Train Nerd Alert!
Dear lovely readers,
We know each other pretty well by now, so I’m going to reveal my deeply nerdy love of trains and hope you don’t run screaming in the other direction.
Guilty, m’lud, I am a “gunzel”. This will come in handy for the new series I’ll be writing with Catherine Bilson. We’re moving into the Victorian era for this set of books, which means characters will be taking the train.
The engine I’m riding in is a diesel, which came along after steam. They don’t run steam trains in this mountainous and inaccessible part of Victoria because the fire risk from sparks is just too high. This engine, called Spirit of Yallourn, is the hero of the Walhalla Goldfields Railway. I got talking with the drivers and confessed my love of trains. The invited me to ride with them, so of course I jumped at the chance. They tried to recruit me after this ride, with promises to cover petrol and accommodation costs if I volunteered and learned how to become a driver. (They’re looking for their first woman driver, and clearly I passed the test.)
But if I became a train driver, I’d have no time for writing … Hmmm, the horns of a dilemma!
Meanwhile, my goodness, I am stunned with how well The Bookshop Belles are going. The page reads in KU are incredible, and the sales are stunning. Thank you so much, again, for the incredible support - whether you’ve told friends, shared the newsletter, bought or read the books and then written a review, it’s all been so wonderful and joyful. We will be working on the bonus novella, Matthew’s Willing Widow, soon. Haven’t forgotten our promise about that!
Upcoming Treat:
Hot Historical sales from May 16.
From May 16 until the 31st, these Hot historical romances are all on sale at fabulously low prices. Click here to check out the bargains. Some are also free to read in KU as well.
I Have a Shop!
Yes, I finally have my own shop where readers can grab titles are excellent prices. I have limited print supplies of The Bookshop Belles in paperback, along with some bargain ebook bundles. 3 Sweet Regency romances for only $1.50 Au is a super bargain (especially with how the Aussie dollar is tanking right now!)
I can only sell the paperbacks within Australia, as overseas postage is prohibitive.
Click here to visit my shop and check out the great deals.
Historical note:
Or, ‘Oops, did I accidentally write a pro-abortion novel?’
It’s always tricky creating historical characters for a modern audience. I wondered if we’d find a little pushback with Bernadette’s herbal activities. Well, a reader was upset enough to mark us down because Bernadette came across as callous for not having a moral dilemma about the ‘life that’s killed’ (reviewer’s words, not ours.)
If you haven’t read Bernadette’s Dashing Doctor yet, it’s OK, no spoilers.
It might surprise people to learn that neither the Catholic Church nor the Church of England/Anglican were too deeply invested in pregnancies until a woman reached the stage of ‘quickening’. Quickening is when you can feel the baby move, and the point where the churches decided the babe had a soul.
For working women who needed to keep working (often already with a baby strapped to them) it wasn’t that much of a moral dilemma to bring on their courses however they could. Throughout history, all able-bodied women worked, unless they were married to wealth or a nobleman.
What changed? In the 1850s/60s moral panic and racist/anti-semitic ‘replacement theory’ conspiracies took hold. Propaganda spread that immigrants and non-Christians would take over because they had more babies. Therefore, white Christians needed encouragement / punishment to breed faster. This changed the idea of a fetus/babe having a soul to much earlier on in the pregnancy.