MYSTERY AUTHOR KATHLEEN MARPLE KALB ON THE BRIDE WORE WHITE AND HER NEW SERIES

Kathleen Marple Kalb describes herself as an Author/Anchor/Mom…not in that order. An award-winning weekend anchor at New York’s 1010 WINS Radio, she writes short stories and novels including A Fatal Reception and the Old Stuff series. As Nikki Knight, she writes the Grace the Hit Mom and Vermont Radio mysteries. Her stories have appeared in Alfred Hitchcock’s Mystery Magazine, Black Cat Weekly, and others, and been short-listed for Derringer and Black Orchid Novella Awards. Learn more about her and her books at her website where you’ll also find links to her social media.

The Bride Wore White

Blame it on Queen Victoria.

 

Everything from prudishness to plaid to World War I is laid at her door, rightly or wrongly, but in the case of white wedding gowns, it’s actually pretty accurate.

 

Upper-class and royal brides had occasionally worn white, as far back as Ancient Rome. In 1558, Mary, Queen of Scots married the heir to the French throne in what was then a traditional mourning color, sparking much talk of bad luck…and it’s hard to argue, considering how the marriage, and the Scottish queen’s life, turned out. Spoiler: early widowhood, two more disastrous marriages, and a date with the headsman. 

 

When Victoria chose a creamy white satin dress for her marriage to Prince Albert, her main goal was supporting the struggling British silk and lace industry. The gown, of Spitalfields silk and Honiton lace, was probably the most famous piece of clothing in the world at the time, and it set the example. And, thanks to the Industrial Revolution and the rising middle class, there were plenty of brides willing and able to follow it.

 

Extravagant white dresses quickly filtered through the upper levels of society, with aristocratic and well-off women eagerly adopting pristine silks and laces. By the time Victoria’s daughters married, the white dress was standard for everyone who could afford it, a statement that the bride came from a family who could buy her an expensive dress she would never wear again.

 

White wedding dresses, by the way, did not start as an announcement of the bride’s innocence. As the fashion spread, though, it became intertwined with all the Victorian ideas about female purity. Eventually, a white dress was seen not just as the prerogative of the first-time bride, but a declaration that her family was delivering untouched merchandise to the altar. 

 

In some circles, a bride did at least get some wear out of the gown. In the American South, it was traditional for a new bride to don her wedding gear for a weeks- or monthslong series of visits and social events surrounding the marriage. Many women also saved their dresses, to be altered and reused by daughters or other female relatives. Surviving gowns in museums have often been remade for changing fashions.

 

When a bride couldn’t afford a white dress with its limited usefulness but still had the money for something, she often bought or made the most beautiful dress she could manage in a more serviceable color, to keep as Sunday best. For many Victorian women, the Sunday best dress was black, but a bride would try to avoid that if she could – think of all the people who told Laura Ingalls Wilder: “marry in black, you’ll wish yourself back.”

 

A Sunday-best dress was also the choice for older or second-time brides. Advice and etiquette books sternly warned senior brides (meaning late-20s and after!) to avoid trying to look like “mutton dressed as lamb.” And remarriages, however loving and joyful, were expected to be relatively quiet. 

 

Many of these Sunday-best wedding dresses have also survived, though, because they were special to their owners. They’re often made of lovely fabrics, beautifully detailed and trimmed, every bit as much an expression of love, joy, and hope as the frilly whites.

 

In A Fatal Reception, set in June of 1900, opera diva Ella Shane ticks all the social boxes for a white gown, and thanks to her successful career, has the resources to splash out. So when Ella meets her Duke at the altar, she’s a vision in pristine satin, lace, and tulle, complete with a crown of orange blossoms Queen Victoria herself would envy. Things take a dramatic and unconventional turn after that…but you’ll have to read the book to find out how!

 

A Fatal Reception

An Ella Shane Mystery, Book 1

 

Gilded Age trouser diva Ella Shane and her Duke are at long last headed for the altar…but they’ll have to handle a murder, a shipwreck, a questionable Polish prince, and any number of other complications on the way. Continuing the highly-praised series featuring an Irish-Jewish Lower East Side orphan who found fame and fortune as a singer of male soprano roles, the latest installment follows Ella and her surprisingly diverse cast of family and friends through mystery and misadventure…and into the greatest challenge of all for an independent-minded woman and her Victorian swain: matrimony!

 

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AN INTERVIEW WITH OPERA SINGER AND AMATEUR SLEUTH ELLA SHANE FROM DEBUT AUTHOR KATHLEEN MARPLE KALB'S HISTORICAL MYSTERY SERIES

Today we sit down for a chat with Ella Shane (born Ellen O’Shaugnessy, Hebrew name Meira bat Malka). Ella is the amateur sleuth of author Kathleen Marple Kalb’s debut historical mystery series, The Ella Shane Mysteries.

What was your life like before your author started pulling your strings? 

My life was quite satisfying and happy until my last Juliet died onstage and her cousin the Duke appeared in my Washington Square townhouse looking to find out what happened to her. While I began my life as the poor, and later orphan, child of an Irish father and Jewish mother on the Lower East Side, thanks to the gift of a voice, and good luck in finding a teacher, I’ve become a very successful opera singer, known for my “trouser roles,” heroic male parts now sung by women. 

My beloved cousin Tommy Hurley and I run the Ella Shane Opera Company, with productions in New York and on the circuit. We were finishing a stand of I Capuleti e I Montecchi in New Haven when our Juliet drank real poison. Even though she’d been quite a difficult person, I felt terribly bad about it, but it seemed like a straightforward tragedy until her cousin appeared. He started out rather judgmental, but once I set him straight that I’m a respectable lady and an artist (at the point of my sword, as it happens), he asked my help in finding answers. Since he’s clearly grieving, and I really do feel responsible for the girl, I’ve decided to assist him. This would all be much less unsettling if he were like every other Duke I’ve met: old, cranky and smelling of camphor. Not this tall, dark and actually rather charming – if sometimes awkward – fellow.

What’s the one trait you like most about yourself? 

My kindness and concern for others. My mother raised me with good Jewish ethics: it’s not enough to try to please God and work for Heaven, you have to treat people well here on earth. I try to give back some of my good fortune by helping the needy or suffering any way I can. 

What do you like least about yourself? 

My Irish temper. I do wish I didn’t occasionally find myself in a shouting match with Tommy and ending up in tears.

What is the strangest thing your author has had you do or had happen to you? 

I’m a rather intrepid person, but I never expected to end up dueling the person who killed poor Juliet on a catwalk twenty feet above the stage. I suppose it was rather thrilling for her, but I was the one who had to find a way out of it!

Do you argue with your author? If so, what do you argue about? 

Sometimes she thinks I should be nicer to the Duke, but I’m in no hurry to pursue our involvement. He’s definitely an appealing and interesting man, and I’m glad to know his intentions are honorable…but I have no intention of becoming a man’s property.

What is your greatest fear? 

Losing people I love, especially Tommy. When I was eight years old, I woke up one winter morning in our tenement room and discovered that my mother had died in the night. My aunt, Tommy’s mother, took me in before I was sent to the orphanage, and Tommy watched over me. Danger doesn’t scare me…but the idea of a life without the people I love does.

What makes you happy? 

Singing, whether with a large audience in a prestigious theatre, my friends and musicians, or just my parrot Montezuma. Music is my gift, my blessing, and my greatest joy.

If you could rewrite a part of your story, what would it be? Why? 

I would be very tempted to explain to readers that they might want to really keep their eyes open when my author is talking about social issues or women’s place in the world. She’s usually using it as a way to slip in important clues that you’ll want to remember later. For example, my reporter friend Hetty’s struggle to write about something other than hats actually leads to an important revelation as well as her own advancement.

Of the other characters in your book, which one bugs you the most? Why?  

Aline Corbyn, the society matron. Not because she’s mean and insulting to me, although she is, but because women should be better than that. My stage door Lotharios are pigs, which I expect. I’d like to think that as women we would try to help each other…but…

Of the other characters in your book, which one would you love to trade places with? Why? 

I’d love to be Dr. Silver for an afternoon or two. She’s so smart and she does such good, important work. But I wouldn’t really want to be her forever – I’m sure she sees terrible things in her practice and can’t always save people. 

Tell us a little something about your author. Where can readers find her website/blog?

I do hope that “blog” comment wasn’t a reference to my author being an Irish bog-dweller. She actually is Scots-Irish, though she’s from Western Pennsylvania where they call it Scotch-Irish for reasons unknown. She does write a weekly “Throwback Thursday” column at a newspaper with the peculiar name of Goodreads.

At any rate, like me, she started her career early, and cared only for her work for a couple of decades. But then she had the good fortune to marry a longtime friend and have a child at a rather impressively late age, which – just between you, me and the lamp post – I find an encouraging example. She says this bit of garble (her website) will tell you more. 

She also says, by the way, that she was in fact born Miss Marple, and chose to add Professor Kalb’s name to her own to honor their son, the Imp.

What's next for you? 

The Ella Shane Opera Company is presenting The Princes in the Tower this fall in the City, and there may well be a few misadventures over the course of the run – which will be chronicled in my next outing: A Fatal First Night, due out next spring. 

A Fatal Finale

The debut of Ella Shane, an opera singer who’s part Beverly Sills, part Anne of Green Gables, part Errol Flynn – and entirely herself. 

New York City, 1899

Ella, an Irish-Jewish Lower East Side orphan made good, is singing Romeo when her Juliet dies onstage after drinking real poison. She thinks it’s a tragic mistake until the girl’s cousin, a genuine British Duke, comes to New York to find out what really happened. Right away, the Duke insults Ella -- so she makes him fence with her. Despite the rocky beginning, Ella, her cousin Tommy, a former boxing champ and “confirmed bachelor,” and the colorful cast of characters get drawn into the case. Soon, Ella and the Duke find they have an undeniable and quite possibly unresolvable attraction. No spoiler (just tease!) it all culminates in a catwalk duel with the killer – with Ella handling swordplay while the Duke waits in the wings.

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