My latest book, Victoria & Violet, is the first novel in my brand-new Royal Maids series and I am super proud of it! Why? Because it is the first book in which I have included real people and real events alongside the fictional. To do this has been an ambition of mine ever since my first book was published in 2007 so having achieved it feels like a very big deal.
Best of all, readers and reviewers seem to be loving it, too!
Although Queen Victoria, Lord Melbourne, the Duchess of Kent, Lehzen and others feature in the book, the story really revolves around the lives and burgeoning romance of fictional housemaid Violet Parker and fictional assistant to Lord Melbourne, James Greene. These two characters were a joy to create, and their electricity was immediate which made a usually hard job all the easier!
Their paths have crossed a few times before the book opens, but the interest is firmly in James’s court (so to speak!), rather than Violet’s who has far more important and life-changing things on her mind than romance, such as escaping the clutches of her overbearing mother and forging a life of her own. Of course, it is not as though Violet would ever consider James a possible suitor considering his superior status…yet he really is most persistent!
All too soon, James and Violet are thrown together over and over again as their roles become ever more important to Victoria and Lord Melbourne. Amid a court that travels from the gardens of Windsor Castle to the corridors of Buckingham Palace to the wedding of the Queen herself, Victoria & Violet takes you on an adventure of drama, intrigue and romance that I hope has you quickly turning the pages!
Why not give it a try?
Happy reading,
Rachel x
Victoria & Violet
It should be a dream come true to serve the Queen of England…
When Violet Parker is told she will be Queen Victoria’s personal housemaid, she cannot believe her good fortune. She finally has the chance to escape her overbearing mother, a servant to the Duchess of Kent.
Violet hopes to explore who she is and what the world has to offer without her mother’s schemes overshadowing her every thought and action.
Then she meets James Greene, assistant to the queen’s chief political adviser, Lord Melbourne. From entirely different backgrounds and social class, Violet and James should have neither need nor desire to speak to one another, yet through their service, their paths cross and their lives merge—as do their feelings.
Only Victoria’s court is not always the place for romance, but rather secrets, scandals, and conspiracies…
Rachel lives in a small town near Bath, England. She is the author of 29 novels including the Ladies of Carson Street trilogy, the Shop Girl series (Aria Fiction) and the Templeton Cove Stories (Harlequin). Her latest novel, Victoria & Violet is the first book in her new Royal Maids series with the Wild Rose Press and releases 17th October 2022.
Rachel is a member of the Romantic Novelists Association as well as the Historical Novel Society and has thousands of social media followers all over the world.
To sign up for her newsletter (a guaranteed giveaway every month!), click here: https://bit.ly/3zyH7dt
The fifth book for Oyster Harbor series was a blast to write. It was my first time writing slightly older characters. We’re talking adult children and emotional baggage on top of the usual relationship problems. I’m happy to say the steam level didn’t go down at all. In fact, Thelma and Tom might be the hottest couple ever in Oyster Harbor!
Thelma’s Song by Afton Locke
historical romance/women’s fiction Release Date: 19 November 20—TODAY!
Order from Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0BK715P93 Other vendors: https://books2read.com/u/mY8lzW Amazon Oyster Harbor series: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B074CCLCMK
Though her bluesy voice can bring grown men to tears, Thelma Waters moves to Oyster Harbor for a peaceful life—avoiding singing and men. Anything to forget her wild youth as a performer, so addicted to fame she’d do anything to get it. When Tom Lewes—Oyster Harbor’s remaining bigot—hires her as a lounge singer to save his failing restaurant, he stirs up more than her old talent.
His obsession with profits reminds her of every man who used her, especially the one who shattered her heart. Meanwhile, his grief over his daughter’s death intensifies when restaurant renovations uncover a shocking secret. Reminding her of the child she lost so long ago.
And as soon as Oyster Harbor restores what Thelma has craved for so long, her dreams of family are ripped away, turning her song of joy to the bluest of blues. Will Tom be the answer to her prayers, or her biggest heartache yet?
Silence hung between her and Tom, thick and greasy as a lump of lard left out in the summer heat. Frozen, she watched the flush rise up his neck and fill his face. No wonder he served a drink called Red Tide.
What would he do? Break all business ties with her? Or worse? At the moment, she didn’t care what he did. She simply needed to get away from him.
“Miss Waters, don’t ever strike me again,” he said quietly, “or there will be consequences.”
Ignoring the fine trembling working her legs, she took a step closer to him. “What does that mean? Tying me to a tree like poor Jimmy Clark?”
“I never touched a hair on his head,” he shot back.
“You were there. Cali told me everything.” Luckily, Jonathan had reformed.
“Do you want to be punished?” Tom asked. “Because it seems you’re itching for a fight.”
He was right about that. Her fingers ached to throw his sorry ass into the washing machine then iron his face. No need to add starch because he already had plenty.
Instead, she burst into tears. Couldn’t stop. When it came to Letty, she had no strength.
“Easy. Easy,” he muttered, patting her arm. “I didn’t mean to make you cry, for Christ’s sake.”
“Watch your language,” she said between sniffles. “You’re nothing but a heartless heathen. You know that?”
“You’re probably right.” He looped an arm around her shoulders and gave her a little squeeze. “Look, I’m sorry, okay?”
“Letty may mean nothing to you, but today….” Her voice broke. “Today is her eighteenth birthday. Or would have been, if she’s not drawing breath anymore.”
“I didn’t know.”
She turned her head to look at him. The arrogant smirk was gone. His eyes, contrite. The skin below them, puffy.
He stiffened and dropped his hands when she traced a soft fingertip under his lower eyelids. “Wh-what are you doing?”
“You’ve been crying too,” she whispered.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” he said, turning his face aside.
“I’ve done it enough to know what it looks like. Did my singing do that to you?”
“I suppose,” he said, shrugging. “The one song really— Well, it shook me up, kind of.”
Her legs stopped trembling. She even smiled. “That’s what the blues are supposed to do.”
“I’ve probably been working too hard lately,” he said, giving his shoulders a good shake.
Their gazes met and held. She struggled to look away but failed. Truth was, it felt good to get angry for a change. The sadness wore at her every day. Like sandpaper.
This man knew her sadness. Breathed its same stench. Endured the same tentacles squeezing his heart. Even if he wouldn’t admit it.
Now, her legs simply felt weak. Her entire body did. The performance, topped off by their fiery argument, had taken every bit of her strength. She rested her hands on his shoulders and laid her head against his chest.
His tall, solid frame felt so good. His heart thrumming against her ear, music. It had been so long since she’d been with a man.
A strong finger pressed her jaw and tilted her face up. It was the last thing she recalled before drowning in a tidal wave of hot, deep kissing. Beard stubble—black as his hair—brushed across her cheek. Ground against her neck, along with his open mouth.
Tasting. Sucking. Claiming. Until every nerve ending in her body shrieked with ecstasy.
She drew back, giving her pounding heart a rest before it exploded. “I-I thought we weren’t going to kiss anymore.”
“I guess we changed our minds,” he murmured against her ear.
About Afton Locke
Afton Locke is a USA Today Bestselling Author who writes outside the box. Her trips always inspire her, sometimes years after they’re over. She lives with her husband, usually surrounded by animals, both wild and domestic. When she’s not writing, Afton enjoys hiking, cooking, reading, and watching retro TV.
When I read this line penned in Maya Angelou’s poem, “And Still I Rise,” the inspirational example of a woman like Mary Eliza Mahoney comes to my mind.
Mary was born in the spring of 1845 in Boston Massachusetts to former slaves. They had moved to Boston from North Carolina in search of a better life for themselves and their children.
At age ten, Mary attended the Phillips School, one of the first integrated schools in Boston. By eighteen, she knew she wanted to be a nurse and began working at the New England Hospital for Women and Children. For fifteen years, she acted as janitor, cook, washerwoman, and finally as a nurse’s aide, where she got hands-on experience with the nursing profession. In 1878, at the age of thirty-three, Mary’s diligence and work ethic gained her admittance to the hospital’s professional graduate school for nursing, despite not meeting the age range criteria of being twenty-one to thirty-one. The program, which ran for sixteen months, offered lectures and first-hand experience in the hospital. Of the forty-two students that entered the program in 1878, Mary was one of four to graduate in 1879, making her the first African American in the US to earn a professional nursing license. Due to racial discrimination in the public sphere, Mary worked as a private care nurse, mostly, but not solely, for white wealthy families.
Because the nursing associations she was active in were not always welcoming to blacks, she co-founded the National Association of Colored Graduate Nurses in 1908. The mission of the NACGN was to improve educational access for black women to nursing practices, raise their living standards, and change the poor perception society had of them. It existed until 1951 when it merged with the American Nurses Association.
In 1911, Mary became the director of the Howard Orphanage Asylum for black children in Kings Park, Long Island and served until 1912.
After forty years, she finally retired from nursing but not from advocacy. When the 19th Amendment was ratified in August 1920, Mahoney was among the first women who registered to vote in Boston.
Mary lived until she was eighty and died of breast cancer on January 4, 1926. Ten years later her achievements were honored by having an award named after her to recognize individual nurses or groups of nurses who promote integration in the nursing field. One of those honorees campaigned to have a monument erected in her honor. In 1973, the monument was dedicated at her gravesite. In 1993, Mary was inducted into the National Women’s Hall of Fame in Seneca Falls, New York.
Many African-Americans, male and female—myself included—are the embodiments of the dreams and hopes of their enslaved ancestors. I’m glad to have learned of the dream and the hope that was Mary Eliza Mahoney.
For a chance at a $10 Amazon gift card, share your thoughts on Mary’s story or on anyone you can think of who paved the way for others.
One Breath Away
Sentenced to hand for a crime she didn’t commit, former slave Mary Hamilton was exonerated at literally the last gasp. She returns to Safe Haven, broken and resigned to live alone. Never having been courted, cuddled or spooned, Mary now fears any kind of physical intimacy when arousal forces her to relive the asphyxiation of her hanging. But then the handsome stranger who saved her shows up, stealing her breath from across the room and promising so much more.
Wealthy freeborn-Black Eban Thurman followed Mary to Safe Haven, believing a relationship with Mary was foretold by the stars. He must marry her to reclaim his family farm. But first he must help her heal, and to do that means revealing his own predilection for edgier sex.
Then just as Eban begins to win Mary’s trust, an enemy from the past threatens to keep them one breath away from love…
Excerpt…
He shouldn’t have agreed to the marriage stipulation, but Judah wouldn’t return the land to a bachelor. At the time marrying hadn’t entered Eban’s mind. Without Nora, he had no desire to leave a legacy anyway. And after sampling women of many races, Eban accepted he’d never marry. Then the stars changed his mind.
He glanced at them now. They shimmered as they had the night of that fateful watch. According to the first mate who swore by astrology, he’d perceived a special celestial alignment for Eban. The stars foretold a coupling resulting from a rescue in which Eban would meet his wife. Having found Mary, Eban knew that prophecy would be fulfilled.
“How could ya have believed ya heritage held no worth for ya without Nora?”
Eban blenched, though he shouldn’t have been surprised his aunt knew where his thoughts had gone and had headed him off at the pass.
He clucked his teeth. “To tell the truth—”
His aunt snorted. “That’d be a nice change.”
Eban frowned, but ignored the barb and continued. “I came home, not to reclaim Heart’s Ease, but to assuage my curiosity. Secretly I’d hoped to find Nora as miserable as I was. Then I met Mary.” Mary. He chuckled. “After meeting her, I see how short-sighted—how Esau-like—I’ve been.”
He glanced up again. “She’ll marry me, Clem. It’s written right there in the sky, and the stars don’t lie.”
Fall is my favorite season. The leaves turn to gorgeous red, orange and yellow. The air grows crisp with the hint of the fading summer during the day, and the cool promise of winter at night.
At the marsh, the Great Blue Heron and other water birds move through the brown reeds in search of food as Canada Geese fly south for the winter.
Along the shoreline, the cries of gulls pierce the air as they glide overhead against the backdrop of the crashing waves.
With colorful leaves gliding to the ground in carefree swirls, squirrels are gathering acorns, carrying them to their nests or burying them before winter arrives.
Peering up from the forest floor, the last few flowers spear through the brown blanket of leaves like nature’s fireworks.
Though busy preparing for the winter, against the fleeting warmth of the day, this fox curls up to enjoy a well-deserved nap. Winter will be here soon, but for now, it’s time to enjoy nature’s beauty at fall.
Contest
***ONE winner will be drawn from everyone who posts on my guest blog post about, ‘Nature’s Beauty at Fall!’ on Delilah’s blog between 13 November 2022 – 20 November 2022 and will win a signed copy of His Woman.”
About Diana Cosby
A retired Navy Chief, Diana Cosby is an international bestselling author of Scottish medieval romantic suspense. Books in her award-winning MacGruder Brothersseries have been translated into five languages. Diana has spoken at the Library of Congress, Lady Jane’s Salon in NYC, and appeared in Woman’s Day, on USA Today’s romance blog, “Happy Ever After,” MSN.com, Atlantic County Women Magazine, and Texoma Living Magazine.
After her career in the Navy, Diana dove into her passion – writing romance novels. With 34 moves behind her, she was anxious to create characters who reflected the amazing cultures and people she’s met throughout the world. After the release of the bestselling MacGruder Brothersseries and The Oath Trilogy, she released the bestselling The Forbidden Series.
Diana looks forward to the years of writing ahead and meeting the amazing people who will share this journey.
If you were to say that Madame C.J. Walker was the first female African-American millionaire, you’d be wrong. Before Madame C.J. Walker there was Annie Turnbo Malone. The archives of the State Historical Society of Missouri records that Annie was a millionaire by the end of World War I.
Annie Turnbo was born free in 1869 of formerly enslaved parents in Metropolis, Illinois. She was raised by an older sister since her parents died when Annie was very young. Frequent illness kept her from graduating high school but did not stifle her interest in chemistry. She focused on creating hair care products for African American women that did not damage their hair and scalp.
By the turn of the century, she had created a hair care product for African-American women she called Great Wonderful Hair Grower and sold it door to door. Because of high demand for her product, she opened a retail outlet at the 1904 Chicago World’s Fair. As a matter of fact, Sarah Breedlove, aka Madame C.J. Walker worked for Annie as one of her salesforce. The rivalry between the two women has been dramatized in the movie Self Made. How accurately depends on who you ask.
Annie founded Poro College, which had its grand opening in 1918. The school specialized in the teaching and study of Black cosmetology. The college had thirty-two branches by the mid-1950s. She donated $25,000 to Howard University College of Medicine, $25,000 to start a Black YMCA in St. Louis and donated generously to the St. Louis Colored Orphans Home, which in 1946 was renamed after her.
Unfortunately, an ugly divorce, lawsuits, and tax problems plagued Annie’s later years. Eventually, the federal government took over and sold her business for taxes. She died of a stroke in 1957. Fortunately, her home state has not forgotten her legacy of entrepreneurship and philanthropy. The annual Annie Malone May Day parade in St. Louis began in 1910, and children’s books like Wonderful Hair help keep Annie from being totally forgotten.
For a chance at a $10 Amazon gift card, share in the comments your thoughts on Annie’s story or share about a woman in history you know of who needs to be given her place in the sun again.
Better To Marry Than To Burn
Wife Wanted: Marital relations as necessary. Love not required nor sought…
A bridal lottery seems the height of foolishness to ex-slave Caesar King, but his refusal to participate in the town council’s scheme places him in a bind. He has to get married to avoid paying a high residence fine or leave the Texas territory. After losing his wife in childbirth, Caesar isn’t ready for romance. A woman looking for a fresh start without any emotional strings is what he needs.
Queen Esther Payne, a freeborn black from Philadelphia, has been threatened by her family for her forward-thinking, independent ways. Her family insists she marry. Her escape comes in the form of an ad. If she must marry, it will be on her terms. But her first meeting with the sinfully hot farmer proves an exciting tussle of wills that stirs her physically, intellectually, and emotionally.
In the battle of sexual one-upmanship that ensues, both Caesar and Queen discover surrender can be as fulfilling as triumph.
Excerpt from Better to Marry Than to Burn…
Caesar sucked his teeth and crossed his arms. If white-sheeted Knights of the White Camellia hadn’t succeeded in running him off, neither would the Purity Patrol.
A tap on his left shoulder blade turned him around.
“You know what they’re saying is right, Caesar.”
He uncrossed his arms and took off his hat in deference to the tiny, wiry woman speaking to him.
“Not moving on is a betrayal of the past,” Mother Maybelle Jenkins said. “Ain’t you still a young man?”
A gentle chiding colored her tone. The compassion in her gaze slayed his resentment.
“Thirty, ma’am.”
“You was only twenty five when you and Emma arrived here?”
“Yes, ma’am.”
She shook her head. “Well, the Bible tells us it’s not good for a man to be alone. Emma and your boys been gone five years now.”
Caesar patted her hand gently. Five years. Where had the time gone? Seemed like only yesterday he’d placed flowers on their graves for the first time.
“Don’t let heart-hurt rule you.” Mother Maybelle cupped his cheek. “A race without children is a race without a future.”
My sincere thanks to Delilah for allowing me to return to her wonderful blog and share a tremendous update of Diana Cosby’s Romance Readers Help Build A Habitat For Humanity Home.
A bit of background. Romance readers are AMAZING, and SO is Habitat For Humanity, a charity that I love supporting and volunteering for. Several years ago, I thought, why not pair the two and help a deserving family receive a home? And, the ‘Diana Cosby’s Romance Reader’s Help Build A Habitat For Humanity House’ fundraiser was born.
I contacted the Habitat For Humanity office in Grayson County, Texas, where I’ve had the honor of helping with several builds and spoke with Laurie Mealy, Executive Director. She embraced the project and was thrilled at the thought of pairing romance readers, who love stories where heroes and heroines overcome challenges to make their dreams come true, with making the dream of home ownership for a deserving family a reality.
Habitat for Humanity of Grayson County
901 N. Grand Avenue
P.O. Box 2725
Sherman, TX 75091
I kicked off the challenge by donating $200, and through YOUR GENEROUS CONTRIBUTIONS, we’ve raised $30,000!!! My deepest thanks to YOU for your generous support over the years and helping to give a deserving family a home!!! *Hugs*
*Photos used with permission of Habitat For Humanity Grayson County, TX.
Again, my sincere thanks to Delilah for allowing me to return to her wonderful blog, and another huge thanks to everyone for helping make an incredible difference in a deserving family’s life. For when they walk into a Habitat For Humanity house, it’s more thank mortar and wood, but a place they can call home.
About Diana Cosby
A retired Navy Chief, Diana Cosby is an international bestselling author of Scottish medieval romantic suspense. Books in her award-winning MacGruder Brothersseries have been translated into five languages. Diana has spoken at the Library of Congress, Lady Jane’s Salon in NYC, and appeared in Woman’s Day, on USA Today’s romance blog, “Happy Ever After,” MSN.com, Atlantic County Women Magazine, and Texoma Living Magazine.
After her career in the Navy, Diana dove into her passion – writing romance novels. With 34 moves behind her, she was anxious to create characters who reflected the amazing cultures and people she’s met throughout the world. After the release of the bestselling MacGruder Brothersseries and The Oath Trilogy, she released the bestselling The Forbidden Series.
Diana looks forward to the years of writing ahead and meeting the amazing people who will share this journey.
Josephine was born into slavery in Williamston, NC around 1856, but was emancipated when she was nine. She married Archer Leary in 1873, moved to Edenton, N.C. and opened a barbershop. Without formal education, she taught herself about real estate and by 1881 owned six properties. Unfortunately, these properties were destroyed by fire in 1893. While others quit, Josephine rebuilt three of them in one building in 1894, which bears her name. You can see the building and a picture of Josephine here:
Josephine contracted cancer, forcing her to sell properties to pay for her medical care. She died in 1923. Native North Carolinian author Kianna Alexander learned about Josephine on twitter. In the preface to Carolina Built (it’s FREE in KU!), her 2022 fictionalized account of Josephine’s life, Alexander shares her amazement that she never heard of a businesswoman as accomplished as Josephine. At the time of her death, her estate was valued at $8,825, over $10 million in today’s dollars.
Her business papers are kept in the David M. Rubenstein Rare Book & Manuscript Library at Duke University. These papers, other primary sources and a forty-seven-page booklet, The Life and Legacy of Josephine Napoleon Leary, 1856-1923, written by North Carolinian historian Dorothy Spruill Redford aided Alexander in writing her novel.
Knowing she had a right to a better life, Josephine Napoleon Leary is just one of hundreds of former slaves that didn’t let oppression or deprivation keep them from achieving their dreams. They had the will, and they made a way.
For a chance at a $10 Amazon gift card, share a dream of yours or a dream of someone you know that came true because where there’s a will there’s a way.
One Breath Away by Michal Scott
Sentenced to hang for a crime she didn’t commit, former slave Mary Hamilton was exonerated at literally the last gasp. She returns to Safe Haven, broken and resigned to live alone. Never having been courted, cuddled or spooned, Mary now fears any kind of physical intimacy when arousal forces her to relive the asphyxiation of her hanging. But then the handsome stranger who saved her shows up, stealing her breath from across the room and promising so much more.
Wealthy freeborn-Black Eban Thurman followed Mary to Safe Haven, believing a relationship with Mary was foretold by the stars. He must marry her to reclaim his family farm. But first he must help her heal, and to do that means revealing his own predilection for edgier sex.
Then just as Eban begins to win Mary’s trust, an enemy from the past threatens to keep them one breath away from love…
Excerpt from One Breath Away…
Eban grinned. “My shoe fits too.”
Life at sea had placed the philosopher’s shoe on him. He hadn’t the maturity or the patience for reflection before then. If he had, he wouldn’t have leased the family homestead to his cousin for get-out-of-town money. The lease would terminate provided he paid Judah back with interest within three years. Judah had smiled then, certain Eban wouldn’t be able to. Eban smiled now. He’d amassed enough to repay Judah three times over. Rescuing kidnapped expatriates proved an extravagantly lucrative sideline to being a sailor. In his wanderings, he’d barely spent one-tenth of his fortune. No, money didn’t pose a problem. The second part of the agreement did.
He shouldn’t have agreed to the marriage stipulation, but Judah wouldn’t return the land to a bachelor. At the time marrying hadn’t entered Eban’s mind. Without Nora, he had no desire to leave a legacy anyway. And after sampling women of many races, Eban accepted he’d never marry. Then the stars changed his mind.
He glanced at them now. They shimmered as they had the night of that fateful watch. According to the first mate who swore by astrology, he’d perceived a special celestial alignment for Eban. The stars foretold a coupling resulting from a rescue in which Eban would meet his wife. Having found Mary, Eban knew that prophecy would be fulfilled.
