Camy here! Today I get to interview Laurie Alice Eakes on her newest release, A RELUCTANT COURTSHIP.
1. What inspired you to write A Reluctant Courtship?
Since I like to go in other directions than the norm, I kept thinking opposite other books I read. One question I asked myself was: What if a heroine decides to go along with her father’s wishes for an arranged marriage instead of fighting against it, as usual. She’s a heroine who wants to marry and is so disillusioned with love that a mariage de convenable sounds great to her. So, in other words, a desire to deliver a story outside the norm inspired me.
2. Tell us what makes your heroine and hero special to you.
Honore is a truly loving person who wants everyone happy. I have lived with her for two other books and have maternal feelings toward her, so writing her story was like spending time with an old friend I loved, but also shook my head at and wanted to force to take good advice.
As for the hero, I like to put people into a wholly foreign—to them—element. Here he is, a man raised in the wilds of upstate New York, suddenly inheriting an English title. He doesn’t like to ride horses. He doesn’t like being idle. He thinks nothing of walking five miles to get to his destination instead of taking a carriage. Lots of fun to work with.
3. If your hero and heroine had a contemporary theme love song, what would it be and why?
This question sent me running to the pop station on my satellite radio, since I don’t listen to pop all that much. Two songs kind of work: “Just Give Me a Reason” by Pink and “Need You Now” by Lady Antebellum. The first one because Honore needs lots of reason to love again. Unlucky in love is putting her situation mildly. “Need You Now” because they both try to resist their lure to one another despite good reasons for staying away, and yet they need one another.
Not to be a prude, because I am certainly not one, and I don’t recommend or advise some of the other sentiments in these songs.
4. What is your favorite dessert and why?
Something I haven’t eaten in a long time, not because I haven’t wanted to, and because I haven’t been anywhere that serves it and am certainly not making for myself: chocolate mousse cake with chocolate ganache icing. Key words in the answer as to why: chocolate, cake, mousse, ganache. Need I say more?
5. Is there another Regency-set book that you would compare A Reluctant Courtship to?
I haven’t run across one, and, believe me, I’ve read dozens. But then, I set out to write one that was different. In tone, though, probably Patricia Veryan meets Amanda Quick.
I’d love input from readers on whether or not they can compare it to another book. Please write me at laewriter@gmail.com, or find me on Twitter @LaurieAEakes
Camy: Thanks for the interview, Laurie Alice!
For a chance to win a $10 Amazon or Barnes and Noble gift card today, answer the question below in the comment section. I’ll pick the winner for the $10 gift card tonight at 11:59 pm PST. If you answer the question, your name will also be entered into our Regency Grand Prize giveaway in honor of the release of A Reluctant Courtship. The giveaway includes a tea cup, a package of tea, a box of chocolates and a $10 gift card (to either Amazon or Barnes and Noble). (Click here for more information on the Regency Grand Prize giveaway.) Be sure to come back on Thursday, for another chance to win.
Today’s question: If you have read Regency romances before, why did you pick one up? What keeps you reading them?
In writing classes, we are taught to make things as bad for our characters as we can. Honore should have been easy. In A Necessary Deception, in which she made her debut into society, and in A Flight of Fancy, where she rusticates in the country with her injured sister, Honore managed to make things terrible enough for herself.
But I wanted to make her situation even worse!
Lord Bainbridge, the father of the three sisters, is an autocratic man, a political animal who wants things the way he wants them. He manipulates his children to his will as much as he can, and he can do a great deal. But Honore is the baby and pretty and lively and a daddy’s girl. She got away with too much. Daddy cleaned up her messes for her.
So I had to take her daddy away from her.
And then we introduce Americus Poole (Meric to his friends) now Lord Ashmoor. Most men fall at Honore’s feet. Ashmoor looks at her like most of us view rattle snakes—the further away the better. He has his own issues, and Honore’s presence in his life will only make them worse. After all, a man under suspicion of treason cannot be involved with a young lady with a questionable reputation.
Beyond the romance and adventure that springs from Honore and Ashmoor’s stories is the theme of exile. Honore has been exiled from her family and from society because of her past mistakes. In turn, this physical exile makes her feel exiled from God. Everything that happens to her seems to indicate that God has rejected her, and this rejection of the heart and spirit drives her decisions and actions until her very life hangs on the edge.
Cliffs in North Devon (Wikipedia image)
As with Cassandra in A Flight of Fancy, I related to Honore’s spiritual struggle. I attended a Christian college and my friends were going off to be doctors and pastors, and the wives of doctors and pastors. I, however, had no calling that I saw. I interpreted this as God rejecting me. The decisions I made over the next several years—most of them terrible—stemmed from this sense of exile from God.
The simple response is that God doesn’t reject us; we reject him. Romans 8:38-39 assures us that nothing separates us from the love of God. Yet what I had to learn, what Honore has to learn, is that we often have to be taken out of our comfort zone of the life we think we want or should have, to circumstances we can’t control, for the Lord to shape us into the people we are intended to be to thus serve him better.
I hope you enjoy Honore’s journey back from exile.
For a chance to win a $10 Amazon gift card today, answer the question below in the comment section. Your name will also be entered into our Regency Gift Package Giveaway in honor of the release of A Reluctant Courtship. The giveaway includes another gift card, a tea cup, and chocolate.
What types of things do you like to learn from authors? For example: How they work, their non writing life, their spiritual life…
To celebrate the release of A Reluctant Courtship, we’re running a special two week long contest. Starting today through Monday, October 28, we’ll feature thought-provoking questions at the end of each post and giving away a $10 gift card to either Amazon or Barnes and Noble (winner’s choice) to one person who answers that day’s question. Your name will also be entered into our Regency Grand Prize giveaway.
The Grand Prize will include:
A tea cup
A box of tea
A box of chocolates
A $10.00 Amazon or Barnes and Noble
Before we get to today’s question, let me tell you more about A Reluctant Courtship, and why I enjoyed reading it so much.
Honore Bainbridge has been courted by two men, one of whom turned out to be a traitor, the other a murderer. Banished to her family’s country estate, where she will hopefully stay out of trouble, she finally meets the man she is sure is exactly right for her: Lord Ashmoor. Tall, dark, and handsome–what more could a girl ask for? But he too is under suspicion because of his American upbringing and accusations that he has helped French and American prisoners escape from Dartmoor Prison. For his part, Lord Ashmoor needs a wife beyond reproach, which Honore certainly is not. Amid a political climate that is far from friendly, Honore determines to help Ashmoor prove his innocence–if she can do so and stay alive.
From the rocky cliffs of Devonshire, England, comes the exciting conclusion to the lush Daughters of Bainbridge House series. Award-winning author Laurie Alice Eakes thrusts her readers into high drama from the very first sentence and keeps them on their toes until the final page.
A Flight of Fancy has generated recommendations from places such as Booklist, which said: “Eakes seamlessly blends romance and intrigue, faith and history.”
I’d have to agree with Booklist about how wonderfully Eakes blended romance, suspense, history, and faith in A Reluctant Courtship. I also loved how Honore struggled as a woman who had made past mistakes and ruined her reputation, but with God’s help, she was able to overcome those mistakes and restore her good name by the end of the novel.
Today’s question: When you hear the words “Regency romance” what comes into your head?
Remember to leave your answer in the comment section below to be eligible for both today’s gift card as well as a chance to win the grand prize. Then come back Thursday for Laurie Alice Eakes’s post on what it’s like to write a Regency novel plus another chance to win.
If you’ve done a fair amount of reading in the regency genre, you’ll have come across a reference to Gunter’s. I’ve seen it mentioned as a place for a chaperoned daytime outing, and as a purveyor of catering for balls and banquets.
Studying up on the place, one learns it was founded way back in 1757 as “The Pot and Pineapple”. By the time the regency was in full swing, it was owned by James Gunter. The name was synonymous with the finest in treats., such as ice cream, sweets, and pastries.
So Pretty
Being inventive with ice cream flavors tempted more customers. Some extraordinary flavors from those days were jasmine, elderflower, and parmesan, among others. Gunter’s establishment lived on into the twentieth century, but is no longer in existence.
It touches me to know that today’s confectioners’ obsession with wild flavors is not unique to our lavish times. Researching some of our latest flavors in 2013 brought to my attention: ale & bacon, salted caramel, pear with blue cheese, lemon basil, and Marsala date flavors.
200 years from the heyday of the regency and we still crave our unusually-flavored ice cream.
What’s your favorite flavor? Most unusual you’ve had?
At Regency Reflections, we love stories as much as you do. We asked our authors what books they were currently reading.
Vanessa Riley
I read in spurts. So the most recent was Reluctant Courtship. An Heiress at Heart, and 128 Bible stories.
Naomi Rawlings
A Bride for Keeps by Melissa Jagears and A Reluctant Courtship by Laurie Alice Eakes. 🙂
Susan Karsten
I just read “The Aftermath”, and am now reading “The Outcasts” — both ABA. The first was about post WWII Hamburg, Germany, the latter is a western which feels a lot like the movie remake of True Grit. Both are good reads, but as usual, gratuitous, unnecessary sexual references are sprinkled amidst great characterization and plot. So un-needed.
Camy Tang
Trouble in Store by Carol Cox. It’s the book of the month reading at Christian Fiction Devourers on Goodreads. Super cute story so far!
Laurie Alice Eakes
I just finished reading Poetic Justice, a traditional Regency by Alicia Rasley. Well-written and clever.Now I’m reading a cozy mystery I just started and honestly don’t recall the name of.
Kristi Ann Hunter
I’m in the middle of Laurie Alice’s Reluctant Courtship. (Yea! Can’t wait to share more about that in a the coming weeks.) I recently finished Rich In Love by Lindi Peterson, a fun contemporary Christian romance.
Of great benefit to women during the Regency was the great relative comfort of the clothing of the day. Compared to the preceding Georgian period, the Regency provided a measure of relief from physical constraints. Gone were the painfully heavy panniers and voluminous skirts, but most ladies still wore stays. We don’t experience many swoons these days, but the wearing of stays and corsets assured the occurrence of many a fainting spell.
Fainting was a likely event in the lives of Regency ladies. The sensitive Regency lady would carry her own smelling-salts. These were usually an infusion of ammonium carbonate and alcohol, scented with lavender or lemon oil. The container in which the salts were carried was called a vinaigrette; a small box or bottle with a perforated top. Sal volatile is another term for this mixture, and both it and spirit of hartshorn (water and ammonia) could be drunk as well as sniffed. Hungary water was another popular perfumed herbal restorative and could be dabbed on the temples or wiped on the hands and face of someone suffering from nerves or headache.
The preparations mentioned were kept handy for fainting, attacks of nerves, and whenever an unpleasant odor came one’s way. Today, we throw a wallet, comb, sunscreen, and lipstick into our purses and head out to face the world. The reticules (purses) of Regency ladies carried a bit of money, a handkerchief, and their vinaigrette of smelling salts.What about you? Do you prefer a large or small purse? Floppy or stiff? Long or short strap?
The beauty of books is that they can transport you anywhere and anytime. During the Regency (and indeed many, many years before and after) reading was a past time enjoyed by the whole family.
Before television and radio became the focus of family entertainment, books had the ability to share stories and start conversations. We’ve talked before on this blog about books, including how they were bought or borrowed during the Regency and how we fell in love with reading in the first place.
This past week, I’ve been privileged to see a love of reading blooming in younger generations. My eldest daughter is starting to enjoy the story complexity of longer, chapter-style books while my youngest son had begun carrying picture books around in case a lap becomes available. A teenager I work with recently asked me for a list of author suggestions as she transitions from YA books. As a book lover myself, I get excited to see children and teens finding the same love.
Books are the perfect place for young, creative minds to grow. They realized this even in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century. This is when the children’s book as we know it began to exist.
Illustrated books with two to six lines of writing on each page appeared in the late 1700s. John Newbury, who is honored annually in America with the Newbury Medal, began publishing these happy books to fill a growing need in children’s literature.
By the Regency, children’s books became more involved, more targeted. Some even had movable parts, such as an illustrated dolls head or arms moving.
Perhaps it was this surge in the idea of children’s literature that propelled the success of the Grimm Brothers. Late in the Regency, the Grimm Brothers began publishing their collections of German folklore. They were very popular in England as children fell in love with Snow White and Rumpelstiltskin.
In August we celebrated Jane Austen and the role she played in the modern romance. It is interesting to know how much modern children’s literature was influenced by authors from the time as well.
What was your favorite children’s book? Were you a lover of fairy tales?
Last week was a weird one. The algorithms—the bots—seemed to come for me. Canva, of all places, led the charge. It made me feel like I wasn’t just wrong in opinion, but wrong in essence. As if the characters I write—rooted in history, full of breath and heart—were somehow unworthy. Handcuff me now, because it felt like I was being told it was a crime to write them at all.
Caption: Two Scaredy-Cats watching the must see movie, Sinners.
And in this current climate? That kind of doubt sticks. There’s so much anti-DEI noise. So much effort to “protect” people from truth. Heaven forbid someone learns something. Heaven forbid someone dares to be better, more moral than their ancestors.
I thought I’d shaken it off. Thought I’d moved on. I got back work on my manuscript and typed out another 6,000 words. Then came another note from Canva, gently suggesting I find another word—something less “triggering”—than “enslaved” to describe Jacquotte of the upcoming Fire Sword and Sea, who had in fact was enslaved. So I turned to friends and asked them for other ways to phrase “enslavement.” Here’s what we came up with:
* Bond servant
* Stolen laborer
* Forced job training
* People in the condition of slavery
* Held in captivity
* Kidnapped
And y’all—I laughed to keep from crying. Because all I could think of was: Lord, have mercy.
I might have sinned right then—if not in word, then in thought. I wanted to cuss out the machine. I was disappointed in technology. That’s a hard place to be for a data girl. Yet, I was more disappointed in me for even entertaining the idea of appeasing the bot—the faceless, soulless thing that some biased, flawed, or agenda driven human had created and enabled it to think it knows what’s best.
Surrendering is not how we honor truth or the stories we’re called to tell.
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Fear is a seductive thing. It whispers: Don’t speak too loudly. Don’t shine too brightly. Don’t center stories on Black truth, Black joy, or Black progress.
And lately, I’ll admit—it’s been taking me longer to bounce back. It’s getting harder to hold on to the vision of a brighter morning just ahead when everything feels handcuffed and ready to be jailed or deported.
In the past forty-eight hours. The visuals that I allowed my eyes to see have been, stunning, heartbreaking, and even holy.
On Easter Sunday, my church goes all out for a dramatization of the Crucification: lights, drama, music, the whole thing. But this year, there stood a Black Jesus—bloodied, whipped, brutalized. It hit different, terrifyingly different. Then came Black Simon, stepping in to carry the cross, basically taking on his shoulders the oppressor’s burden given to Jesus. I’m watching it and something cracked, fracture into hundreds of pieces on the inside.
It’s been a long time since I cried in church. The first time was when I said the sinner’s prayer and I admitted that I was scared and I needed salvation.
Side note: Did you know the “Sinner’s Prayer” doesn’t actually appear anywhere in the Bible? There is no biblical record of anyone praying those exact words. It emerged around the Protestant Reformation and took shape in the early 20th century—barely 125 years ago. For context, the Civil War officially ended 160 years ago. Both of those things are not that long ago.
On Easter Monday, I saw Sinners—the Ryan Coogler film with Michael B. Jordan, Wunmi Mosaku, Hailee Steinfeld, Li Jun Li, Miles Caton, and Delroy Lindo. On a gorgeous widescreen, I watched this emotionally rich tale saturated with period details and truths. Spoilers alert: Two brothers are seen watching the sunrise, just in awe of the majesty and their freedom. Then I focused on people dancing, singing, loving.
Then comes destruction.
The movie has all types of monsters. The obvious hate-filled men of the Klan, who are hungry for blood and money. Then monsters disguised as your own kind. The evil is often invited in. He feasts of fear and death.
The violence didn’t make me jump. The gore wasn’t any worse than the makeup used at church for the crucifixion. Eventually, dread arrives. It settles in your chest. It steals all joy before the next morning can come. I found myself waiting for that other foot to fall, for when that bad was coming.
So what does this all mean? Anticipating doom or consequence can be as draining as when the threats or violence comes. We can’t surrender in advance.
It means we must guard our eyes—not to shield them from truth, but to make sure they still see beauty, even in chaos. Still see family. Still see hope.
We must guard our ears—because false praise can lull us into stillness. It can lie to us that we are safe and leave us vulnerable to brokenness. Yet we need music, sweet music, true music, ancestral rhythms. All can cut through the noise and remind us who we are, who we are striving to be.
We must remember:
This little light of mine… I’m gonna let it shine.
A light can be seen.A light reveals what’s nearest—what needs our care.A light casts shadows, warning us of what’s creeping in the distance.A light tells the truth of our circumstances. And it gives us the chance to see the true face of things lurking in the dark.
So keep your light burning. That is your protection.Keep your voice strong. That is how you inspire hope.Then revel in each new day, letting your truth-telling, joy-making, world-building self be known.
To help encourage your soul, try:
Call Us What We Carry by Amanda Gorman – Poetry that engages with history, hope, and the responsibility of bearing witness.
Sula by Toni Morrison – A meditation on Black womanhood, loyalty, and community through beautifully painful prose.
And of course, go see Sinners in the movie theater. Watch creativity and inclusiveness on the widest screen you can find. Thank me later.
The winners will be those who kept their light shining, who believed in truth. And who dared to cry out: It’s me. It’s me, oh Lord, standing in the need of prayer.
Darkness is real. We tend to invite into our life, our work, our sanctuaries.But remember dawn is also real. Dawn, I hear comes with new mercies, too. I pray we find them.
Show notes include a list of the books mentioned in this broadcast. This week, I’m highlighting The Book Cellar through their website and Bookshop.org You can find my notes on Substack or on my website, VanessaRiley.com under the podcast link in the About tab.
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Thank you for listening. Hopefully, you’ll come again. This is Vanessa Riley.
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Mop Fairs and Michaelmas Day
by Laurie Alice Eakes
Michaelmas Day was one of the four quarter days in the British system, a day in which rents and wages were due. Michaelmas Day, or the Feast of St. Michael, the Archangel, is now the 29th of September. Under the old calendar, it was celebrated on 10th or 11th of October (sources are inconsistent on which day), which coincided with the annual hiring of laborers and household servants.
These fairs were called mop fairs for the fact that those needing work gathered with the tools of their trade in hand. A shepherd carried a crook, a cook carried a ladle and wore a red ribbon, and a maid wore a blue ribbon and carried a mop. Those with no particular skill also carried mops.
Historic turn of the century mop fair from this site:http://www.nfa.dept.shef.ac.uk/images/strat8.jpg
Those needing to hire someone interviewed potential employees (during the Regency, the word was employé, as employee wasn’t used until the 1850s) as to their skills and experienced. When the employer chose someone, money exchanged hands, and the hiree donned a ribbon to signify she or he had been hired. They were then free to spend their token of employment at the local taverns or other establishments set up with games and goods.
Michaelmas Day was appropriate for this practice because the harvest was usually finished or nearing completion; thus farmers could either acquire more laborers or, having rid himself of these extras, left them needing employment elsewhere. The day being a quarter day, wages were settled up.
Michaelmas Day was also celebrated with some other traditions such as eating a goose for dinner. The goose tradition probably stemmed from tenants bringing a goose to the landlord to soften him up, geese being at their prime at this time from dining on the stubble from the fields. In 1709, the following verse appeared in The British Apollo:
Yet my wife would persuade me (as I am a sinner) To have a fat goose on St. Michael for dinner: And then all the year round, I pray you would mind it, I shall not want money—oh, grant I may find it!
Many mop fairs continued well into the nineteenth century and on to the twentieth. Some of them were discontinued due to the drunken debauchery that became associated with the fairs; however, in the past couple of decades, these fairs have been revived with carnival rides and other festive entertainments. The fair at Marlborough, celebrated in October on the old Michaelmas Day, has talked of moving the fair from the High Street to the commons; however, because of their charter for the fair, moving it would take an act of Parliament. This symbolizes how important these fairs are to British history.
Hi everyone! My name is Camy Tang and I’m so excited to join this Regency Reflections blog! I have been reading Regency romances since I was a Freshman in high school–my first one was Regency Miss by Alix Melbourne, and I absolutely loved it. I recently re-read it a few months ago and it’s still as exciting as when I first read it.
My first Regency romance comes out next year from Zondervan/Thomas Nelson. I don’t have a title yet, but I’ll be writing under a pseudonym, Camille Elliot. I’m very excited and a little nervous about my first Regency romance. Although I’ve been reading them for years and I even bought Regency research books to read just for fun, I never attempted to write one until this year.
It’s about Alethea Sutherton, an earl’s daughter who has been neglected by her father, betrayed by her brother, and evicted from her home by her cousin, and so she doesn’t trust men in general. However, while living with her aunt in Bath, she suddenly finds that there is someone trying to steal her violin, which was a bequest from a neighboring widow who was like a mother to her.
Alethea is very gifted on the violin, which was considered unladylike and unfeminine to play for women in the early 19th century, and so for an Englishwomen to play it was considered almost scandalous. However, to discover who is after her violin and why, she must enlist the help of a nobleman considered an expert on the violin, Lord Dommick, who is in Bath to repair his reputation for the sake of his sister and mother. For him to associate with a violin-playing scandal on two legs is not his idea of how to go about doing that.
I always knew I wanted to write about a musician heroine and hero, but didn’t choose the violin until my research revealed how Regency society considered it so distasteful for women to play it, whereas men were not so constrained. There were a handful of professional violin playing women on the continent, but they were the exception to the rule, and there were no Englishwomen who played the violin.
Things changed in the late 19th century with the rise of the middle class. At that point, despite the fact Victorians in general were a slightly more prudish bunch, the objections to women playing the violin had been dropped and so more women learned the violin in England.
My heroine, of course, is bucking the system like any good heroine would do. 🙂 The hero is not quite sure what to make of her, but by the end he will be properly schooled in the art of love and music.
I’m looking forward to blogging about my favorite subjects, Regency romances and Regency readers!
Camy here! Today I get to interview Laurie Alice Eakes on her newest release, A RELUCTANT COURTSHIP.
