Category: Uncategorized


Feb
2025

A Flight of Fancy: a Regency Novel by Laurie Alice Eakes

categories: Uncategorized

I’m excited to introduce a new Regency novel today. It’s entitled A Flight of Fancy and written by Regency Reflection’s own Laurie Alice Eakes.

To celebrate A Flight of Fancy, we’re running a special week-long contest. Starting today through next Friday, October 12, we’ll feature Regency quiz questions at the end of each post. To enter the contest, you’ll need to correctly answer the questions in the comment section below. For every correct answer, your name will be added into the drawing for a Regency Food and Frolic gift basket. There will be five questions in all, which means your name can be entered up to five times (if you get all five questions right). The deadline to answer ALL CONTEST QUESTIONS will be Saturday, October 13 at midnight.

The gift basket will include:

A small Starbucks mug

A box of Earl Grey tea

A package of Pepperidge Farm Cookies (biscuits)

A $10.00 Amazon gift card

Before we get to today’s quiz question, let me tell you about the story, and why I’m enjoying reading it so much.

Cassandra Bainbridge may be a bit of a bluestocking, but when Geoffrey Giles is near, love seems a fine alternative to passion for Greek and the physics of flight. With his dashing good looks and undying devotion to her, the earl of Whittaker sets Cassandra’s heart racing with his very presence. It seems his only flaw is his distaste for ballooning, the obsession that consumes so much of her thoughts.

When a terrible accident compels her to end her betrothal, Cassandra heads for the country to recover from both her injuries and her broken heart. With time on her hands and good friends to help her, she pursues her love for ballooning and envisions a future for herself as a daring aeronaut. But when Lord Whittaker slips back into her life, will she have to choose between him and her dream?

A Flight of Fancy has generated critical acclaim from places such as the Romantic Times, which said: ” Eakes has a charming way of making her novels come to life without being over the top. The second Daughters of Bainbridge House story has romance, mystery, suspense and characters who transcend the stereotype of stiff English formality.”

One of the things I personally love about this story is how Whittaker finds himself torn between love and duty. He struggles with handling both things at once, and that same struggle reaches out and touches every person on the planet at one time or another. And of course, the suspense element is riveting, keeping the reader constantly guessing at what will happen next, who’s toying with Whittaker and Cassandra, and why.

I genuinely hope others enjoy this book as much as I do.

Today’s question: A Flight of Fancy is set in 1812. During what years did the Regency take place?

A: 1790-1820

B: 1800-1830

C: 1811-1830

D: 1811-1820

Remember to leave your answer in the comment section below. And come back Monday for Laurie Alice Eakes’s post on ballooning during the Regency, plus two more quiz questions.

This contest is now closed. Please see the final post for answers to the trivia questions. 

Originally posted 2012-10-05 01:00:44.


Feb
2025

Too Full for God

categories: A Day in the Life, Prayer, Uncategorized, Wisdom

Vanessa here,

Do you have room in your heart for anything else?  A new job to help with the bills, a fundraiser to feed the starving children, a sale at your favorite crowded shoe store.

Have you stacked your life with carpooling, lil’ Ellen’s ballet classes, and you’re-the-only-one-who-can ministry work, making a buck, oh and quality hubby time between 7:00 and 10:00 on Saturdays, that you’ve lost the meaning of having quality devotion?

I have.

This year seemed to be one in which many things had finally come to fruition: My novel, Madeline’s Protector is being published. My hubby stopped being deployed, at least for a little while. My firm just signed its biggest client.

Then reality came a knocking.

Revisions and more revisions to my master piece. (All the edits, including cuts were for the best.) So, now hubby wants me to go to bed at a decent hour. Doesn’t he know inspiration hits at 1:00 A.M. My client believes that they should be my only obligation. It get’s better. Their offices are an hour from my home, and they want this homeschooling principle partner to be onsite early in the morning, three days each week. I won’t mention their lack of understanding of how long something takes to develop and deploy software.

So I adjusted, code for reducing my devotion time and being less present with my family.  Surely, they won’t mind. I began dropping off/out of my net circles. There was no time to twitter or follow cherished loop threads. Thus, when I needed spiritual refreshment, I pushed away from God and those needed friends offering words of encouragement.

Yet, as I seek to get handle on this new normal, tragedy strikes. My younger brother is prepped for open heart surgery in Florida. He lives in Georgia near the rest of the immediate kin. He just visited a client when he started experiencing chest pains. With a torn Aorta, the odds of his survival were less than 25%. The doctor told him without the surgery, he’d die in less than two days.

All the cards of my life fell off the table. My hands trembled, and I choked backed tears as I tried to convince our mother that everything was going to be fine. I don’t remember what I said or did next, except speeding away from my ‘not-understanding’ client. I have flashes of begging Delta to let me an oversold flight to be at his side when he comes out of the five hour surgery.

While I waited for positive signs of recovery, him waking up, etc., I slept on a hospital couch. My 16th anniversary passed with just phone calls. My child’s upcoming birthday party went unplanned. Nonetheless, my client learned to survive. My book galley edits… Well, I’m thankful for the editing team.

The only positive, other than seeing Marc open his eyes and squeeze my hand, was finding time to increase my prayer time. After crying out to God  for days on end, I regained that sense of connection. I never felt His arms about me more.

Why must it take near tragedy to begin to re-prioritize? I know that others have even more on their plates. I can’t imagine the depths of the burdens each of you have weighing on your lives, the important demands nipping at your heels.  All I know, is that you must run and fall at His feet, collapse your weight into God’s warm embrace.

Sleeping in the meat-locker cold air in the hospital, sniffing the wonderful bleach-laced alcohol scents in the air, gave me the opportunity to see my life, how much I’d isolated myself from friends and family with the myriad of pursuits I’d packed into my life.

First, I must apologize to my friends and family. I’ve been on the edges of your lives, only dipping my head and nodding to appear as if I’m present and involved. Every second that we breathe is precious. Every moment has worth, not just the accolades or project deliverables.

I repent for all “my busy time.”  God made us to enjoy a Sabbath, every seven days.  I’ve made it into a seven-day work week. How can I give my best to my clients or to hubby and my lil’ girl, if my batteries are never recharged?

I need to say no. You can’t serve two masters or promise to deliver something that is not humanly possible.We all want to be the good guy, the go-to girl. I am going to have to find joy in slacking. Miss Eager Beaver is now going to be, Mrs. let-me-check-my calendar. It won’t be easy. Maybe there’s a 12 step program for saying no.

Lastly, no matter how “important” some deadlines or tasks seem, it will never be more important than finding time to commune with the Lord. He is the lifter of my head when all seems lost. He is the city on hill giving guidance to those stuck in the valley. I don’t ever want to have my heart so full, that I push God and dependence upon him out of the ventricles.

My brother is now recovering at home in Georgia. He’s a walking miracle. God has used this circumstance for all our good.

Be blessed and say no to all but God.

 

 

Originally posted 2012-10-03 10:00:00.

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Feb
2025

Interview with Regency Romance Author Abby Gaines

categories: Author Interview, Contests, Free Book, Recommended Reading, Regency Romance, Uncategorized

Naomi Rawlings here today, and I’ve got a special guest to introduce: Abby Gaines, author of the newly released novel The Governess and Mr. Granville. I’m especially excited to host Abby here today, because she writes for the same publisher that I write for, Love Inspired Historical.

Abby has graciously agreed to giveaway one copy of her novel to someone who reads the interview and then leaves a comment below. The contest will end Saturday at midnight and is open only to U.S. residents. Here’s a bit about Abby:

I handwrote my first romance novel at age 17. Disillusioned by my first rejection, I gave it up for about 20 years! Obviously I developed a thicker skin over that time, because when I started again, I weathered numerous rejections before selling my first book to Harlequin Superromance in 2006. Since then, I’ve written 20 books across Harlequin’s Superromance, NASCAR and Love Inspired Historical lines.

1.    What drew you to write during the Regency Time Period?
Like many others, I fell in love with the Regency through the works of Georgette Heyer and Jane Austen. Although men and women had very different, clearly defined roles, when it came to clever, witty dialogue, they could be equals, and each could use the strengths of their gender to befuddle the other!

2.    Tell us what year your book is set in and why you chose that particular time.  
It’s set in 1816. Not for any particularly good reason – when I wrote my first Regency, I found a picture of a young woman who looked just how I imagined my heroine, and it was dated 1816. Since then, that time period has turned out be quite interesting. It was after the wars with Napoleon, and in a time where some well-known artists and writers, like Turner and Keats, were coming into their own. Not to mention new inventions coming out. Those things provide interesting background and sometimes drive the story in a new direction.

3.    What’s your favorite, unique Regency aspect of the novel, something you wouldn’t be able to include in a novel set in another place or time?
My heroine has a secret engagement in her past. When I first started writing the book, I knew that was a scandalous thing, but I didn’t understand why. In my research, I discovered how financially risky that would have been for her if the match had gone ahead, and how it would have damaged public perception of her beloved father. Her guilt over that past event isn’t just about breaking a convention – she could have lost everything.

4.    What are the biggest challenges to writing in the Regency Period?
No challenges with the period itself, but the need to check just about every word’s date of origin and early meaning in the Oxford English Dictionary is time-consuming!

5.    Who is your favorite Regency Author?
Georgette Heyer. And right now, Sylvester is my favorite book of hers.

6.    What is your favorite Regency Food, aspect of dress, and/or expression?
Those muslin dresses are hard to beat! So flattering to both the bust and the waist – bring back the empire-line dress!

7.    What is your favorite Regency setting; e.g., London, country house, small village?
I prefer London settings as a reader and a writer. Partly because I know London well, having lived there for several years, and it’s such a buzz seeing familiar streets and landmarks transported back in time. But also the dynamism of the city appeals. I do like Bath settings, too.

8. What makes your hero and heroine uniquely Regency?
She’s a governess and a parson’s daughter – impoverished but of noble lineage. That puts her in a difficult situation with regard to finding a husband. He’s a traditional dad, trying to do his best for his family, convinced he can marry without love and have it all work out fine. Naturally, he learns otherwise!

9. Tell us more about your novel.Dominic Granville needs a wife—whether he wants one or not! And governess Serena Somerton intends to find one for him. A marriage of convenience would provide the wealthy widower’s five children with a mother’s tender care. And yet none of Dominic’s prospective brides can meet Serena’s increasingly high standards.

Dominic can’t imagine why his sister hired such an unconventional, outspoken governess. Yet Miss Somerton’s quirks can’t curb his growing interest in this spirited young woman. His imperfect governess could be his ideal wife…

*****

Thanks so much for interviewing with us today, Abby. It’s always fun to see what draws various authors to the Regency Period. And can I admit that any and every European set governess story always reminds me of the Sound of Music? For those of you interested in the giveaway, please remember to leave a comment below. And if you’re interested in learning more about Abby and her other novels, please visit www.abbygaines.com.

 

Originally posted 2012-09-26 01:00:00.


Feb
2025

Mary Wollenstonecraft: Education for Women

categories: Uncategorized

Woman Reading

Though she died just before the Regency began, Mary Wollenstonecraft (mother of Frankenstein author Mary Shelley) had an enormous impact on Regency ideas about the education of women.

The Original Feminist

In her ground-breaking book, A Vindication of the Rights of Woman, Wollenstonecraft made the first strong and popular argument for women’s education. Though she’s considered one of the mothers of feminism, Wollenstonecraft’s feminism was very different from the feminism that makes headlines today. Instead of arguing for the right of woman to be just as raunchy as the guys, Wollenstonecraft was concerned  with women’s virtue: she argued that it was impossible for women to make wise  decisions if they’d never been taught how to think.

You couldn’t, Wollenstonecraft argued, raise a girl to only think about her looks, to only be concerned about snaring a husband, and then expect her to be smart enough to run a household or good enough to raise well-behaved children. If you wanted her to be fit to do her duties, you had to educate her.

Also, Wollenstonecraft argued, women were created as suitable mates for men, which meant they were of the same species – as Dorothy Sayers would later put it, women are human – and so what was good for men was good for women. God didn’t expect wisdom and virtue from men and silliness from women. If education gave men the tools they needed to be virtuous, education could give women those same advantages.

Controversy

Wollenstonecraft’s ideas weren’t completely accepted in her own day – they aren’t even now – but by stating her case so clearly and so well, she started a conversation that lasted all the way through the Regency and beyond. The “bluestockings” of the Regency – the bookish women – were Wollenstonecraft’s intellectual heiresses.

If you’re reading this today and you’re a woman who loves books, if you’re a woman who enjoyed a high-school and even a college education, Mary Wollenstonecraft is one of the brave pioneers you have to thank.

Peace of Christ to you,

Jessica Snell

 

Originally posted 2012-09-24 10:00:00.