In April 2020 I was supposed to be speaking at my local library about Regency Weymouth. Thanks to Covid, it wasn’t until a few weeks ago that I finally gave my talk! Dressed in my Regency costume, I spoke to a lovely group of people on Weymouth in the Time of Jane Austen. The librarian had filled a display with Austen-related books to coincide with my talk—you might recognise some of the titles in the picture.
Best wishes
Rachel
In this newsletter you'll find:
Rachel dressed up Regency style for her talk on Regency Weymouth (above)
New blog post: A Regency History guide to morning calls
Work-in-progress update
Free historical fiction, romance and mystery reads
Links to some of my Regency research posts
New blog post:
A Regency History guide to morning calls
Did you realise that morning calls were made in the afternoon?
Despite their name, morning calls were usually made between one and four o’clock in the afternoon. So, why were they called morning calls? Because during the Regency, morning did not end at noon but referred to the whole period of time before dinner.
In my new blog, I look at the etiquette surrounding Regency morning calls, including when they should be made, their purpose, and how long they should last.
The first drafts of all three novellas in the multi-author Hearts of the Hall series are now finished. Mine is coming in the longest at around 61,000, which is pretty long for a novella, but still short compared to my novels which are over 100,000 words.
It has changed its name to Engaging Miss Shaw. It’s a pun on the word ‘engaging’ as my heroine, Evelina Shaw, is engaged to be a governess at Duriel Hall as well as engaging the interest of my hero, John Derringer. Watch out for the cover reveal, coming soon.
Now we move onto the slightly scary stage of sharing our work with each other and giving feedback before we go into serious edit mode.