Austen’s World Wrap Up. February 4, 2016

Looks What’s Brewing in the Regency

  • Coming Soon! Lavinia Kent
    On Friday, January 29, our guest will be Lavinia Kent, talking about her new book, Ravishing Ruby, out now from Loveswept. My friend Lavinia’s forte is writing sensual love scenes. Like the first two books in her Bound and Determined … Continue reading
  • Toogood’s onion pie
    In Listen to the Moon (my new Regency romance about a valet and a maid who marry to get a plum job), Toogood makes an onion pie. “Are you fond of the Dymonds?” Sukey asked. “Of course.” He said it … Continue reading

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Originally posted 2016-02-04 06:20:58.

Write of Passage: Throw Out the Broken Pieces

I don’t know about you, but I have a drawer of knickknacks and half-finished projects—remnants of ideas and good intentions.

In my bathroom vanity, tucked behind a beautiful brass knob, there’s a special drawer. At first glance, it might seem like a treasure trove.

Once, maybe it was. But now? It’s a collection of brokenness. Broken glass. Broken jewelry. Missing sequins. And, perhaps, broken dreams.

Each piece ended up in this drawer because, at some point, I told myself I would fix it. That I would find the time to reattach that clasp, that I’d discover the match to that one clip-on earring I adore, or maybe I’d give a piece new life because this pendant is so sentimental.

But I haven’t.

And now the drawer is full.

Not with treasure, but with intentions—intentions that have long expired.

To be very honest, some of these items are truly beyond repair.

The joint on a bracelet has snapped off completely. The solder that once held it together disintegrated. And yet I kept it. Because maybe—just maybe—I’ll fix it one day. That’s the tease or lie, I tell myself.

And to date, I fixed maybe two or three things. I should be honest with myself when I’m not ready to let go.

That drawer is not a shrine of hope. It’s a graveyard of the dream deferred. It’s filled with delays and avoidance. As an author it’s a drawer of nice stories that I’m afraid to finish.

I think a lot of us are carrying real and metaphorical drawers like this through our lives.

We hold onto broken relationships, deflated dreams, abandoned goals. We carry them from space to space, boxing them up when we move, adding more to this draw year after year, when our plans change and haven’t the guts or desire to say goodbye out loud.

Truthly, I need to stop deluding myself. I’m not going to fix everything in this drawer.

There’s a difference between hope and baggage and that is a line called passion.

If you look closely at your time, your money, your energy they go to what you are passionate about.

They aligned with what you actually want?

If you feel there’s a disconnect between your vision and your investments, fix it. Otherwise That gap, that distance between what we want and what believe we want will fester into brokenness.

I wear clip-on earrings. Napier, Monet, Anne Klein are some favorites. And when I really like them, I will sometimes by duplicates of the same style. It sort of insurance, telling myself I have a backup in case I lose one. But that’s really just another excuse to keep piling excess into the drawer. The results are more broken pieces. More delays.

We all have excuses. And some of them are pretty good. As an author I can write some great excuses on why I’m filling up this space.

Yet, I need to accept that I’m weigh myself down. And whether it’s a literal drawer or an emotional one, we only have so much room.

So here’s my challenge to you—and to myself:

Go through your drawer. Literally and metaphorically. Sort through what’s there. Ask:

• Is this worth fixing?

• Do I want to invest the time to fix it?

• Is this taking up space where something whole and life-giving could live?

If you haven’t kept your word and fixed it in six months, let it go. Give it away, recycle it, or be brave and throw it out.

Here’s the truth that I have to accept. That draw of broken pieces is a mirror. And I don’t like what I see when I dig inside.

I’d rather the drawer be filled intention and joy. I’d rather it hold onto laughter, and good memories, and wholeness. I don’t want to leave behind a bunch of hot mess of pieces that no one understands or values when I had the power to clear it out and make room for better things.

Taking action:

That’s how we heal.

That’s how we move forward.

That’s how we create space for joy and new dreams.

Give yourself grace.

Give yourself freedom.

Throw out the broken pieces.

You deserve better. I’m rooting for us.

Books to get us through these moments:

Failures of Forgiveness: What We Get Wrong and How to Do Better by Myisha Cherry. It challenges our pressures to fix, offering a powerful reminder that sometimes, true healing begins by choosing not to repair what was never whole to begin with.

On Repentance and Repair by Danya Ruttenberg reframes the impulse to “fix” broken things—not through nostalgia or delay, but by naming harm, doing the work of transformation and restitution.

Village Weavers by Myriam J. A. Chancy illuminates how friendships, histories, and generational wounds can fracture and later reveal pathways to reconnection. Chancy reminds us that sometimes we must face the secrets we’ve kept tucked away, choosing what we rebuild and what we release.

This time I’m going to recommend an album: The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill is a testament to transforming personal brokenness, relational rupture, and societal pressures into a narrative of healing and self-reclamation.

This week, I’m highlighting Reparations Club Bookstore through their website and Bookshop.org

The cover for Fire Sword and Sea is here—and I love it! Three souls looking in different directions having each other’s back perfectly captures the spirit of these women pirates-bold brave and free of the 1600s.

Fire Sword and Sea – This sweeping saga, releasing January 13, 2026, follows fearless women who defied the world order and seized power on the high seas.

Preorders are now live! Visit my website for links to retailers big and small. Help spread the word. Share the adventure!

Show notes include a list of the books and album 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.

Enjoying the vibe? Go ahead and like this episode and subscribe to

Write of Passage so you never miss a moment.

Thank you for listening. Hopefully, you’ll come again.

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

Austen’s World Wrap Up. January 28, 2016

Looks What’s Brewing in the Regency

  • The Joy of Plot Bunnies. I mean Anecdotes.
    I stumbled across a very entertaining book from 1828 while doing a bit of research about Gentleman’s Clubs in London: The Clubs of London; with anecdotes of their members, sketches of character and conversations. It’s exactly the kind of fodder … Continue reading
  • Downton Abbey S6, E3 Recap and Review: Nibbly Bits
    Inquiring readers: A poll I placed on this blog a few days earlier showed that people were generally more pleased with Episode One over Episode Two, but the votes were close between excellent or merely O.K. for both. As for my coverage, 80% of you like my irreverent recaps, and 20% did not, with %5 […]

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Originally posted 2016-01-28 06:20:40.

Dealing with Otherworldly People – Mental Illness in the Regency

Vanessa here,

As you all know, I love Regency Romance, everything from the comedy of manners, spies, war torn lovers, and my beloved favorite, marriages of convenience. A few times I’ve read a few where the character was described as otherworldly. This is Regency speak for nutters, missing a few marbles, etc.

Now all of us have accquaintances who fly off the handle, or we swear they missed their medicine. Or maybe you have people in your life who are too random or flighty for your tastes and perhaps their own good. (You know who you are, and I’m praying for you.)

I am not talking about those bless-your-heart souls. I am talking about the one’s who struggle with depression, the ones who have difficulty remembering to smile, who battle with suffocating thoughts in their head, and even the one’s trying hard to discern between reality and fiction.

Multicultural Historical Regency Romance
Amora Norton

My heroine in Unveiling Love, Amora Norton, suffers from depression. She has survived a harrowing ordeal but has kept the trauma and nightmares bottled-up inside. Yet, those memories can’t be contained. They burst free and shatter everything– her marriage and her will to live.

Depression is real. It is real now and in the time of Jane Austen.

For my sun-loving brethren, can you image living in the year of 1816, the year of no summer. Mount Tambora on the island of Sumbawa, Indonesia erupted producing volcanic clouds that literally changed the weather patterns over most of Europe. England had cold weather for the entire year.  Yes, an entire year…

People rioted from food shortages that year. Can you imagine being cold, hungry, and in the dark?

flavored spa candle on a wooden background
                  We need light in the dark.

But what did Regency folks think about mental illness? Maybe it’s a very British concept, but family member’s seemed to manage it as a part of their responsibilities.

Jane Austen shows us a look at mental instability with Emma (1815). Emma’s father, Mr. Woodhouse is in mental decline. He has moments of paranoia, in which Emma’s patience helps to re-establish his footing. Here are Emma’s thoughts on her father:

Emma could not but sigh over it, and wish for impossible things, till her father awoke, and made it necessary to be cheerful. His spirits required support. He was a nervous man, easily depressed; fond of every body that he was used to, and hating to part with them; hating change of every kind. Matrimony, as the origin of change, was always disagreeable; and he was by no means yet reconciled to his own daughter’s marrying, nor could ever speak of her but with compassion, though it had been entirely a match of affection, when he was now obliged to part with Miss Taylor too; and from his habits of gentle selfishness, and of being never able to suppose that other people could feel differently from himself, he was very much disposed to think Miss Taylor had done as sad a thing for herself as for them, and would have been a great deal happier if she had spent all the rest of her life at Hartfield. Emma smiled and chatted as cheerfully as she could, to keep him from such thoughts.

Here are Mr. Woodhouse’s own words:

“I believe it is very true, my dear, indeed,” said Mr. Woodhouse, with a sigh. “I am afraid I am sometimes very fanciful and troublesome.”

Because of her father, Emma believes that she cannot marry. She is very young and now that the other caregiver, Miss Taylor, now Mrs. Weston, has gone, Emma takes on the whole responsibility of caring for her father. This underlying thread in Emma points to a few things:

  1. Regency families were aware of the affects of depression.
  2. Families and friends took responsibilities to support those with mental illness.

Notice Emma’s thoughts aren’t to send him away, but to make him comfortable and secure. They aren’t even to medicate him, which at that time would have been an opiate, very addictive stuff.

The next part of my series will discuss how the Regency dealt with severe mental illness, where life and limb are at risk, but for now I leave with you these thoughts:

  1. Depression is real and can be debilitating.
  2. Though suicide rates are higher in spring and early summer, cold winter temperatures, less sunlight, and blizzards impact many with increasing rates of depression.
  3. Many suffer in silence. A pray and smile can go a long way.
  4. Act with love, seeking your friend’s comfort. Save the pull-yourself-up-by-the-bootstraps talk for a sunny day.
  5. Check on those struggling and urge them to seek help.

 

Originally posted 2016-01-25 08:40:56.

Austen’s World Wrap Up. January 21, 2016

Looks What’s Brewing in the Regency

  • What Do You Think of Downton Abbey Season 6 So Far?
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  • Happy New Year! Guess What I DID!!!?!
    OK, you’ll never guess. I began Operation New (to me) Desk! This project entailed cleaning, discarding, and organizing. Three things I’m not good at. Phase One is complete. The old desk is out. The new desk is in. The new … Continue reading

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Originally posted 2016-01-21 06:21:11.

Austen’s World Wrap Up. January 14, 2016

Looks What’s Brewing in the Regency

  • Twelfth Night Customs: Wassailing the Apple Trees
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  • Austen vs Brontë
    How better to start 2016 at Risky Regencies than with a cat fight? Not a real one, of course, but a literary one pitting Jane Austen against Charlotte Brontë. I just read Why Charlotte Brontë Hated Jane Austen by Susan Ostrov Weisser … Continue reading

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Originally posted 2016-01-14 06:20:11.

Austen’s World Wrap Up. January 7, 2016

Looks What’s Brewing in the Regency

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Originally posted 2016-01-07 06:21:18.

Swept Away Again

Vanessa here,

Next week, I will begin a series on mental illness and the Regency. Yes, a very exciting subject. So I thought I’d post something not so gloomy today. Many of you about 15,000 were able to get a copy of Swept Away this weekend. (It’s still free Jan. 4 2016.) It’s my Regency Cinderella story. Swept Away just released on audio.  Here’s a little snippet after Swept Away with Edwin and Charlotte:


Before Edwin Cinder could excuse himself from the drawing room of his wife’s Grosvenor Square town home, his stepbrother’s snide voice repeated another stinging comment above his dear sister’s pianoforte.

“The gossip papers got you pegged, you elevated shoe peddler.” Shelby laughed and snorted his claret. “Someone caught you in Cheapside. Next, we’ll see a sketch of you yet in an apron, hugging a shoe lasting station. The duchess will love that, won’t you, madame.”

Charlotte winced, her creamy temple wrinkling. “Surely, Lord Rundle, it will not come to that.”

Shelby rocked his large head up and down. “Maybe you married too quickly, my dear duchess?”

Everything in the room halted, even Lillian’s wondrous notes.

Edwin took a long breath. If not for the vow to his late stepfather to take care of the foolish Shelby, and a general principal of not smashing in the face of one of God’s creatures in his wife’s home, he’d take great pleasure in permanently wiping the smile from the troll’s face. He leaned forward but kept his hands smooth against his dark pantaloons. “Be careful, Shelby. Christian peace can only go so far.”

With the fool taking a loud swallow, Edwin believed his threat was understood. Good. Nodding to Charlotte, he turned and pounded up the carpeted mahogany steps to his bedchamber.

Anger roiled within his stomach. The need for fresh air squeezed at his lungs. Maybe a good wind would douse the flames of his doubts. His marriage to Charlotte had been quick and wonderful, but he should’ve known that everyone would be scrutinizing his whereabouts. Had working a few minutes in Ella’s shoe store shamed Charlotte?

The wind rattled the glass pane, but this night possessed a black velvet sky, no hint of storm like the day he had met the duchess. Looking a little further, he could see the reflection of torch lights at Dalrymple House, the Duke and Duchess of Wellstone’s residence. A Wellstone party was famous. How many of the ladies attending were wearing Ella’s slippers?

He rubbed at his temples and focused on the true problem. Charlotte’s neighbors were having a party, to which the Duchess of Charming was not invited. That feeling of being distant, separated from the rest, settled upon him again. So much for love making all the ills right.

The door to the room creaked open. The sound of dull heels slapping against the floorboards neared. A soft palm gripped his shoulder, the thin fingers working away the tension bound up within his muscles. “Edwin? What were you making at Ella’s?”

Turning, he placed a smile upon his lips. This truly was no burden, for Charlotte was the loveliest woman in the world. He leant forward, kissing her nose. “Nothing, special.”

She squinted at him and looped her arms about his neck, slipping against his heavily starched shirt collar. “I think I know you well, sir. You don’t have to hide checking on Ella’s. We’ve been gone three months. You’re bound to miss that store.”

He tugged her hands free and held her palms. “Are you happy, dear Charlotte?”

“What kind of question is that?”

He bit his lip and tried to think of hundred different ways to respond, but there was no easy way to ask the headstrong woman to second-guess her decisions. After a moment of breathing her perfume, counting the blinks of her blonde lashes, he just said it. “Have you no regrets? You were not presented at court. You’ll never be, married to me.”

Charlotte’s wide blue eyes lifted. The silk taffeta of her slippers crunching as she turned to window. “Tell me why you ask now? This wasn’t mentioned at Gretna Green with the blacksmith who married us. Nor any day of our wedding trip.” Rotating, she stood on tiptoes and pressed her lips to his Adam’s apple. “Nor any night in our bedchamber?”

“That was different. We weren’t in London, but now we’ve returned.” He stroked her cheek, her skin flushing at his touch. “When was the last time I created anything except gossip?”

“I thought you were happy?” Her soft voice rose, taking a sharper tone. “That’s what this is about. You have regrets.” Pulling away, she whipped her head again toward the window. Her shoulders leveled, and she crossed her arms as if she held a shield to her bosom.

Pushing her away was not what Edwin wanted. “A thousand times no. I love you, but do you ever think of what you gave up for me? Aren’t I an impediment? I am sure you wouldn’t want your husband to be seen in Cheapside with lasting tools, even if it was to fix you a new set of slippers?”

“I love shoes. I love your shoes. So that was what Rundle’s comments were about?”

Edwin tugged open the window and pointed to Dalrymple House. “More than shoes. Your cobbler husband is surely why long-time neighbors excluded you from their ball.”

Charlotte sighed. “You, silly, dear man. We were invited. The invitation was in the pile of correspondence awaiting us upon our return.

What? He blinked. “Then why would the Duchess of Charming not want to go to a party that will be the talk of the town?”

“The last grand ball I attended, a roof fell on me. I wasn’t up to fighting through rubble tonight. I had other plans.”

“I thought they had excluded you because of the gossip’s whispers. That rubbish hold much sway.”

“No, the Wellstones are fine people, and I hear they are used to having lively entertainment. We can still go, if you don’t believe me, but I thought we’d find something else to do this evening.”

The subjective notes in her voice made his pulse race. He pushed at his hair then loosened the knot of his cravat. “Am I ever going to get this right?”

“Depends upon how much practice you have in making amends. I’m sure those new slippers you’ve styled for me are great way to appease.”

“Yes, my dear. Just a new pair, soft ones meant to caress your feet. Those you have on now… Well, I’m sure these will be perfect.”

“We don’t need to strive for perfection, Edwin. Let’s just get to happy. ”Showcover4a_vanessa riley 300dpiRGB

“No time like the present.” He scooped her up into his arms and out of her horrible shoes. The party, his family downstairs, even the new lacy present he’d made at Ella’s, all would have to wait. He needed to taste happy, for the divine gift of Charlotte’s love was perfection.

 

Learn more of Edwin and Charlotte’s romance in Swept Away.

Originally posted 2016-01-03 22:02:43.

2015 My Year in Numbers – 2016 My Year in Expectation

Vanessa here,

2015 has now given away to a new year. I just wanted to take a moment to reflect.  Here is what 2015 has meant:

27,000 visits to this blog.

68,000 unique visitors to ChristianRegency.com

181,000 visits to ChristianRegency.com

1.9 Million hits to ChristianRegency.com

This is exciting. It means the content that has been built up over the years has meaning to a great many.

For me personally 2015 was a year of freedom. I embraced being a hybrid author fully, releasing books that traditional publishing felt were too much of a niche, being diverse in foils, faces, and faith. It has been a great learning experience and very fulfilling reaching readers, giving them something delightfully different. So here are my numbers.

1 full novel, Unmasked Heart

1 serialized novel (4 episodes) The Bargain

Released 2 audio books: Unmasked Heart and Swept Away

36,000 copies of my books are now parked on folks Kindles and iPads around the world.

 

So what is on tap for 2016? Expectation.

1 Chronicles 4:10

And Jabez called on the God of Israel, saying, “Oh that Thou wouldest bless me indeed and enlarge my borders, and that Thine hand might be with me and that Thou wouldest keep me from evil, that it may not grieve me!” And God granted him that which he requested.

More novels. More audiobooks. More research. More connecting with peers and readers. More fun.

Multicultural Historical Regency Romance
Multicultural Historical Regency Romance

I leave with you two nuggets. If you have never tried one of my Novels, Swept Away will be free 1/2/2016 at Amazon.  And if you are looking for something different, my latest serialized novel which launched today: married hero and heroine steeped in suspense in Regency London, Unveiling Love.

 

So I wish you all a happy and blessed New Year.

 

 

Originally posted 2016-01-01 07:55:59.

Austen’s World Wrap Up. December 31, 2015

Looks What’s Brewing in the Regency

  • Reading about Emma
    The theme of the 2016 JASNA AGM is Emma. Consider what some of JASNA’s authors have already written
    on this topic.
  • Holidays Happy and Merry
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Originally posted 2015-12-31 06:20:04.