Amanda McCabe's Blog

 I just got a new box of books for my next Harlequin release, How to Court Your Wife!!!  It's the 3rd in the Matchmakers of Bath series, and I love it because the heroine, Sandrine, is a modiste.  You know how I love clothes!!!  Her business is booming--now she just has to deal with her much-too attractive estranged husband.  It's releasing on October 23, but I have a few copies to send out for review.  Let me know if you're interested!

In other book news, Secretary to the Socialite is gaining some lovely reviews!  As it's the "book of my heart," this is making me feel quite chuffed and smiley.  

And, as we hover on the brink of autumn (bring on Halloween and apple spice!) here are a few things to read:

Happy birthday, Elizabeth I!  (September 7, 1533)

And the death of her stepmother Queen Katherine Parr (September 5, 1548)

And this week the Duchess of Kent died, aged 92 (a true lady and talented musician, one of the last of the old-school royals, she led a fascinating and sad life)

The (almost) wildness of Elizabeth Bennet

A new "Age of Innocence" adaptation is on its way!  I love Edith Wharton, and it's been 30 years since the perfection of the Scorsese movie, but this description of being a "modern young version for a new generation" does not sound---reassuring....

The stately settings of "Downton Abbey"  (last movie is out next week, woo-hoo!)

 I'm finishing up writing a novella due tomorrow (ugh!!!), so here's a few things to read!  (It's a Christmas novella, weird while it's 90 degrees outside...)

The next book ban target?  Romance

The Battle of Bosworth was on August 22, 1485

Princess Margaret's birthday was August 20, 1930

Downton Abbey auction...  (I would LOVE to own some of those costumes! I could wear them to go to the grocery store and walk the dogs in my glamorous life)

You can sleep in Charlotte Bronte's room!

And finally, one of my publishers is having a .99 sale until the 27th!  It includes the first Flora Flowerdew mystery...

 

Happy mid-August!  It's cooling down a little here (I think), and I am thinking about what project I'd like to write next.  I have been feeling a little burned out lately, and need something I can throw myself into.  Hopefully, once the autumn weather arrives and I'm feeling hygge, long writing/reading days are ahead...

In the meantime, here are a few fun things to read!

I have one more opera to attend before the season is over next week!  I also just watched a fascinating documentary about how this very special place came to be here in Santa Fe

It's also Indian Market weekend here!  I love how we have so many annual events this time of year

The Bennets' house from the '95 P&P is for sale!  I would love to buy it and make a retreat for all my bookish friends...

On August 9, 1588, Elizabeth I made her famous speech at Tilbury

A rare 18th century tapestry has gone on view at Blenheim

Speaking of Blenheim, here's a peek at the real-life miserable marriage of Consuelo Vanderbilt, once its duchess!

I also have a Friday Freebie this week, thanks to my publisher!

See you next week...

 Happy Sunday, everyone!  I can't believe how fast summer is slipping away.  Just one more week of Opera here in Santa Fe, plus school started Friday and Indian Market is next weekend.  Eeek!  But, as much as I love my summer dresses and cocktails on patios, not to mention the gorgeous flowers all around town, I'm looking forward to cooler evenings, Halloween, and getting some hygge coziness in the house.

In the meantime, if you'd like to dive into Millicent Rogers and her glam world, I have a discount link for a hard copy.  Perfect for end-of-summer reading!   You can find it here

And here's a few things to keep us distracted on this hot summer day!!

On August 9 in 1588, Elizabeth I gave her famous speech to the troops at Tillbury...

After decades in storage, an 18th century tapestry goes on view at Blenheim

More about the mysteries of the Voynich Manuscript

On August 9, 1902 was the coronation of Edward VII and Queen Alexandra

On August 4, 1557, Anne of Cleves (aka the luckiest of the the six wives) was buried at Westminster Abbey

Ryan Speedo Green in Santa Fe Opera's "Die Walkure" (I thought it was great!)

A "sorcesses' kit" found in the ashes of Pompeii

On August 3, 1553, Mary I made her triumphant entry into London as Queen, after defeating the forces of Jane Grey (this seems to be quite the Tudor month!)

Millicent Rogers' daughter-in-law's NYC apartment up for sale!

Love story of two Edwardian servants on display

Literary tourism

What are we all thinking about "The Gilded Age"???

Or the new Downton Abbey movie???

 

See you next week!

 

 

Happy August, everyone!!!  Since it's Jane Austen's 250th birthday year (and because I found some cool stuff) we are having a giveaway.  Enter to win a tin of P&P tea, a Regency coloring book, a bar of Jane Austen soap, and one of my own signed Regencies by singing up for my newsletter here  (if you're already signed up, you're already entered!)

Happy Regency days!

 I'm so excited that the "book of my heart" Secretary to the Socialite is finally out in the world!!!  Here's a little peek behind the story...

I’ve had so many questions from early readers about “who isreal” in my story, so I thought I’d make a quick post (and usesome of my notebooks full of research!). This was such a fun storyfor me to write, because Taos has been a special place in my ownlife. When I was very young, about 4, my parents decided to spendpart of the summers in Taos, and so that was my vacation spot everyyear. One year, we visited a beautiful museum in an old house justoutside of town, the Millicent Rogers Museum, and on the gift shopwall was a Vogue photo of agorgeous blonde woman in a Charles James blouse and piles ofturquoise and silver bracelets. I had to know more about her!

The Museum was started by one ofMillicent’s three sons, Paul Peralta Ramos, in 1956 to showcase hismother’s collection of nearly 2000 pieces of local art—jewelry,pottery, weavings, carvings, and her own work as well, as she was ajewelry designer. It’s now grown to over 7000 pieces, and moved toits current location in 1968, where it’s continued to grow andexpand.

Violet Redfield is fictional,but Millicent Rogers was very real! In her short life (1902-1953)she was a socialite and heiress (her grandfather was a co-founder ofStandard Oil), fashion icon, art collector, and later an activist forNative American rights. She contracted rheumatic fever at age 10,which shortened her life and plagued her will illness, but shemanaged to marry three times, fall in love with men like Clark Gable,Roald Dahl, and Ian Fleming, and live in New York, Virginia, Jamaica,and Austria before making her final home in Taos in 1948. She wasburied in her new hometown at the Sierra Vista cemetery on January 1,1953.

Mabel Dodge Luhan (1879-1962)was, like Millicent, a socialite, daughter of a wealthy Buffalo, NewYork family, who married several times (four!) and was a patron ofthe arts. She lived in Florence, at a famous Medici villa, and ran acounterculture salon in New York before landing in Taos in 1917 toestablish her own arts colony, attracting people such as DH Lawrence,Georgia O’Keefe, and Ansel Adams. She married Tony Luhan from theTaos Pueblo in 1923, and is buried in the Kit Carson Cemetery inTaos. Her house is now a National Historic Landmark and run as aconference center.

One of the great Taos charactersis Dorothy Brett (The Hononorable! 1883-1977). Daughter of aviscount, she was raised amid Queen Victoria’s court, but became anartistic bohemian who attended the Slade School and became friendswith the Bloomsbury Circle before befriending DH Lawrence and movingwith him to Taos in 1924. She stayed there for the rest of her longlife, creating her own unique art (some of which can now be seen inthe Smithsonian, as well as the Millicent Rogers Museum and HarwoodMuseum).

Martha Reed (1922-2010) actuallyopened her famous shop in 1953, so I fudged it a bit for my story! Daughter of artist Doel Reed, she got her own Arts degree in 1944 andworked at the Philbrook Museum and Dallas Museum of Art before movingto Taos. She first worked at the Pink Horse Shop on the Plaza, whereshe became well-known for designing her “broomstick” skirts andblouses in calico and velvet, before opening her own shop. She was avery sociable person, famous for her “soirees with hooch” allover town. I am lucky enough to own a painting by her, as well asMartha of Taos original bought by my aunt in the 1960s!

Lorenzo is fictional, but hiscousin Benito was real, a man who (like so many others) was tormentedby what he had seen in World War II and was helped by Millicent. The Karavas brothers first bought La Fonda in the 1920s, and it cameto be run by one of their sons, Saki, until his death in 1996. Hewas an art collector and (as his tombstone says) “a great Taoscharacter.” Tom McCarthy is also real, and if you visit Taos youcan stay at his family’s beautiful B&B, Casa Benavides! Theyhave the best breakfasts, and he is full of stories of his long lifein Taos.

These are just a few of thesources I used! I have to thank the Historic Santa Fe Archives forall their help, too.

The Mabel Dodge Luhan PapersCollection at the Beinecke Library of Yale (much of which is online)

Mabel Dodge Luhan, Winterin Taos (1935) and Edgeof Taos Desert (1937)

Lois Palken Rudnick, UtopianVistas: The Mabel Dodge Luhan House and the American Counterculture(1996)

Cherie Burns, Searchingfor Beauty: The Lifeof Millicent Rogers, the American Heiress Who Taught the World AboutStyle (2011) and Divingfor Starfish: The Jeweler, the Actress, the Heiress, and One of theWorld’s Most Alluring Pieces of Jewelry(2018)

Judith Nasse, A Life inFull (2022)

Annette Tapert and Dana Edkins, ThePower of Style (1994)

Sam Hignett, Brett: FromBloomsbury to New Mexico (1985)

Lois P. Rudnick, ed. MabelDodge Luhan and Company: American Moderns and the West(2016)

 

Happy (almost Bastille Day) everyone!  I hope you're having a great summer.  My tomatoes are looking amazing in the garden, I've been to the opera twice (La Boheme was lovely!), and I've perfected a lemony-gin cocktail that is perfect for warm evenings on the patio.  (Recipe at end)

In the meantime, here are a few fun things to read, and if you'd like a review copy of Secretary to the Socialite, send me an email and I will get you the link!  amccabe7551 AT yahoo.com

A Downton Abbey costume auction!!  (I wish I could buy that Lady Mary wedding dress, I could use it for walking the dogs and going to Trader Joe's...)

Santa Fe is the #1 travel destination!

An article about "Enchanted April" (one of my favorite books and movies)

The Bayeux Tapestry returns to Britain

11 books to read for your summertime sadness

Why the "messy girl" asethetic is taking over decorating (I am right in style)

Lemon Lavender Gin Cocktail

Ingredients2 oz gin1 oz lavender simple syrup1 oz fresh lemon juiceClub soda or tonic water (to top, optional)IceLemon slices and/or lavender sprigs for garnish (optional) InstructionsFill a glass with ice.Combine gin, lavender simple syrup, and lemon juice in a cocktail shaker.Shake well until thoroughly chilled.Strain the mixture over the ice in your glass.Top with club soda or tonic water if desired.Garnish with lemon slices and/or lavender sprigs

 

It's been quite a while since we had a Heroine of the Weekend post here!  I love it, since I can take a deeper look at historical women I admire, and I can't believe we haven't featured Aphra Behn before.  Her birthday was July 10, 1640, in Canterbury, and she was s fascinating (if somewhat enigmatic character!), a playwright, poet, translator, spy.  She was one the first English women to earn her living with her writing, and was one of the most popular playwrights of the golden age of Restoration theater.

"All  women together ought to let flowers fall upon the tomb of Aphra Behn..."  Virginia Woolf

Behn's early life was quite obscure.  Her father was (maybe) a barber, she was maybe engaged to a man named John Halse in 1657, she maybe traveled to Surinam.  It's clear she was very intelligent, but unclear how she was educated.  She married a man named Johan Behn (possibly Dutch or German) in 1664, but he soon died or they were separated soon after.

She was a staunch supporter of the Stuarts, attached to their court by 1666 (refusing to write a welcome poem to William III after the Glorious Revolution), and was sent as a spy to Antwerp by Charles II  during the Second Anglo-Dutch War. Her code name was Astrea It was not financially rewarding, though, and she may have been sent to debtors' prison after her return (a warrant was issued for her arrest, but it's unclear if it was served).  She started writing plays, hoping to capitalize on the craze for newly reopened theaters.

Her first play, a tragi-romance called The Forc'd Marriage, was performed by the Duke's Men in September 1670, and was a moderate success, but after her third play failed she falls off the record for a few years before returning to write comedies and poetry, as well as translating.  Her most popular play, The Rover (still her most performed work today) debuted in 1676-77, and thereafter she became one of the best-known playwrights in England until her death in 1689.  Her success led to frequent attacks. She was attacked for her private life (she had a long liaison with John Hoyle, a bisexual lawyer) and the morality of her plays, and she was accused of plagiarising The Rover. In the preface to Sir Patient Fancy she argued that she was being singled out because she was a woman, while male playwrights were free to live the most scandalous lives and write whatever plays they wanted.

(You can visit her tomb in Westminster Abbey, as I once did!)

Some good sources on her life:

Janet Todd, The Secret Life of Aphra Behn (1997)

Vita Sackville-West, Aphra Behn: The Incomparable Astrea (1927)

Germaine Greer, Slip-Shod Sibyls (1995)

 I hope you've had a good long weekend!!!!  I've been finishing my WIP that will nor end (a Gilded Age romance) and getting set for the release of my next book....

In the meantime, here's a little reading:

The Worth exhibit at the Petite Palais

Alice in Wonderland Day

The oldest document at the UK National Archives

Jane Austen's Least Understood Novel

Jane Austen's True Thoughts on Bath

New adaptation on Sense and Sensibility

How the Millicent Rogers  Museum is Preserving Southwestern Jewelry

 I found out today that The Queen's Christmas Summons is .50 for a short time!  Yep, you heard me, FIFTY CENTS.  I'm not sure how long it will last, so if you feel like Christmas in July grab it now...

[image error]

"Royal courts are glittering places. But there can be many dangers there." 

The words of Juan, the shipwrecked Spanish sailor Lady Alys Drury nursed back to health, echo in her mind as she puts on another courtly smile. 

Then Alys locks eyes with a handsome man amid the splendor of Queen Elizabeth's Christmas court—Juan is posing as courtier John Huntley! Alys is hurt at Juan's deception until she learns he's an undercover spy for the crown… Amid the murky machinations of the court, can true love still conquer all?