BOOK CLUB FRIDAY--10 HISTORICAL ROMANCES

Today we’re happy to showcase Love Historicals presents Once Upon A Kiss, a treat for all of you who love historical romance. This ebook boxed set includes ten historical romances by ten USA Today and Amazon bestselling authors, dishing up Roman gladiators, cowboys, knights, dukes, and rogues heroes. The set includes:

Presenting Lady Gus by Sydney Jane Baily

Augusta Brenville needs a wealthy husband to save her beloved estate, a seemingly impossible task when her suitors keep dying—until a seasoned captain arrives, a tad uncivilized for her liking but alive and willing. Can Rolf thwart an assassin with a penchant for poison, fire, and arrows, keeping himself and Augusta alive until their wedding day?

Never Tempt a Rogue by Christy Carlyle

An infamous rogue meets his match in a feisty chaperone who has all but given up on love.

Love and Lies by Gina Danna

Ganius the gladiator can be freed by Aurelia, his Roman mistress, if he takes her with him. If he does, it’ll mean his death but to leave her will destroy her. He must choose—and this is a fight the champion of the sands might lose.

Vain by Jill Hughey

A tailor’s abandoned daughter fashions a vain nobleman’s tunic, finding passion between the neckline and hem as misfortune forces her into his precarious aristocratic world.

A Knight to Remember by Catherine Kean

When widowed Lady Aislinn Locksmeade finds a naked, unconscious man in the forest, she wonders if he's Hugh Brigonne, her first and only true love. When he wakes, he can't remember who he is or what happened to him. Does she dare to love the roguish stranger, or is there far greater danger to Aislinn than risking her heart?

Sweet Taste of Love by Anna Markland

Riddled with guilt after the drowning deaths of his parents, Aidan FitzRam becomes a monk. Nolana Kyncade is a Scot fleeing the tyranny of a cruel stepfather. She bumps into Aidan selling the abbey's mead at a market. He quickly realizes he is not cut out to be a monk.

The Prince’s Passion by Nancy Morse

From the blood-soaked sands of the Spanish bullring to the English countryside, from the war-ravaged Crimea to glittering St. Petersburg, Alana follows her heart into the arms of the handsome Russian prince whose secrets can topple an empire.

Angel’s Assassin by Laurel O’Donnell

Damien is an assassin, a man with a tortured past. Sold into slavery, he is trained to kill. Lady Aurora of Acquitaine is the epitome of purity and goodness. When Damien enters Aurora's life, tempting her with promises of forbidden lust, he threatens to tear her peaceful world apart.

Landry’s Back in Town by Margery Scott

Ex-convict Landry Mitchell no longer hopes for acceptance and forgiveness. Olivia Harding is determined to help him rebuild his life. As their feelings for each other grow, Landry starts to believe in the possibility of a future together … until trouble comes back to town.

Heiress Bride by Cynthia Woolf

Both are scarred. Only together can they find the healing that each needs.

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CRAFTS WITH ANASTASIA--MEDIEVAL WEAVING AND SEWING WITH GUEST AUTHOR JILL HUGHEY

Medieval re-enactors spinning and weaving
(photo by Peter van der Sluijs)

The most interesting fact about Jill Hughey is that she can sing really, really high. As in opera-singer high. But she only does that when she is not writing, working part time as a business administrator, running her two teenaged sons around, and enjoying the support of her wonderful husband. Her ideal afternoon is spent sitting on her front porch with an iced coffee as she moves the characters in her head into her laptop. Learn more about Jill and her books at her blog.

From Growing to Sewing in VAIN

I write historical romances set in the 830s in what is now France. When I wrote the first one, Unbidden, I included a line of dialogue from a character whom, at the time, I had no plan of giving his own book. Theo said, “I have my heart set on a woman who can sew. I would save a fortune.” He is joking, but in book three of my Evolution Series, his wish comes true when he reluctantly falls in love with his tailor’s daughter.

I originally envisioned Lily as a simple seamstress but she developed into a very creative woman, what we would now consider a designer, and she and Theo first begin to fall in love as she sews and embroiders a beautiful red tunic for him.

Researching the fabrics and tools Lily would have had available was fascinating. In Europe they mainly had flax for linen, and wool. After harvesting and cleaning the raw materials, they used plants to make dyes if they wanted a colored cloth. I learned, for example, that dogwood bark makes blue and sorrel root makes green. The flax or wool fibers would be cleaned with a vinegar and water bath, then soaked in a hot tea of dye before being dried and spun. A spindle was used for spinning, and the yarn they made was woven into cloth using small, simple looms.

Out of all the tasks I researched, I feel I have the least understanding of weaving. Lily weaves out of necessity, both to get cloth to sell as it is and to have material for sewing. Obviously there are not many medieval era wooden looms left in the world, so I looked at pictures and videos of re-enactors and subsistence societies for my idea of her loom being a large rectangular frame that leans on a wall. The loom itself became an important symbol to her, having been handed down from her late mother. She is heartbroken when her father sells it with their shop, then elated when Theo helps her to get it back.

Sewing was done with needles we would consider rustic. Thorn and bone were the most common materials available to the peasant class, much as they had been since cavemen walked the earth. Wealthier women might have brass or bronze needles that they kept carefully secured in a needle case. 

Most households performed all these tasks themselves, from growing to sewing. They could not afford to buy cloth, much less premade clothing. If they were lucky, they might have extra raw fibers or woven cloth to sell at a market. Needless to say, wardrobes were not large or ornate, though an aristocrat like Theo would be the exception. He, in particular, loves to wear interesting, fashionable clothes, hence his comment about needing a wife who sews.

And so I gave him Lily, by far the most creative woman I’ve written. Her passion for clothing became much more integral to the story and to her personality than I ever expected. Sewing is her livelihood but also her escape. The activity and creativity take her away from her troubles, and sharing her talent with Theo, in the form of a beautiful red tunic, is the foundation on which their love for each other is built.

Vain

Lily had her life planned, neat and tidy as thread on a spindle, until her mother died and her father snipped at the seams of her future by abandoning Lily in their shop. A nobleman unexpectedly gives her hope when he brings fabric for a special garment. Lily survives on his first payment, and immerses herself in sewing and embroidering an incomparable tunic for him, as her tidy plan continues to unravel.

Theophilus, Lord of Ribeauville, takes his responsibility to his townspeople seriously and, therefore, does not dally with local women. Desire wars with duty when Lily glances up at him while adjusting the hem on his Easter tunic. As her deteriorating circumstances push them together, Theo and Lily learn that the path to his heart just might be through his wardrobe, though the exquisite outfit she creates is the only part of her that fits in his precarious aristocratic world.

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