I noticed the tree from more than fifty yards away.
In fact, I’m sure I couldn’t have ignored it had I tried.
Its branches stretched a canopy out over the road. Its leaves had already begun to fall, creating a fiery blanket of orange and yellow on the surrounding grass. And though I hadn’t thought this would happen on a simple drive to the office, I was suddenly enchanted. It was as if the earth had whispered on a last August breeze and I was convinced to pause and appreciate its song. With it, I began to think about the shift from summer to autumn. It reminded me that on mild mornings such as that one, change is right around the corner.
It reminded me of the gift of beautiful days.
As the weather becomes cooler and the days grow short, we’ll soon be drawn indoors for much of our memory making. There will be new smells, tastes, sights and sounds to enjoy – all gifts of the senses that remind us of our blessings and God’s provision through the seasons of the year. As crisp nights and foggy mornings make their first appearance on the landscape, we will pass from the relaxing sanctuary of summer to the lively colors of autumn. And after all of the fun and frolic we’ve had in our August days here at Regency Reflections, we’re ready to move on and welcome the new season…
In the Regency years, autumn would usher in the enjoyment of tastes such as hartshorn, cranberry, and orange jellies (find tasty Jane Austen Centre at Bath recipes here), Barmbrack (a traditional Irish fruit bread), an array of harvest fruits (apples, pears, currants, apricots and grapes), mulled wines and spiced ciders, nuts, puddings, decadent trifles and warm, sweet confections. (Jam tartlets anyone?)
Can you smell the cinnamon? Perhaps taste the earthy nutmeg as it melts on your tongue? It would have been these new flavors that crossed-over into the harvest season to come.
The changing of seasons would also bring the last thrills of summer before the celebration of fall. Country dances would still be held outside (as long as the weather would hold) and many a Regency family would remain at their country homes through much of the hunting and holiday season, enjoying the great outdoors while the weather was still hospitable enough to entertain. Young men might be sent off back to school and young girls, usually engaged in a less formal education, would be enriched in their own knowledge with lessons in music, drawing, dancing and language studies at home.
Leaves would still fall and the harvest was still celebrated.
There were still beautiful days.
Other than the fox hunting and hartshorn jelly of course, autumn in the Regency Era isn’t all that different from what we experience today. We’ve probably seen the children heading back to school. Vacations are likely over. It’s back to work through the week and relishing in the leisure on the weekends. Summer has passed and the harvest is here. And in the months to come, the authors of Regency Reflections will explore this beautiful season with you.
As seasons change, remember that memories of the fun and frolic in our summer days will warm the frosty nights to come. Remember that the God worshipped in the Regency Era is the same Father that orchestrates the transition of our seasons today. He creates the color of fallen leaves on our way to work. He generates the wind-whispers and the beauty in our changing days. And yes, His blessings are thoughtfully remembered as the harvest is brought in.
What will you remember most about the fun and frolic of your August summer days? What are you looking forward to celebrating in the new season ahead?
Welcome September, and may we find nothing but the gift of His beautiful days ahead.
Ask people to list traditional English meals, and you’re very likely to get Shepherd’s Pie in the list right next to Fish and Chips, Bangers and Mash, and Yorkshire pudding.
Slice of Cottage Pie. Note the meat and vegetables on the bottom layer and the potatoes on the top.
Shepherd’s Pie is really a particular version of a Cottage Pie. Technically, a Shepherd’s Pie should contain lamb or mutton while a Cottage Pie can contain the meat from pretty much any animal, though it usually contains beef.
Simply put, Cottage Pies are a mix of meat and vegetables topped with a heap of mashed potatoes and baked. My family has a recipe for one and lots of people make particular plans to have Cottage Pies for dinner and go to the grocery store to buy the ingredients to make it.
What I find interesting about that, is that Cottage Pie was originally a thrown together meal used to eat up the leftovers and scraps.
Picture this: The family sits down to eat and the Mom starts dishing up dinner. She says, “Sorry about dinner tonight. I had to sort of throw together whatever I can find. I’ll plan better for tomorrow. I should be able to get to the market in the morning.”
(Yes, I know that is a very modern conversation, but you get the picture.)
Dad and kids tuck in and discover that this is better than the last three meals Mom made. In fact, it’s one of the best! Suddenly the concoction thrown together just so everyone could eat dinner and not be hungry is a family staple.
This happens in our house constantly.
Frequently dinner is a pantry clean-out. Grab a few cans, haul something out of the freezer, throw it together and you have some nourishment. It might be bizarre, but it’ll get the job done.
The other day I did this and ended up trying to remember what I’d done and what all I’d put in it because everyone in the family loved that meal. It is rare that all three of my kids clean their plate, let alone ask for seconds. We devoured this ultra simple meal.
The bonus was that it ended up tasting very similar to a dish my husband loved growing up as a child. His grandparents grew a very distinct type of bean on their farm and it was always served for the bulk of the Sunday afternoon meal.
Just like Cottage Pie, our thrown together meal is now a menu mainstay. It’s purposefully planned and ingredients are bought instead of it being leftovers and forgotten pantry lingerers.
We call it “That turkey and bean dish” right now. Eventually it will get a better name. Want to try it? I’ve included the recipe below.
Have you ever thrown together something at the last minute only to have it be a roaring success?
That Turkey and Bean Dish
Ingredients:
– 1 pound turkey sausage (the kind in the big links, either the horseshoe shape or the two long links.)
– 1 can french cut green beans
– 1 can whole kernel corn
– 1 can black beans
– Spices: Cumin, onion powder, garlic powder, salt, pepper
– butter or margarine
Directions:
– Slice the turkey sausage into bite size pieces. (For me that means half-circles about a half inch thick)
– Brown them in a frying pan
– Sprinkle them with cumin and onion powder
– Drain the green beans and corn
– Drain and rinse the black beans
– Put them in a pot with some butter
– heat over medium heat, stirring occasionally
– Season with cumin, salt, pepper, onion powder, and garlic powder
– Once everything has had a chance to simmer and brown, dump the bean and corn mixture in the frying pan with the sausage.
– Cover and let simmer about 5 – 10 minutes, stirring occasionally.
– Serve over garlic bread or mashed potatoes
If you give this a try, let me know how it turns out for you. My family loves it!
These days there’s a lot of talk about food localism: the practice of eating food that was grown close to where you eat. Enthusiasts of the movement often try to make their meals only out of food grown within 200 miles of where they live.
If I did that, I’d be without my two (okay, three!) cups of coffee every morning, but I admit that I see the appeal. I’m lucky enough to live in a region with community-supported agriculture (or “CSA”) groups, which means that our family largely eats produce that was grown only miles from where we live.
But families in the Regency took local eating to a whole new level, especially in the large country estates. These estates, formed hundreds of years before there were safe and reliable roads and trade routes, grew almost all of their own food out of necessity, and even in the Regency, when importing food was more feasible, many of these large estates still produced most of what they ate right there on the property.
What kinds of foods were produced on a country estate?
The food produced on an English country estate ran the gamut from meat to vegetables, wheat to fruit, dairy to game.
Estates supported large farms, which could grow grains and vegetables in their fields, while the more well-off landowners could also support greenhouses dedicated to expensive and rare tropical fruit like pineapples (a princely gift in those times!). Wheat was made into bread and also used for brewing beer.
Estates also were hugely concerned with animal husbandry. Cows provided the milk for on-the-grounds dairies, and they also provided meat, along with pigs and sheep. There were even estates with dovecotes that raised pigeons for the table – the nestlings, or “squabs”, were prized for their delicate meat. Large estates could also contain fishponds.
The extraordinary thing to modern eyes was not necessarily how much food was produced in the lands surrounding the great English houses, but how much of the processing of that food was done on the property. Nowadays, farms grow food and factories process them. But in the 1800s, the growing and processing was often done on the same property, with the cows being milked, the dairymaid making cheese, and the cook arranging the cheese dish all being owned or employed by the same family.
But they that wait upon the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run, and not be weary; and they shall walk and not faint. Isaiah 40:31
I discussed this verse last week in the women’s Bible study class I teach at our church. It’s a rather commonly quoted passages of Scripture. While not necessarily as popular as John 3:16, I’d wager many a Christian has heard sermons on it before and had others quote it to them a time or two.
In some regards, the verse is probably overly familiar. We hear it so often we forget what it really means.
It’s a natural, human reaction to try rushing God rather than waiting for Him. The story of Sarah, Abraham, and Hagar (found in Genesis 16) illustrates this point perfectly. Sarah and Abraham had an unconditional promise that God was going to make a great nation from their offspring. At the same time, they’d been waiting for God to fulfill this promise for over twenty-five years.
And as you can imagine, after twenty-five years of leaving home and wandering around the desert, Sarah got a little impatient. Instead of waiting on God, she decided to help move God along. So she gave Abraham one of her maids to take as a wife.
**Note this practice was common and acceptable in Sarah and Abraham’s day.
Now I have to admit that after twenty-five years of wandering around a desert trusting God, I’d be getting rather impatient for God to give me a son. Would I have behaved as Sarah did? Perhaps yes and perhaps no. I’ve never been in that situation. But I do know Sarah’s story illustrates this:
Waiting on God might be hard, but getting ahead of God will be disastrous.
Indeed, Sarah reaped a slew of negative consequences from her actions. Hagar got pregnant with Abraham’s child and lorded it over Sarah. Sarah then felt contempt and bitterness for Hagar and demoted Hagar back to her position as a maid. Rather than suffer such degradation at Sarah’s hand, Hagar ran away, and God intervened to save Hagar and her unborn child’s lives.
So as we look at the story of Sarah and Abraham and Hagar, and at the principles taught in Isaiah 40:31, we can all be reminded to wait on God.
Waiting on God might look different for each one of us, and it certainly looks different throughout the course of history. For example, for an unmarried Regency woman, waiting on God usually meant waiting for a husband that she would meet at any number London social events. For an unmarried woman living today, waiting on God might mean not getting married at all, or meeting your husband somewhere other than a London social event.
But the principle is still the same. Take a deep breath and WAIT ON GOD. You’ll end up with a much happier, easier life if you follow God rather than get ahead of Him.
The best dress in the room doesn’t need three paragraphs. Jane Austen can slay it in five words: “Their dress had every advantage.” Translation: fashionable, confident, ready for the room—but perhaps not much more.
And Bob Mackie? He could obliterate us all, defining a character or a career with carefully sewn sequins.
Before She Says A Word
What Bob Mackie Taught Me About Dressing a Character
“Their dress had every advantage, their faces were rather pretty, their spirits extremely good, their manner unembarrassed and pleasant; they were of consequence at home, and favourites abroad.”
These lines open the fifth chapter of Jane Austen’s Persuasion. Our heroine, Anne Elliot, is giving us what she saw of the Musgrove sisters, Henrietta and Louisa, as they entered the room—the cottage in Uppercross. Not once does Austen describe what the sisters are wearing, but the rest of the sentence fills our heads with an image. Austen is a masterclass in dressing for the room and the moment.
That’s not a one-off. Austen uses Catherine Morland’s anxiety as she decides what to wear to a ball to highlight what it means for a young woman to realize she’s going to be looked at the minute she enters the room. In Mansfield Park, we get a little bit of color when Fanny Price hopes that her dress, a white dress, is not too fine. Mrs. Norris reassures her, “A woman can never be too fine while she is all in white.” None of this tells us the details, the trimmings of the dress. But again, it expresses the anxiety of a woman wondering if she’s holding up to the rules that society places on her. And it also gives us this very weak reassurance that she’s all right. Yet to the reader, the detail tells us so much about Fanny and Mrs. Norris.
Now, while I love to spill on the details, partially because I’m a fabric-and-notion girly, Austen has made me more conscious of what I want the outfit to say about the person and the moment.
So today’s essay is more about a designer whom Austen, once she got over the shock of the curve-hugging lines, might approve of: Bob Mackie, the gowns he designed, and the messages they spoke to the audience.
Mackie the Industry Vet
Robert Gordon “Bob” Mackie was born March 24, 1939, in Monterey Park, California. He began his career as a sketch artist, working for major costume designers including Edith Head and Jean Louis. While working for Jean, the young Mackie drew the design sketch for Marilyn Monroe’s crystal-covered “Happy Birthday, Mr. President” gown.
His early breakthrough came when Mitzi Gaynor hired him in 1966 for her Las Vegas revue and television specials. His designs became household legends with his work for The Carol Burnett Show. He designed for Burnett throughout the 11-year run, including the legendary green velvet curtain-rod dress for the skit, 1976 “Went with the Wind!”
With Cher, Mackie became known in the music industry. His revealing, beaded designs for The Sonny & Cher Comedy Hour helped make Mackie a household name; later creations included Cher’s dramatic 1986 Oscars feathered ensemble and the gown she wore to accept her 1988 Best Actress Oscar.
Mackie designed for Diana Ross, Tina Turner, Liza Minnelli, Lola Falana, Judy Garland, Barbra Streisand, Bette Midler, Madonna, Beyoncé, RuPaul, and many others. He shared an Oscar nomination for costume design for Ross’s Lady Sings the Blues (1972) with Ray Aghayan and Norma Koch.
He never stopped designing, and younger stars like Miley Cyrus, Beyoncé, Zendaya, and more have taken to Mackie like a rite of passage.
Mackie and the Light
As I’ve studied the designs of the 1600s and the Georgian and Regency periods, I’m fascinated by silhouettes and fabrics. Every article and material indicates not only status but access and even the internals of a character. I’ve studied how candlelight can skip across silk, even change direction based on how the fabric is woven. I’ve learned to notice how the weight of velvet flows differently as a woman comes down stairs. My Lady Worthing mysteries are seasonal, so that is a fun thing to explore.
Mackie knew the importance of light, particularly how beads throw light across a ballroom, how the shimmer can accentuate the length of a leg or arm, how swaying can start before a movement as well as linger when it’s done. His flame dresses, worn by Tina, Cher, Beyoncé, Miley, and probably more, are perfect examples of this balance.
That is one of the reasons I have always loved Bob Mackie. Mackie understood something fundamental about clothes: the dress does not exist separately from the body. The light is entwined with the camera angles and the music, whether the performer is singing, acting, or offering a joke.
Mackie and the Entrance
Something that I pay attention to is how a character enters a room. Is it dramatic? Does it follow a confrontation? And for those of us still hung up on the movie Sinners, we all understand what it means to be invited in.
The entrance reveals so much. Mackie knew this.
Carol Burnett wanted to spoof Gone With the Wind. Mackie knew the iconic green-curtain dress in the movie made Scarlett O’Hara a beauty that Rhett almost couldn’t reject.
The script called for Burnett’s character to come downstairs wearing curtains. Mackie decided simply draping curtains around her wasn’t funny enough.
So the minute Carol had to reveal herself, Mackie knew typical elegance wasn’t the answer. The outfit had to be a part of the joke. Mackie made his curtain dress and insisted the curtain rod remain inside. It’s iconic. It tells its own joke the minute the dress is seen. The resulting green velvet confection—with its sweeping skirt, extravagant tassels, and horizontal rod extending from the shoulders—became one of television’s greatest sight gags.
It is hilarious because it is also gorgeous.
There is volume. There is drape. There are yards of sumptuous fabric. There are tassels and layers and a silhouette that would not be entirely out of place in a nineteenth-century fashion plate.
Until you notice she is wearing the window.
That’s Mackie.
Fabric could create desire.
Fabric could create glamour.
And fabric could deliver a punch line.
The costume is now in the Smithsonian. It was just that much of the moment.
Mackie Made Her The Moment
It’s 1975. Cher is heading for a divorce from TV partner and husband Sonny Bono. Everyone knew Sonny and Cher. Mackie knew the way Cher looked had to show glamour and a woman standing on her own. Bob Mackie was there to dress this new, solo Cher. The internet is littered with reels and videos showing dress reveals, all designed by Mackie. Cher becomes emblematic of sexiness, strength, and beauty while reclaiming the charm and humor everyone knew when she was married.
While working with Cher, Mackie met Tina Turner. Tina and Cher performed together repeatedly, and Mackie was designing the clothes. Mackie later remembered this as an unsettled period for Tina. She’d left Ike and, as Mackie put it, was “kind of hiding out.”
Tina had been working smaller venues to rebuild herself as a solo act. Mackie remembered her as searching for “a different life.” His clothes helped distinguish the emerging Tina Turner from the woman audiences associated with the Ike & Tina Turner Revue.
He designed for her body in motion. Mackie understood that Tina wasn’t going to stand elegantly under a spotlight. She’d strut, kick, and dance around the entire stage. He emphasized her legs with extremely high slits and short skirts, with trunks sewn underneath so she could move freely.
Mackie created a gold-and-silver chain-fringe bodysuit with enormous pleated gold-lamé wings for Tina’s solo nightclub performances, including one at Caesars Palace. He made sure the wings would remain behind her until she suddenly extended her arms and opened them to their full span. When Tina did, the world stopped for just a second. She was a beautiful butterfly. In her 2020 memoir, she remembered wearing the winged costume and feeling as though she were about to take flight and soar.
Mackie knew what she needed, what Cher needed, and made it happen in sequins and shimmer.
When I write, I have to remember that costume design—the clothing that each character wears—becomes part of the choreography. I have to anticipate what the body will do and make sure that the outfit does not compete with the performer but becomes the performer’s second skin.
My Mackie Moment
In 1958, Eunice W. Johnson transformed a charity fashion show into a traveling institution, the Ebony Fashion Fair. Eunice, the powerhouse, went into European and American fashion houses—spaces that had often excluded Black people—and bought couture. She put powerful statement brands on Black models. For fifty years, Ebony Fashion Fair presented Black audiences with an extraordinary proposition: This beauty belongs to you, too.
In 2001, Eunice commissioned Bob Mackie to create an ensemble for the Ebony Fashion Fair. The Chicago History Museum describes the result as a skintight, 1930s-style, heavily beaded gown with a separate face-framing hood and an ostrich-feather coat. The gown was lined with sheer silk selected to match the Black model’s skin tone, creating the illusion of a nude body beneath the beadwork. Virginia Heaven, the costume curator of the Chicago History Museum, described the finished ensemble afterward as “part fairy princess, part Vegas showgirl, part Barbie doll.”
Speaking of Barbie dolls, I collect a few. A few years ago, I found out that Mackie designed an “International Beauty Collection” for Mattel. Fantasy Goddess of Africa originated in 1999. Mackie’s archives describe the Africa doll as being inspired by a “Serengeti sunset.” I had to get one. She’s wearing a fitted, embroidered, and beaded gown, with cinnamon skin, cuffs, neckpiece, and headdress.
I looked at her today. Took her out of her box and smiled at the way the light reflected in her gown. I can’t believe I own a piece of Bob Mackie history, and one that is so personal to me:
Fashion. Black beauty. History. Costuming. Storytelling.
And movement. Plenty of movement. The feathers move.
Mackie Left the Building
Bob Mackie died September 14, 2026, from pneumonia. He left us with a world of pictures of glamour, moments of joy and beauty, and reclamation of power.
Rest in brilliance, Bob Mackie.
And thank you for the shimmer and the sparkle.
This week’s booklist includes:
The Art of Bob Mackie by Frank Vlastnik and Laura Ross. This is a comprehensive celebration of Mackie’s career, filled with photographs, original sketches, and stories behind his unforgettable creations.
Cher: The Memoir, Part One by Cher. Cher tells the story of her childhood, rise to fame, marriage to Sonny Bono, and the complicated partnership that helped create—and eventually forced her to reinvent—one of entertainment’s most recognizable personas.
My Love Story by Tina Turner. Turner recounts her journey from Nutbush, Tennessee, through the Ike & Tina Turner years and into the extraordinary solo career and personal life she built for herself afterward.
Inspiring Beauty: 50 Years of Ebony Fashion Fair by Joy L. Bivins and Rosemary K. Adams, eds. The book celebrates Eunice W. Johnson and the Ebony Fashion Fair’s extraordinary role in bringing couture, Black beauty, and a new vision of Black America to audiences nationwide.
Writer in Residence by Rhonda McKnight. A struggling novelist escapes to the South Carolina Lowcountry hoping to recover her words, only to find romance, buried family secrets, and an unexpected connection to Gullah Geechee heritage that challenges her to reclaim both her story and her future.
And yes—Sunday, September 20 at 2:00 PM at FoxTale Book Shoppe, Rhonda McKnight and I will be entering the room to discuss her new novel.
RSVP for this conversation.
And FoxTale Book Shoppe has a few signed copies of Fire Sword and Sea and Murder in St. James’s Park.
You can also try one of my partners in the fight, bookstores large and small, who are in the trenches with me.
You can find my notes on Substack or on my website, VanessaRiley.com, under the podcast link in the About tab.
Hey. Let’s keep rising and creating together. I need you. That is the truth. Like, share, subscribe, and stay connected to Write of Passage.
Thank you for being here.
I want you to come again. This is Vanessa Riley.
This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit vanessariley.substack.com/subscribe
When I started researching pirates, everyone—and I mean everyone—immediately brought up Pirates of the Caribbean.
And why not? It’s cinematic, dashing, and full of swashbuckling flair. We love that world of yo-ho-ho and pirate speak. But when I dug deeper into the research, I found that most of what we imagine about pirates is more Hollywood fantasy than historical fact.
First all that lovely “pirate talk” we hear on screen? It never really existed. The real pirates of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries spoke with layers of accents and nuances—French, Portuguese, English, and dozens of African and Caribbean creoles mixed in the salty air. Pirates were polyglot survivors of empire, not parrots reciting “Arrr!”
And that infamous “walking the plank”? Another myth. No one was forced to tiptoe off a wooden board jutting out to the sea. Ships didn’t have planks sticking out like that for the purpose of punishment. If a captain wanted to get rid of you, he’d stab you on deck—or maroon you on a sandbar with nothing but a knife within reach. Death by tide, starvation, or suicide is far less cinematic than the plank scene, but it’s closer to the truth.
This gap between history and fantasy fascinates me. But it’s also dangerous. We live in a world where fact and fiction often blur—not just about pirates, but about our past, our identity, even our worth. People resist truth when it threatens nostalgia. And when it disturbs the myths that says your ancestors are heroes and mine are villains…well that’s heresy. Truth matters. I want truth. I seek the truth, the whole truth—the good, the bad, and the ugly—It grounds us. It teaches us both how to persevere and how to survive.
My hunt for truth has shaped my writing journey, too. I will go to the ends of the earth, translate, cross reference, consult with experts—everything to bring you the most authentic story.
But that’s also my Achilles’s heel. I’m a math nerd at heart. I love formulas and theorems, and those constants that prove a system and deliver the same results every time.
One plus one equals two.
One plus one should equal two.
There’s comfort in that. But like life—and like publishing—not everything follows the rules. You can do everything “right,” follow every formula, and still end up with goose eggs.
Publishing isn’t always about the story; sometimes it’s about timing. I’ve known brilliant inventors ahead of their time, missing the boon of the market because they were too early. I’ve seen wonderful ideas die on the vine and then become reborn because of renewed visibility.
Now to hit home. I’ve seen Black and marginalized authors face struggle after struggle—and do everything right and never find that soft place to land. When you’re writing stories that highlight the communities or historical figures that represent 13–20% of the reading public instead of the 80% reading addressable market, the math to visibility is simply harder math. It takes more effort to reach the readers who crave truth and value diversity and depth over myth and comfort.
We compete on a sloped playing field, but we are ridiculed if we acknowledge the reality. It’s not weakness to say the ground is not level. And the math odds say you will stumble, which leads to less support and systems that make the slope more dangerous.
So, to my fellow writers, especially those who are tired and discouraged: sometimes the math just doesn’t add up, and it’s not your fault. It’s not your imagination. And you are not weak for wanting to acknowledge the obvious. You’re navigating a system that wasn’t built for you. Your success relies on beating the odds. That’s tiring.
Does it hurt. Yes.
Do I have answers. No.
But here’s what I do know—you have a choice in how you respond to the system. Do the math. Count the costs. Decide what level of energy you will deliver to this system, and where you want to disrupt it. In the interim, tell your story. Tell them anyway. The 13% are in need of stories that humanize, that restore dignity, and that challenge what “history” has left out.
For Fire Sword and Sea–I had a different plan when I started researching. From the moment I stood in the pirate prison in Port Royal, Jamaica, Jacquotte Delahaye and her cohorts began telling me their lives. The research changed my novel. And it definitely changed me.
I had to write about women pirates who defied empires and expectations. Jacquotte and her sisters of the sea—the risk-takers, dream igniters, and steadfast shields of fiery grace—they deserve to be remembered. They fought for economic freedom for themselves and their families. They shattered boundaries and broke bones in pursuit of survival and the right to live as they chose.
I did the math. I’m doing everything I can to bring attention to their stories that I’ve captured in Fire Sword and Sea—talking about it, planning events, inviting you to join me. Because you, my listeners, my readers—you’re part of my crew.
So, if you’re feeling weary, wondering if your story matters, let me tell you: it does. Maybe now more than ever. Truth-telling, whether in history or art, is rebellion against erasure. It’s how we keep from drowning beneath the tides of comfort and myth.
Do the math. Do the work. And keep going.
This is week forty-seven of the Write of Passage podcast—now at fifteen thousand downloads and over hundred thousand Substack views. Thank you for sailing with me through both storm and calm. Let’s keep breaking the waves together.
This week’s books to reflect upon are:
Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell – Explores how success often depends less on individual talent and more on timing, opportunity, and winning the hidden systems around us.
The Warmth of Other Suns by Isabel Wilkerson – A sweeping history that restores dignity and humanity to those whose stories were buried.
Thick: And Other Essays by Tressie McMillan Cottom – Reflects upon what it meant to live and create as a Black woman in systems designed to misunderstand you.
And of course Fire Sword and Sea by Vanessa Riley. Caribbean women pirates—Black women pirates join French and Indigenous women to sail the seas. Fire Sword and Sea releases January 13th, 2026. If you’re a librarian, vote for this book now for Library Reads in Edelweiss and NetGalley.
Consider purchasing Fire Sword and Sea from Resist Book Sellers or one of my partners in the fight, bookstore’s large and small who are in this with me.
We are less two months away the January 13th release.
Show notes include a list of the books mentioned in this broadcast.
You can find my notes on Substack or on my website, VanessaRiley.com under the podcast link in the About tab.
If you’re on board my ship, press that like button, subscribe and share Write of Passage. Never miss a moment. We have work to do. And I need You.
Thank you for listening. Hopefully, you’ll come again. This is Vanessa Riley.
This is a public episode. If you’d like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit vanessariley.substack.com/subscribe
Food during the Regency period was very different from what a lot of us eat today. If anyone read Ruth’s post on Monday and said, “I totally know how to jugg a pigeon” then they should contact us immediately. There are several Regency authors who would like to talk to you.
In the meantime, we asked our illustrious blog authors to share their worst food memories. We asked them, “What was the worst thing you ever had to eat?”
Naomi Rawlings Ostrich. I was traveling in South America at the time. 🙂
Kristy and her pretty plate of eel
Kristy Cambron
The worst thing I’ve ever had the displeasure of eating? Without question it would have to be eel. My husband and I honeymooned in Cancun, Mexico. I still remember the fabulous food on that trip – except that is, for the “lovely” plate of seafood we received at a gourmet restaurant. (It was plated so beautifully that we actually took a picture of it!) Unfortunately, the majority of the plate included a gray, rubbery, and horrid tasting main course which turned out to be eel. You bet I skipped right to dessert just to drown out the memory of dinner!
Laurie Alice Eakes Horse meat in Europe. I was a guest, so couldn’t turn it down.
Kristi Ann Hunter
Bone marrow. I was at a restaurant in Switzerland on the edge of Lake Geneva. The plate was gorgeous and the food really good, but on the top of the steak were these little disks in the sauce. I thought they might have been mushroom slices or pieces of water chestnut, so I ate one. I nearly gagged. On our way out I checked the menu and sure enough, there was bone marrow listed in the description.
Big animal. Big heart. photo: WikiCommons
Jessica Snell I don’t know about the worst food. Maybe a better question would be, “What’s the weirdest food you’ve ever eaten?” My answer is moose heart. And when it was raw, I was able to stick my entire hand in one of the ventricles – those things are huge!
Ruth Axtell
I like all foods so can’t think of anything off the top of my head that I really gagged at.
Susan Karsten The strangest food I have eaten, and enjoyed, is squid. It is also known by the name calamari. You can get it fried, or served in tomato sauce. I have had both and it was good. I would eat it again in a heartbeat.
Have you ever eaten anything that curled your tastebuds and your toes? Chomped down on anything bizarre or strange? We’d love to hear about it in the comments below!
English Housewifery Exemplified In above Four Hundred and Fifty Receipts Giving Directions for most Parts of Cookery
Elizabeth Moxon
published in 1764.
This cookbook precedes the regency by about 50 years,but I imagine many of these recipes (or “receipts” as they were called then) were still in use.
Scrolling through this cookbook on Project Gutenberg’s site, I found some interesting dishes including:
HOW TO JUGG PIGEONS.
I wasn’t sure what ‘jugging’ meant. The dictionary has the verb, to jug, meaning stewing meat in an earthenware jug.
Take six or eight pigeons and truss them, season them with nutmeg, pepper and salt.
To make the Stuffing. Take the livers and shred them with beef-suet, bread-crumbs, parsley, sweet-marjoram, and two eggs, mix alltogether, then stuff your pigeons sowing (sic) them up at both ends, and put them into your jugg with the breast downwards, with half a pound of butter; stop up the jugg close with a cloth that no steam can get out, then set them in a pot of water to boil; they will take above two hours stewing; mind you keep your pot full of water, and boiling all the time; when they are enough clear from them the gravy, and take the fat clean off; put to your gravy a spoonful of cream, a little lemon-peel, an anchovy shred, a few mushrooms, and a little white wine, thicken it with a little flour and butter, then dish up your pigeons, and pour over them the sauce. Garnish the dish with mushrooms and slices of lemon.
This is proper for a side dish.
How’s this for a little deception, making a rabbit look like a partridge? The only thing is, I have no idea what they mean by cutting off a rabbit’s wings (cutting off its floppy ears?):
Kitchen Still Life with Hares, Fowl, etc. by Cornelis Jacobsz DelffDead Hare and Partridges c.1690 Jan Weenix
TO DRESS RABBETS TO LOOK LIKE MOOR-GAME.
Take a young rabbet, when it is cased cut off the wings and the head; leave the neck of your rabbet as long as you can; when you case it you must leave on the feet, pull off the skin, leave on the claws, so double your rabbet and skewer it like a fowl; put a skewer at the bottom through the legs and neck, and tie it with a string, it will prevent its flying open; when you dish it up make the same sauce as you would do for partridges.
Three are enough for one dish.
And for a little dessert:
AN APPLE PUDDING
Take half a dozen large codlins, or pippens, roast them and take out the pulp; take eight eggs, (leave out six of the whites) half a pound of fine powder sugar, beat your eggs and sugar well together, and put to them the pulp of your apples, half a pound of clarified butter, a little lemon-peel shred fine, a handful of bread crumbs or bisket (sic), four ounces of candid orange or citron, and bake it with a thin paste under it.
The recipe ends there. Perhaps a thin paste is a pastry shell?
It would have been interesting to sample some of this fare.
An aspect of the Regency that is so different from today were the menus. Granted, we read much more about the meals of the wealthy than the poor, but it gets me thinking about managing the meals in one of those grand homes.
Just for fun, I have a passage for you from the The Poor Relation, by Marion Chesney, published in 1984. It gives us a taste of the type of menu expected for breakfast at a country house party:
“Amaryllis walked over to the sideboard, which was laden with cold joints, collared and potted, meats, cold game, veal and ham pies, game and rumpsteak pies, and dishes of mackerel, whiting, herring, dried haddock, mutton chops, rump steak, broiled sheep’s kidneys, sausages, bacon, and eggs.”
One more thing to be thankful for is that we don’t have to plan or prepare meals like this!
If you’ve read even a few Regencies, you’ll have come across the concept of young ladies being prepared for the marriage market. One way they prepared was by learning to run a large home and its staff of servants. Many rules operated in this arena, and the young lady had to master them all.
Today, we have other things to master, such as shopping, cooking meals, cleaning (oh, where are those servants?) and possibly gardening, a home business, home education and more. God still equips his saints and doesn’t give them more than they can handle, with or without servants. The following proverb applied then and does today:
She looks well to the ways of her household and does not eat the bread of idleness. Proverbs 31:27
It’s always amazing when we notice how God’s word is so timeless!
Regency Reflections Welcomes Author Jamie Carie
We are so thrilled to welcome author Jamie Carie to Regency Reflections! Jamie, the author of the Forgotten Castles series, has stopped by to tell us a little bit about her upcoming release, A Duke’s Promise, which will be available September 1st.
Jamie is kindly offering a free book (Paperback or Kindle download) to one lucky visitor! For your chance to win a book from the Forgotten Castles series, leave a comment on this post.
1. Tell us a bit about the inspiration behind your Forgotten Castles series.
It started with the idea of doing something similar to my second book, The Duchess and the Dragon, but with a Regency spin. I love writing about royalty from that time period! I also knew I wanted something adventurous with a mystery to solve. Then the characters took over, which is the best part.
2. Setting plays a very important role in this series. Can you tell us what drew you to using castles in your setting, and more specifically, how you tied the setting to the time period?
I had the idea of three I’s – Ireland, Iceland and Italy as the settings. Each book takes place in one of those countries and features tucked away, crumpling and forgotten or fairy-tale like castles. I had a moments panic when I discovered that Iceland doesn’t have any actual castles but then I discovered the Dimmuborgir, black lava formations that look enough like a castle that they are called the Black Castles of Iceland. It was perfect for a creepy scene!
How I tied the setting to the time period? Having Alexandria grow up on a very secluded island in an old, crumpling castle gave me more leeway with her behavior in Regency England. She couldn’t be expected to be quite so strict in her role as a woman of that time because she was never taught the rules of society and hadn’t lived among the elite until she meets her guardian, the duke, and lives for a time in London. It was fun to see how she changed and grew over the course of the three books.
3. The book covers in the Forgotten Castle series are stunning. Can you tell us about the design process?
Thank you!! I have to give all the credit for the gorgeous covers to Diana Lawrence, Art Director at B&H Publishing. Diana always gets the “feel” of my books and carries it so well to the cover designs. I only consult and there were very few changes that I recommended. Here’s the link to the making of the first cover –The Guardian Duke.
I am so excited to have A Duke’s Promise come out in September! God gave me an ending that took my breath away, tying up all the details and answering all the questions that are raised in the first two books. I can’t give anything away, so here is the back of the book blurb:
From the Land of Fire and Ice back to England’s shores, Alexandria Featherstone finds herself the new Duchess of St. Easton. Her husband has promised a wedding trip to take them to the place where her imperiled parents were last seen — Italy and the marble caves of Carrara — but a powerful Italian duke plots against Alex and her treasure-hunting parents. Hoping to save them, Alex and Gabriel travel to Italy by balloon. Fraught with danger on all sides and pressured by Gabriel’s affliction to the breaking point, they must learn to work and fight together. The mysterious key is within their grasp, but they have yet to recognize it. This journey will require steadfast faith in God and each other — a risk that will win them everything they want or lose them everything they have.
5. You have an amazing ability to weave the details of everyday Regency life into your novels. If you had to pick, what would you say is your favorite aspect of Regency life?
I love the gallantry of the men of that day and age. Men (the good ones at least!) were very protecting toward their mothers, sisters, wives and daughters. Gabriel, the duke who is Alexandria’s guardian, takes very good care of his family (even though some members drive him bonkers). He treats Alexandria like a princess. I love how he loves her – tender, sweet, hot, completely besotted but not a dolt – sigh! I think he is my favorite hero to date!
6. What do you think is the biggest challenge of writing a Regency?
Probably getting the “feel” (the cadence of the language and dialog, the perspectives of the characters, etc.) of the time period. I suggest reading lots of Regencies and absorb the tone before trying to write one.
7. Do you have a favorite Regency author?
I grew up reading Georgette Heyer which probably started my love of romance novels. Also Amanda Quick, Julia Quinn, Judith McNaught and LOVE Laura Kinsale!
8. Tell us a bit more about you.
I’m a preacher’s daughter. I grew up in Vincennes, Indiana and my entire childhood was immersed in the Charismatic movement with Bible teachers like Derek Prince, Kenneth Copeland and many others sounding by cassette tape in the background. This upbringing was both wildly crazy when it came to some of the error of that movement but also deeply theological and Bible based. I’ve had a lot to sort out as an adult, I can tell you! I think God has used all this in my writing and I’ve learned to be thankful for it and proceed with the faith that He can make beauty from ashes. Here’s my short bio:
Born and raised in Vincennes, Indiana, Jamie is the daughter of a preacher man. Road trips with her dad—to and from Bible studies across Indiana—were filled with talks of things beyond earth’s bounds – creation and the fall, God and Jesus and the rapture, the earthly walk compared to the spiritual walk, and how we are born for more than what we can see or touch.
The highlight of those nights was stopping at a truck stop in the middle of the night where her dad would spend a little of the offering basket on two slices of pie and a couple of Cokes. Nothing ever felt so special as a middle of the night slice of pie with her dad. And nothing could stop the writing pouring out of her.
Piles of poems, short stories, skits and song lyrics later, Jamie grew up and married. When her eldest son turned five she decided to try her hand at novels. Snow Angel was published and won the USA Book News “Best Books 2007” Awards winner, and 2008 RITA Awards® Best First Book finalist. Her third book, Wind Dancer, won Best Books of Indiana in 2010.
Jamie and Tony have been married for twenty-four years and live in Indianapolis with their three sons, a giant of a dog named Leo, and their new addition – a half Siamese/half Snow Shoe kitten named Luna.
If she could only say one thing to her readers it would be, “Live the dreams God has destined you for!”
9. How can readers connect with you to learn more about your other projects or get in touch with you?
10. One last question: Pride & Prejudice or Sense & Sensibility?
Pride and Prejudice! I’ve seen the movie at least a dozen times. I love Sense and Sensibility and Emma too though. Now, you’ve done it!! I’m going to be craving some Jane Austen and have to squeeze that into my schedule!
Thanks again to Jamie Carie for stopping by and sharing her story. Be sure to leave a comment to be entered it the giveaway for the winner’s choice of a book in the Forgotten Castles series!
I noticed the tree from more than fifty yards away.
In the Regency years, autumn would usher in the enjoyment of tastes such as hartshorn, cranberry, and orange jellies (find tasty Jane Austen Centre at Bath recipes here), Barmbrack (a traditional Irish fruit bread), an array of harvest fruits (apples, pears, currants, apricots and grapes), mulled wines and spiced ciders, nuts, puddings, decadent trifles and warm, sweet confections. (Jam tartlets anyone?)
There were still beautiful days.
