now he's in a cast. Thankfully it isn't a bad break.

But I really missed my tail-wagging companion on my walk this morning. And sitting down to write without little missy's help is just wrenching. On the other hand, Angel is very glad to have his house and people back to himself.




Thursday, August 25, 2016

More on GOOD TIME COMING



Here is the cover copy!

I killed a man the summer I turned thirteen . . .

Thus begins C. S. Harris’s haunting, lyrically beautiful tale of coming of age in Civil War-torn Louisiana. Eleven-year-old Amrie St. Pierre is catching tadpoles with her friend Finn O’Reilly when the Federal fleet first steams up the Mississippi River in the spring of 1862. With the surrender of New Orleans, Amrie’s sleepy little village of St. Francisville – strategically located between the last river outposts of Vicksburg and Port Hudson – is now frighteningly vulnerable. As the roar of canons inches ever closer and food, shoes, and life-giving medicines become increasingly scarce, Amrie is forced to grow up fast. But it is her own fateful encounter with a tall, golden-haired Union captain named Gabriel that threatens to destroy everything and everyone she holds most dear.


Told with rare compassion and insight, this is a gripping, heart-wrenching story of loss and survival; of the bonds that form amongst women and children left alone to face the hardships, depravations, and dangers of war; and of one unforgettable girl’s slow and painful recognition of the good and evil that exists within us all.


On a related note, there's been some confusion about pub dates here and overseas, as well as ebook sales and preorder dates, but I think I now have them figured out. Sort of.

The hardcover version of the book is currently available for preorder both here and overseas. It will go on sale in Britain and related countries at the end of August and in the US and Canada at the beginning of December. The ebook will not be available in Britain until it is available here in December (weird, I know, and I don't have a clue why). The ebook will not be available any where for preorder until six weeks before it goes on sale in the States, so  that means preorders should be available in mid-October. Again, I don't quite understand the delay, but that's the way it's set up. 

Friday, August 19, 2016

A Book Giveaway


THE CONTEST IS NOW OVER.

The winners are:

The books are going to:
Winter's Child by Margaret Coel - Diane Johnson
Blood Defense by Marcia Clark - Becky Denham
Who Buried the Dead by C. S. Harris - Penny Tuttle
Death in the Off-Season by Francine Mathews - April Schilling
Books of a Feather by me - Laurie Metz
Knit to be Tied by Maggie Sefton - Tom Williams
The Last Good Place by Robin Burcell - Author - Robin Gandy Harsh
What You See by Hank Phillippi Ryan - Judi Robins
Dead Man's Switch by Tammy Kaehler (author) - Kasey Dunham
And special congratulations to our GRAND PRIZE WINNER (all 9 books!) - Liz Caldwell
Winners, please send your mailing addresses to the contest coordinator at jenel (at) jenellooney (dot) com by August 30 to claim your prize. 

Thank you so much to everyone who entered. I hope you had as much fun with this giveaway as we did!

Thursday, August 11, 2016

Good Time Coming


Almost every writer I know has what we call a "book of the heart." It's a story idea that grabs our imagination and won't let go even though we know there's something about the story that will make it really, really hard to sell to New York. Sometimes that "hard sell" aspect is setting (Outer Mongolia, anyone?); sometimes it's subject matter (say, American atrocities in WWII).

The book of my heart is called GOOD TIME COMING. It's a story idea that possessed me way back in 2001, when I was writing my Civil War mystery, Midnight Confessions. As I did the research for that novel, I found I wanted to write a different book: the story of the war in Louisiana as seen through the eyes of a thirteen-year-old girl. I wanted to write about the war the women and children lived; how they survived increasing hardship and danger, and how it changed them.

I started reading diaries and letters and memoirs by the hundreds: I visited Civil War battle sites like Port Hudson, Bayou Sara, and Camp Moore. And then, in the autumn of 2012 when I finished Why Kings Confess comfortably ahead of deadline, I seized the moment. In a white heat of 18+ hour days, seven days a week, I wrote GOOD TIME COMING.

I'd never written anything like it before and I was more than a bit worried about my ability to pull it off. But I can honestly say the manuscript exceeded my wildest expectations. I sent it to my agent, and she was over the moon. It quickly found several editors who waxed poetical about it. One called it "a women's Red Badge of Courage"; another said it was like To Kill a Mockingbird meets Cold Mountain. But in the end, no New York publishing house would buy it.

Why? Because of the subject matter. The Civil War in Louisiana was not pretty. U.S. soldiers did terrible things here, things that most Americans would rather not know about. At the same time, Southerners did things their descendants would rather forget. Look at those days through the unblinkingly honest eyes of a thirteen-year-old, and you have a story that terrifies New York.

For three years that manuscript languished in my cupboard. To say I was heartbroken would be a massive understatement--I mean, this was the book of my heart, right? But I can now tell you that the book no American house had the courage to print has finally found a publisher--a British publisher. It will be released in the UK, Australia, New Zealand, and South Africa in September, and in the U.S. in December.

I've been sitting on this news for a while now and I've been about to burst. The last time I felt this giddy was back in 1997, when I sold my very first novel.  I am really, really proud of this book, so you'll be hearing more about it soon.

Monday, August 08, 2016

Ch-ch-changes

It was a busy weekend. It started off on Friday with this thrilling moment: my younger daughter going through the graduation ceremony for her PhD.


I'll freely admit that I cried all through Pomp and Circumstance. I kept thinking how proud my father would have been if he could have been there, for she is our third generation PhD. (My older daughter says she's the black sheep of the family because she got an MD.)


And then Saturday I drove over to San Antonio to pick up my older daughter's dog and new kitten. Her husband has been dangerously ill for weeks now, and she was spending so much time at the hospital, plus half-killing herself driving back and forth to take care of the animals, that I volunteered to go pick them up and bring them home. If Steve had been well, I'd have just gone and stayed there to help, but I could only leave because Danielle was here over the weekend to stay with him.

One of the last things my son-in-law did before almost dying was to pick up this little cutie in a vast Target parking lot, where someone had abandoned her on a scorching hot Texas afternoon. So she is very dear to us all.


But the upshot is I have now added a dog and a holy terror of a twelve-week kitten to our menagerie. Angel is having a fit (this could never have happened if Huck were still here, because he not only really, really hated dogs, but would attack them--and any tiny kitten that came near him.) We're hoping my son-in-law will be well enough in a few months that their babies can go home. But as of now, we have a full house and a lot of unhappy critters.


Wednesday, August 03, 2016

Friday, July 29, 2016

Cover Copy for WHERE THE DEAD LIE!


Here's the cover copy for WHERE THE DEAD LIE, the next Sebastian St. Cyr mystery, coming April 2017. Cover reveal coming soon!

In the latest mystery from the national bestselling author of WHEN FALCONS FALL, the gruesome murder of a young boy takes Sebastian St. Cyr from the gritty streets of London to the glittering pleasure haunts of the aristocracy . . .

LONDON, 1813.
Sebastian St. Cyr, Viscount Devlin, is no stranger to the dark side of the city, but he’s never seen anything like this: the brutalized body of a fifteen-year-old boy dumped into a makeshift grave on the grounds of an abandoned factory.

One of London’s many homeless children, Benji Thatcher was abducted and tortured before his murder--and his younger sister is still missing. Few in authority care about a street urchin’s fate, but Sebastian refuses to let this killer go unpunished.

Uncovering a disturbing pattern of missing children, Sebastian is drawn into a shadowy, sadistic world. As he follows a grim trail that leads from the writings of the debauched Marquis de Sade to the city’s most notorious brothels, he comes to a horrifying realization: someone from society’s upper echelon is preying upon the city’s most vulnerable. And though dark, powerful forces are moving against him, Sebastian will risk his reputation and his life to keep more innocents from harm . . .

Wednesday, July 20, 2016

Not Whining

This isn't intended as a whine, but I thought I'd let you know what's going on in my life at the moment.

My husband is suffering a spinal problem that is making it hard for him to walk, impossible for him to drive, and causing him enormous pain. My life has been consumed for the past three weeks with medical appointments and physical therapy and picking up all the minutiae of our daily life that he normally takes care of, all under a huge cloud of worry. In the midst of this, Huckleberry died; my daughter is getting ready to move to North Carolina (I had planned to make the drive with her but now can't leave Steve), and we've also had air conditioning, plumbing, and electrical problems that make it feel like the Fates are throwing mud at us.

I am also trying to keep writing Sebastian #13 and shepherd two books toward publication. Yes, two. I should be able to reveal the cover for WHERE THE DEAD LIE, #12, very soon. And I will also finally, finally be able to talk about that other book--the non-Sebastian one--that I've been hinting about for what seems like forever. Stay tuned.

Wednesday, July 06, 2016

Huckleberry


As many of you know, Sebastian and Hero's big, long-haired black cat was inspired by my own inimitable Huckleberry.


Huckleberry came to us as a tiny kitten just months after we moved to the States. Big, beautiful, smart, vain, and highly intolerant of most other cats, he was never demonstrative (you were allowed to hold him--only like a baby--for perhaps two minutes, then he'd had enough). But he was always, always, intensely affectionate, and he pined miserably whenever I left him, even for a few days. He followed me around the house all day, sleeping in the To Be Filed basket under my desk or in the special box I kept just for him under the coffee table near where I sit  to write my books in longhand. He went with me up to the lake on my weeklong writing retreats--an excursion he always loved because he got to be an only cat. At night he slept on a dolls' bunkbed at the foot of my bed--Huck on the top bunk, Thomasina (his foster mom, adopted as a two-year-old rescue at the same time) on the bottom.


I love all my cats, but Huck was my special baby. He was at my side (meowing) through all the heartache and horror of Katrina and its aftermath. He comforted me when my mother died and when my girls spread their wings and flew. Three years ago I almost lost him to a flare of what we discovered was chronic toxoplasmosis (most cats are able to wall it off; Huck couldn't, and I learned it had killed his mother at age 8). I knew it would only be a matter of time before it flared again. I strongly suspect his grief over Thomasina's death six weeks ago sent his immune system into a tailspin that left him vulnerable.


Yesterday, I had to thank my darling for all the joy and love, laughter and sweet, sweet memories he brought into my life, and said goodbye. He has left a giant hole in my heart and in my life, and I am frankly devastated.





Saturday, June 18, 2016

Progress

I've spent the last week going over the copyedited manuscript of WHERE THE DEAD LIE. Once upon a time I would get my original paper manuscript back with the copyeditor's marks on it. Now it's all done electronically with Track Changes. I liked the old way much better. Now I have to sit in front of the computer for hours and hours going through each of the copyeditor's little bubbles. Then I make a duplicate of the file, leave in all the changes but take out the bubbles, print out a clean manuscript, and go sit someplace comfortable and spend a couple of days reading it.

This is my last chance to make any changes. I will see the manuscript one more time before it is published, but at that stage I'll be reading galley proofs and the only things I'm allowed to change are typos or glaring mistakes (like calling a character by the wrong name).
I thought those of you who are not writers might be interested to see some of the copyedits (if you click on the images they will enlarge). I write fairly clean copy, although since my focus is always on story and flow, I can miss some dumb mistakes (like writing Eden when I meant Eton!). I always appreciate my copyeditors because they save me enormous embarrassment. I worry when I catch a dozen things after a copyeditor has already gone through a manuscript because I know that means some things are inevitably slipping past us. It's impossible for me to ignore story for words, so I'm a lousy proofreader. And then of course the copyeditors always change things I want put back the way they were.
Also this week I received the first version of the cover. It needs some modification, and it will be a while before I have approval to show it, but I'm going to cheat and share this screenshot of part of it because it's so striking--and because it's always sooo exciting when a manuscript inches this much closer to being a real book:


Saturday, June 04, 2016

This and That



Sorry I've been MIA for a few weeks. I've been busy with that project I can't talk about yet and that doesn't have anything to do with Sebastian. But hopefully I'll be able stop just hinting and actually talk about it soon.

In Sebastian news, Recorded Books has bought the audio rights for the next three books in the series (#13-15). They have also finally caught up with the earlier books, which means that the first eleven in the series are now available in audio. The audio for #12, WHERE THE DEAD LIE, should be out at the same time as the print release next spring.


And now for something you're not going to want to hear: because I have a new editor and her schedule for March was already full, it looks like WHERE THE DEAD LIE will be pushed back to an April release. I'm still lobbying to keep my old March slot, but . . .

In the meanwhile, they've done the photo shoot for the cover of WHERE THE DEAD LIE, so I should be seeing the mockup of that soon. And I've recently hit page 100 of the first draft for #13, which has no title yet. The first 100 pages of a book are always the hardest for me, so it's a huge milestone and big relief when I finally get past that point. I do wish I had a title for it, though; I find it oddly unsettling when I don't.

I've also been working on a long post about the rumors that Queen Victoria was illegitimate. More on that later!

Monday, May 16, 2016

Saying Goodbye. Again.


We lost Thomasina today. Even when you know a dearly beloved friend has lived a long, good life, it's still hard.


Because she was once feral (hence the cropped ear), we've never known exactly how old Thomasina was, but best estimates put her over seventeen or eighteen. When we first brought her home from the rescue group (just weeks after moving to New Orleans), she was so shy she lived in our spare room amidst the boxes for months, only venturing out after everyone had gone to bed. But Danielle slowly won her over. As far as Thomasina was concerned, the sun rose and set in Danielle--and the feeling was mutual.


Thomasina saw Danielle through all the painful adjustments involved moving to a strange new country, negotiating the American school system, and heading off to college and then graduate school. Last Wednesday, Danielle successfully defended her doctoral dissertation; on Thursday she accepted a position as assistant professor at a good university. And today, this.



Tuesday, May 03, 2016

Ten Things You Probably Didn’t Know about the Prince Regent’s Infamous Wife, Caroline, Princess of Wales


The Prince of Wales’s hatred for his wife is legendary. The young Caroline, Princess of Wales, was a lively, good humored, impulsive, playful, stubborn, and not always wise woman. In later life, after she left England, she grew increasingly fat, eccentric, and outrageous. But those later years can combine with the Regent’s well-recorded antipathy to create a false impression of the woman who had the misfortune to marry this sulky, spoiled, self-indulgent, narcissistic, vain, and breathtakingly selfish prince. So here are ten things most people don’t know about Caroline, Princess of Wales:

1. Caroline was a gifted linguist. She is mocked because her English always retained a heavy German accent, but she was fluent. In addition to her native German, she was also fluent in Italian and French, and frequently preferred to converse in French.

2. Caroline was a gifted and unusually proficient pianist. She continued lessons with masters well into her twenties, working with M. Fleischer eighteen hours a week up until the time she left Germany. In England she also studied the harp and took instruction from singing masters.

3. Caroline was artistic. Most young women of her class and age were taught watercolor. But Caroline continued to enjoy painting her entire life, and while in London she also took instruction in clay sculpture.

4. Like many young women of her age, Caroline received little formal education. But she developed a serious, enduring love affair with books, and spent her life reading classics, histories, and memoires in English, French, and German. She was particularly fond of Shakespeare. The diaries and letters of people who met the Princess frequently mention that they spoke with her of books. In her later life she began a novel, which has been lost.

5. Prinny didn’t like Caroline’s looks, but in her youth she was actually considered attractive, with lovely skin and curly golden hair. The Prince preferred his women delicate (and older, interestingly), whereas Caroline was broad shouldered and plump. But the Prince’s contemporaries described her in their diaries and in letters to their spouses as pretty, with fine eyes, a lovely mouth, and good teeth. While it is less commonly noted, Caroline didn’t think much of the Prince’s looks, either. When they met and the Prince famously, loudly, and rudely said, “Harris, I am not well; pray get me a glass of brandy,” Caroline said to the same gentleman (later, and quietly), “Mon Dieu! Est-ce que le Prince est toujours comme cela? Je le trouve très gros, et nullement aussi beau que son portrait.”

6. When the Prince’s envoy, Lord Malmesbury, first met Caroline in Brunswick, he described her as not as clean as she could be. But as they journeyed through Germany toward London, he took great pains to impress upon her the importance of cleanliness, and she did pay attention to him. No one ever remarked on her lack of cleanliness again. However, Caroline continued to have a tendency to scramble into her clothes, and she never did care too much about her appearance. In later life while living estranged from the Prince in Italy, her clothing choices were definitely eccentric (as was her behavior).

7. The Prince of Wales forced his bride to accept his well-known mistress, Lady Jersey, as one of her ladies in waiting, and actually sent Lady Jersey to meet Caroline when her ship docked in England. Not only did Lady Jersey deliberately arrive hours late with the carriages, she also attended the wedding and even dined with them on their wedding night. At one point the Prince gave Caroline a pearl bracelet, only to take it back a few days later and give it to Lady Jersey, who then delighted in wearing it around the Princess.

8. Prinny passed out drunk on their wedding night and did not, ahem, perform well. He always blamed Caroline.

9. Caroline did not have an illegitimate child in England. A charitable woman who loved children, the Princess did pay to foster some 8-10 poor children with farm families, and once took in a ten-month-old baby girl found abandoned on the heath. In the infamous “Delicate Investigation,” in which the Prince tried to accuse Caroline of adultery and treason so that he could divorce her, he paid an unscrupulous, heavily-indebted couple named Douglas to testify that the Princess had actually given birth to one of the children she took in, a boy named Willy Austin. In truth, Willy was adopted from an impoverished couple when his father lost his job; the child’s birth took place in a hospital and was recorded, and his mother had continued to visit him. Not only was the mother able to testify before the investigation, but many other of Lady Douglas’s statements were also proven to be false. Unfortunately, those who write about Caroline continue to give far too much credence to the patently ridiculous testimony given by Lady Douglas at that inquiry. (For her pains, the Prince paid Lady Douglas 200 pounds a year for life.)

10. Caroline loved to travel and in later life was able to visit many of the sites she had read so much about. After she escaped the Prince and England, she traveled throughout Germany, Italy, and Switzerland, as well as Tunisia, Greece, Turkey, and Palestine. Her behavior on those journeys might have been precisely calculated to embarrass the Prince Regent—and perhaps it was. He earned it.


Friday, April 29, 2016

WHISPERS OF HEAVEN


Before I started the Sebastian St. Cyr series, I wrote seven historical romances. The last four of those historicals will eventually be available again both as ebooks and in print. I'm beginning with WHISPERS OF HEAVEN, set in Tasmania in 1840, which was never available as an ebook. The Kindle release is this Monday, 2 May, but I will eventually get the other formats organized, too. Here is the cover copy:

“A wonderful novel rich in emotion” –New York Times bestselling author Jill Marie Landis

Tasmania, 1840: Jesmond Corbett returns home from school in London determined to conform to the expectations of her aristocratic family and marry the childhood companion to whom she is betrothed. But Jessie is a woman filled with restless longings and unacknowledged needs. And nothing in her sheltered life has prepared her for Lucas Gallagher, an Irish rebel doomed to a lifetime of suffering and humiliating servitude.

For Jessie’s island home is a place of brutal contradictions, its genteel lifestyle and gracious estates based on the soul-crushing labor of the convicts who toil under the British penal system. Haunted by a tragic past but fiercely proud, Gallagher has vowed to escape this living hell or die trying. But he can’t resist the dangerous desires stirred by the vital, troubled young woman to whose family he has been assigned. And although they know their love can have no future, the star-crossed lovers inevitably succumb to a forbidden passion that threatens to destroy both their lives and Gallagher’s last chance to reach for freedom.

Filled with the masterful blend of vividly drawn, memorable characters and high adventure for which Candice Proctor is renowned, here is a unforgettable tale of love and triumph that deftly combines the mannered elegance of Downton Abbey with the excitement and raw Australian beauty of The Thorn Birds.

“Rich, unusual, and classic—like reading Woodiwiss again for the first time.” New York Times bestselling author Jill Barnett.

And here is the Amazon link since the old Ballantine issue comes up first if you go to their site:
http://www.amazon.com/Whispers-Heaven-Candice-Proctor-ebook/dp/B01E0MUG2U/ref=sr_1_3?ie=UTF8&qid=1461950903&sr=8-3&keywords=whispers+of+heaven